Ninety-year-old masters sprinter Harry Thompson continues to shred running records.
This time it was at the Kamloops Centennial Track and Field Meet held recently. “I had a very successful meet,” he said. “I was in three events and I set three Canadian records.”
The standing record for his age group of 90 to 95 in the 1,500 metres was 16:57.90. He is usually the only one running in his age group.
“I realized I could beat that very easily,” he said. “I wanted to do my very best effort.” His time was 10:27.28.
In these events competitors are asked to enter the time they think they’ll finish the race in and Thompson even broke his own expectation. “I was very happy with that,” he said.
Thompson said that a big motivating factor for him is the crowd watching. Before each race announcers introduce Thompson and tell the spectators that he is going for the record.
“I would have quit after about two laps,” he said. “But the people were cheering and yelling and I just felt I couldn’t let them down.”
Thompson also ran the 100-metre event that day and broke that Canadian record “by a considerable amount” as well. The male outdoor record was 27.07 seconds and Thompson ran it in 23.7 seconds.
“That 100 metres took it out of me,” he said. “I didn’t expect to run as fast as I did.”
Thompson had a slight injury in his left leg near his hip and running at the meet had aggravated it, but about 30 minutes later he was back at it, running the 400 metres and breaking more records.
He shaved almost a minute off the record running it in 2:13.03. The previous record was 3:15.70.
Thompson was scheduled to run in two more events the following day, the 200-metre and 800-metre races, but with his injury bothering him he decided to stop and give himself a rest.
Thompson said he is taking a “wait and see” approach to his injury. He plans to compete in the BC Masters Track and Field Championships in Langley on Fathers’ Day weekend, June 15 and 16. If that goes well, he will be running in the BC Seniors’ Games in Kamloops toward the end of August.
