Ed Whitlock, 85, sets 15K world record weeks after 3:56 marathon
Milton, Ont. resident Ed Whitlock set the 15K age group world record on Sunday in New York one month after running a sub-4:00 marathon.
Ed Whitlock is back just four weeks after running a sub-4:00 marathon in Toronto.
The 85-year-old Milton, Ont. resident was near Albany, N.Y. on Sunday and broke his age group world record for 15K, taking more than 13 minutes off the men’s 85-89 mark. Whitlock, the only man over 70 to have run under 3:00 in the marathon, ran 1:15:10 at the MVP Health Care Stockade-athon 15K. The race was in Schenectady, N.Y.
RELATED: Ed Whitlock runs sub-4:00 marathon at 85, in a league of his own.
“I did get the record, I guess,” Whitlock told the Daily Gazette after the race.
There were approximately 1,500 runners who took part in the Nov. 13 event known as the oldest “major” 15K road race in the United States. The race first began in 1976.
RELATED: Ed Whitlock’s age-graded time may have nearly won the Toronto Waterfront Marathon.
The performance comes one month after Whitlock ran 3:56 at the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon. His record-breaking run on Oct. 16 made headlines around the world as he raced in flats and a singlet from the 1990s. The site of the race is located 500 kilometres east of Milton where Whitlock trains daily in a nearby cemetery.
His 15K world record is one of many age group world records he has set in 2016. Other notable performances include the world record in the mile, 5,000m, 10,000m, half-marathon and marathon. He has 13 single-age world records over 15K. His best time over the distance is 55:04 when he was 69 though his oldest 15K world record is from 1997 when he was 66.
According to the Association of Road Racing Statisticians, the previous men’s 85-89 world record for 15K was 1:29:04, held by Louis Lodovico since 2009. Whitlock got faster as the race went on splitting 25:48, 24:44, 24:39 for each 5K in that order. He ran at an average pace of 5:01 per kilometre.
A feature story on Whitlock will be in the next issue of Canadian Running.
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