October 16, 2016: an 85-year-old ran a marathon in 3:56 and cut 38 minutes off the record
On 16 October 2016 an 85-year-old Canadian named Ed Whitlock ran the Toronto Waterfront Marathon in 3:56:33, more than 38 minutes faster than any man of 85 to 89 had ever run one — a record that still stands.
Ed Whitlock crossed the finish line of the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon in 3:56:33 on the afternoon of 16 October 2016. He was 85 years and 224 days old. 12
He is the oldest person ever to run a marathon in under four hours. 3 The record he broke had stood for twelve years, and he took more than 38 minutes off it. 4
The record
The men's record for the 85-to-89 division had barely moved for a quarter of a century. Ivor Welch of the United States ran 5:57:01 in May 1980, then 5:55:11 four weeks later, then 5:40:10 in 1981. Josef Galia of Germany brought it down to 4:47:50 in 1984. 4
Robert Horman of Australia, then 86, set 4:34:55 at the Gold Coast in July 2004. 24 That mark stood for twelve years.
Whitlock's time is still the record, ten years on. 4 Race results list him at 3:56:33 on the chip, while the record books carry 3:56:38, the time from the starting gun. 15
The ages around him
Read the same record books straight down by age, and the run looks stranger. 2
Whitlock holds four of the eleven marks. The one he set at 85 is faster than the best marathon ever run at 83 or at 84 by anyone else. 2
Above him the line falls away. The fastest marathon by a man of 86 is still Horman's 4:34:55, and the record for a man of 90 is 6:35:47. 2
The race
Toronto was warm and thick on the morning of the race: 18C at the start, with humidity near 90 per cent. A light drizzle began half an hour in and made the turns slippery. 6
Kenya's Philemon Rono won it in 2:08:27, having nearly pulled out after a barricade fell on him during his warm-up. Whitlock finished an hour and 48 minutes behind him. 6
Whitlock went out fast, and he knew it. He came through halfway in 1:54:34, comfortably inside four-hour pace. 5
"At halfway, I thought things were going to become very, very ugly," he said. "I was having serious concerns then to the point of not being able to complete it." 7
He had told himself the target was 3:50. "Things fell apart in the second half of the race," he told CBC. 1
He let himself believe again five kilometres from the finish. "I was quite surprised when I was five kilometres from home and realized sub-four was still possible and, in fact, quite probable," he said. 7
The next day he sounded like a man who had been hit by a bus. "My legs are shot today," he said. "I seemed to be OK yesterday after the marathon, walking around and that sort of thing, but rigor mortis has set in now." 1
The training
Whitlock ran laps of a cemetery about 100 yards from his house in Milton, Ontario. 7 He liked it for the footing in winter, the shade in summer, and the drivers, "a lot more of a docile lot" than the ones on the Milton streets.
The deeper reason was that the cemetery kept him from racing himself. He counted no laps and timed none of them. "If I run around the town for a set distance, I always say, 'Oh my goodness, that was a bad run today,'" he said. "I don't want to get into that stuff." 7
He trained alone. In 2010 he listed what he did without: "No physios, ice baths, massages, tempo runs, heart rate monitors." 8
The shoes he raced in at 85 were about 20 years old, drawn from a small stash of an old model he preferred. 1 The singlet was older still. 5
He stood 5 foot 7 and weighed 101 pounds on the Monday after the race. "My wife says I don't look healthy, because I'm so emaciated," he said. 7
The runner
Whitlock was born in London in 1931 and ran seriously as a schoolboy, then moved to Canada as a mining engineer. 3 He stopped running when he went north to northern Ontario at 21, and started again at 40. 1
His first marathon came by accident at 46, when he reluctantly joined his youngest son, then 14, who had run every day for more than a year. 7
The records belong to the far end of his life. In 2003, at 72, he became the first man over 70 to run a marathon in under three hours. 3 The next year he ran 2:54:48 at Toronto, and that is still the fastest marathon any man of 73 has run. 2
He thought the world had picked the wrong headline. "Realistically, my performance this weekend is not really as good as that one was," he said of the 2004 race. "I'm over an hour slower in 12 years, and I don't think I should have to go down hill that fast." 7
Whitlock died in Toronto on 13 March 2017, of prostate cancer, at 86. 3 He had run about 41 marathons. 7
Ten years on, 3:56:38 is still the 85-to-89 world record. 4
References
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- 3Ed Whitlock — Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
- 4Masters M85 marathon world record progression — Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
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