O Canada!

Mother Nature is wreaking havoc on Michigan right now and has been for most of the day. Feeling under the weather myself, I decided it would be wise to skip my run and let my body rest (I want to be healthy for this weekend!) The alternative? Curling up on the couch with a good read, of course! My good read happened to be on the internet. As I was reading through this past weekend's marathon reports I found one that was particularly interesting. I decided to forgo my original blog plan to share this great story with you. Hope you find it as amazing as I did!

There was a lot of activity at the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon this weekend. Kenneth Mungara won this event for the fourth consecutive year; two Canadian runners, Reid Coolsaet and Eric Gillis, qualified for the 2012 Olympics in London; and a world record was set...Don't bother heading to their race results webpage because that's not the type of record I'm referring too. Confused? Just bear with me :)


He's been all over the media, from the BBC to the Kansas City Star...and even Business Insider. "Who?" you might be asking. Well, the gentleman I'm speaking of is Fauja Singh.

(photo via the edmontonjournal.com)

At 100 years young (yes, that's right, 100) his is the first centenarian and oldest man in the world to complete a full-distance marathon. His time? A mere 8 hours, 11 minutes and 5.9 seconds (and might I add that he beat his personal goal time of about 9 hours; by the way, don't let the time on the race clock fool you in the photo--that's the gun time, not his chip time :) ). To top that off, he set some other world records a few days before the marathon. At an invitational named in his honor, Singh set (and in some cases established) world records in his age group for 100 meters, 200 meters, 400 meters, 800 meters, 1500 meters, the mile, 3000 meters, and 5000 meters. That's EIGHT MORE world records. Pretty great!


Here are some links leading to some articles that tell his awesome story:
1.) Singh's Wikipedia Page is very interesting
2.) This Toronto Star article  was written about him before the race but is still a good read
3.) CBC posted a very nice article on Singh via the Associated Press: 100-year-old marathoner sets record in Toronto
4.) NPR has posted a cool 40 second video of Singh crossing the finish line (it's at the end of the article)
5.) And last but not least, Singh's Official Time as posted on the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon website (he placed 3,845th).


I am quite inspired by Fauja Singh and it's definitely given me more motivation as I recover from this injury. If I work hard and be patient then good things will happen! Just stay positive!