80-year-old runner breaks 8K record

80-year-old Maurice Tarrant of Victoria is proving that he still has the wheels to compete with runners decades younger.

Tarrant shattered the Canadian 8K record for his age group on Sunday, when he clocked 38:15 at the Prairie Inn Pioneer road race in his hometown.

The old record — 46:22 — was set by Victoria’s Jim Sargent in 2004. Sargent, who also competed in Sunday’s race, was 82 at the time he set the previous record.

Tarrant was honoured at the awards ceremony with a lengthy standing ovation.

“It was pretty moving,” Tarrant told the Victoria Times-Colonist. “It’s sort of exciting running with all the young folk.”

Tarrant has been running since his early 20s, but became more competitive decades later when he started running in the masters circuit on Vancouver Island.

“So many runners come up to me and Jim [Sargent] and tell us that they would like to be running at our age — and we hope they can,” Tarrant told the Times-Colonist. “I will run as long as I enjoy it.”