A 96-year-old woman from Ottawa has just set a world record for her age, fast-walking a 5-kilometre race with a time of 51:09.01 on a 28 C spring day.
In a May 27
tweet, Tamarack Ottawa Race Weekend announced the victory of Rejeanne Fairhead, now the fastest senior citizen in the world in the 95
–99 age group. She completed a 5-kilometre race,
beating her own previous Canadian record last May of 58:52 by nearly 7 minutes and 43 seconds for women 95-plus, Canadian Running magazine reported.
“SHE DID IT! It’s an unofficial new world record! Way to go Rejeanne! Official time to come!” the race weekend organization tweeted.
“I feel great. IT was pretty hot out there,” Fairhead
told Athletics Canada after the race. “I was just watching where I was going because there was a lot of potholes. And the people were cheering and waving so I had to concentrate on what I was doing.”
White-haired Fairhead, who stands about four-foot eleven, this year exceeded the previous women’s 95+ world record of 55:48 set by American Betty Lindberg at the 2022 Atlanta Peachtree 5K.
According to the
Toronto Star, accompanying Fairhead on the race were her trainer, Richelle Weeks, along with her two daughters, a son, and a daughter-in-law.
Fairhead said she did not trained for the race but had previously played horseshoes and taken part in bowling. She raised over $7,400 with her race participation this year, to benefit the
Perley Health Foundation in Ottawa, whose mission is to raise funds to support the
Perley and Rideau Veterans’ Health Centre, one of the largest long-term care homes in Ontario.
The active senior volunteered at Perley for 27 years and has been a resident for three, the Toronto Star reported. She was born in 1926, the same year as Queen Elizabeth II, and lived on a farm in Saskatchewan in childhood. She is the mother of six children and was married to a man serving in the Canadian Armed Forces.
“Well, I’m proud of it, but I want other people to keep doing the same thing,”
said Fairhead after the race, according to the Ottawa Sun. “I mean, it’s just an age. It’s just a number, as far as I’m concerned.”
She was second place in her 80+ age category in 2022,
according to Running Magazine in an article on May 29, 2022, beaten by 80-year-old Marie Mullally of Ottawa, who finished the 5K race with a time of 48:01. Fairhead was the oldest participant in the 2022 Ottawa Race Weekend.
The Canadian Press contributed to this report.
