Mr. Chris Wensley reports

GOLD RUNNER EXPLORATION COMPLETES 2026 OPTION PAYMENT FOR FALCON PROPERTY NEAR ELKO NEVADA AND PROVIDES UPDATE ON EXPLORATION PLANS

Further to Gold Runner Exploration Inc.'s news release dated Jan. 15, 2026, the company has paid the $100,000 (U.S.) option payment, due on or before April 30, 2026, to the Falcon Mine Group (FMG), as required under Gold Runner's option agreement to purchase 100 per cent of the Falcon project.

The Falcon property under the option agreement comprises 87 unpatented lode claims and six patented claims associated with the historic Falcon mine and forms the core of the larger 124 claim Falcon project block totalling approximately 883 hectares or 2,183 acres. The property is situated less than two kilometres (km) south of Gold Runner's flagship Rock Creek prospect and southwest of Gold Runner's Dry Creek prospect, placing all three properties in very close proximity with each other for a total project(s) area spanning 239 claims.

The reader is reminded that Gold Runner's Tuscarora district play (Rock Creek, Dry Creek and Falcon) is in a highly prospective, prolific gold region. The properties are surrounded on three sides by major, gold deposits and mines, including the Midas mine, approximately 35 kilometres to the west-southwest, which has produced more than 2.2 Moz Au (million ounces gold) and 26.9 Moz Ag (million ounces silver) from an epithermal Ag (Au) deposit (Hecla Mining Company website -- 2022); the Goldstrike complex, approximately 40 km south, which produced 47.8 Moz Au between 1986 and October, 2023, from Carlin-type deposits (Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology special report MI-2023); and the Jerritt Canyon mine, approximately 30 km to the east (further off Carlin Trend than Gold Runner's Tuscarora properties), which has produced 9.7 Moz Au from a Carlin-type gold deposit (technical report on the Jerritt Canyon mine, Elko county, Nevada, USA, report for National Instrument 43-101 -- 2021), with continued exploration.

The Falcon property occurs in the southwest portion of an Eocene-aged caldera complex, hosted in a sequence of Devonian sedimentary rocks overlain by andesitic, dacitic and rhyolitic volcanic rocks of the Tuscarora volcanic field (Roney Long, 2000 -- the Falcon mine project). The company's exploration concept at Falcon is very similar to and consistent with the company's targeting model at Rock Creek and Dry Creek. The historic production and exploration at Falcon focused on silver mineralization in epithermal veins in the upper volcanic sequence. As with the Rock Creek and Dry Creek properties, previous work at the Falcon property resulted in stratigraphic interpretations of the surface metasedimentary sequence which indicate the possibility of a Carlin-type host rock at relatively shallow depths (Roney Long, 2000 -- the Falcon mine project). As such, the company sees both shallow, high-grade silver vein targets and deeper, disseminated Carlin-type gold-silver (Au-Ag) targets at Falcon.

Gold Runner's currently proposed, extensive, property-wide exploration program at Falcon is being finalized, including plans to follow up and extend the company's initial sampling of 900 metres of float and outcrop of the quartz vein which hosts the historic Falcon mine. This wide vein (up to 40 feet wide) is one of 18 known veins running north from the Falcon property up to and across the length of the Rock Creek property. Sampling to date by the company at Falcon and Rock Creek has demonstrated combined, confirmed, continuous strike length of approximately six kilometres with an untested interval of approximately 2.5 km between Rock Creek and the company's Falcon sampling implying potential mineralized strike length of 8.5 km, open both to the north and to the south.

All but one of the 39 samples collected at Falcon and submitted for geochemical analysis detectable measurable gold and/or silver. Four samples had greater than 25 grams per ton silver (gpt Ag), including samples FAL23_36 which had 720 gpt Ag and FAL23_37 which had 238 gpt Ag. The two highest two silver samples were taken from the Falcon mine area, and both had elevated gold, arsenic and antimony, with visible sulphides. Five samples had greater than 0.5 gpt gold (Au), including sample FAL23_13 which had 1.131 gpt Au (see company's news release dated Jan. 23, 2024).

Based on the presence of antimony in previous samples, and the possibility of an underlying carlin type deposit, in addition to gold and silver, the 2024 Falcon property wide sampling program will test with additional focus on both antimony and phosphorous (phosphorous at surface has the potential to be associated with Carlin type deposits and has been found present in elevated counts at the company's Rock Creek property).

Mobilization of this season's exploration program at Falcon is estimated to commence in July, 2026.

This news release was jointly prepared with Dr. Craig J. Mach, PhD, geology, and has been approved by Alan Morris, MSc, CPG No. 10550. Alan J. Morris is an independent, qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 -- Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects, and has reviewed the scientific and technical disclosure included in this news release.

About Gold Runner Exploration Inc.

Gold Runner Exploration is an exploration company focused on the exploration and development of its portfolio of gold and silver properties located in prolific mining districts of Canada and the United States. In British Columbia, Gold Runner holds the option to acquire a 100-per-cent interest in the Golden Girl property, located in the prolific Golden Triangle of northwestern British Columbia. In north-central Nevada, the company holds the Rock Creek gold project, the Falcon mine project and the Dry Creek project, located in the Tuscarora Mountains in close proximity to the world-renowned Carlin trend. Gold Runner also holds a 10-per-cent carried interest in the Cimarron project located in the San Antonio Mountains of Nye county, Nevada, within the Walker Lane trend.

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