Simply months after blazing to a brand new international age-group same old within the 1,500m, 90-year-old Dot Sowerby has damaged the U.S. half-marathon age-group checklist, underscoring her message that age isn’t a disadvantage to breaking down obstacles.
The grandmother and longtime runner from Greensboro, N.C., finished the 2023 Lifestyles Time Chicago Part Marathon in 3:33:47, breaking the previous 3:46:56 checklist set via Harriette Thompson six years in the past on the Rock N’ Roll San Diego Part Marathon at age 94. (That effort via Thompson months ahead of her dying in 2017 nonetheless makes her the oldest lady on checklist to have finished a half-marathon, a checklist up to now set via Canada’s Gladys Burrill in 2012 at age 93.)
Sowerby, who took up working in her overdue forties, advised ABC Information Chicago after her record-breaking half-marathon on Sept. 24 that she hopes her newest feat conjures up others to chase their goals, irrespective of their age.
“I feel older other folks can do anything else, and I similar to to stay energetic, and also you’re by no means too outdated to get available in the market and run,” Sowerby stated.
Sowerby has been reinforcing this message via his movements in addition to his phrases this 12 months, each in highway races and at the monitor. In July, she delighted a place of origin crowd on the USATF Masters Out of doors Championships in Greensboro via working the 1,500m in 11:30.62, taking greater than a minute off the checklist held via North Vancouver’s Lenore Bernard Law Montgomery, who coated the gap in 12:34.67 at a monitor meet in Surrey, B.C., in Sept. 2020.
🚨International File Alert!🚨
This previous weekend on the Greyhounds Observe Meet, 90-12 months-Outdated Lenore Bernard Law Montgomery set a brand new International File for the 1500m working an excellent 12:34.67! Congrats Lenore! 👏
*Pending ratification percent.twitter.com/nknGEdzjgp
— BC Athletics (@BC_Athletics) September 16, 2020
The championships noticed Sowerby rack up an outstanding selection of medals, together with gold within the 400m (2:35.33), 800m (5:52.93), lengthy leap (1.05m) and shot put (4.51m), and silver within the 100m.
Her luck at this 12 months’s USATF championships got here only one week after she amassed six gold medals on the 2023 Nationwide Senior Video games in Pittsburgh.
“I’ve a philosophy that you’re by no means too outdated to do one thing like working or no matter you wish to have to do,” Sowerby advised Greensboro’s Information & File heading into the USATF Masters Out of doors Championships. “Once I got here alongside, they wouldn’t let women in highschool and faculty run as a result of they idea they have been too fragile or one thing. So, I did my first race when I used to be 50 years outdated.”
In line with the Chicago Part Marathon and 5K web page, Sowerby trains virtually each day, various her exercises from working to swimming to workout categories. She in most cases starts coaching at 6 a.m. “One in all my motivations is to encourage others to stay exercising, regardless of your age or circumstance—simply get available in the market and do one thing,” she stated.