At the Toronto Marathon in October, Canadian Ed Whitlock set a new 81 year old age-group world record by running the 26.2 mile course in 3:30:26. This was more than 16 minutes off the previous age-81 best.
Post race, he said..."Based on the weather forecast of rain and significant wind, my goal was 3:30. Conditions seemed better than forecast as the race progressed and, based on a false appreciation of my preparedness, my initial pace was more ambitious. I realised sometime before halfway that I had made a big mistake and things were going to be difficult, and that's how it turned out, as I ran the last 4K very slowly, nearly 9 minutes a mile against a stiffening breeze. On finishing I wasn't that fatigued; the problem was that my legs had prevented me running properly. I put this down to the fact that I didn't have a long enough period of high-mileage training before the race and the lack of race practice--it was only my third race this year because of my injury problems."
At last year's Toronto Marathon, Whitlock broke his own 80+ world record by running 3:15:53. The following month, he slipped on icy stairs outside his house and broke a rib. He wound up not being able to run for much of the first part of 2012.
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