Simply months after blazing to a brand new world age-group customary within the 1,500m, 90-year-old Dot Sowerby has damaged the U.S. half-marathon age-group file, underscoring her message that age isn’t an impediment to breaking down limitations.
The grandmother and longtime runner from Greensboro, N.C., accomplished the 2023 Life Time Chicago Half Marathon in 3:33:47, breaking the previous 3:46:56 file set by Harriette Thompson six years in the past on the Rock N’ Roll San Diego Half Marathon at age 94. (That effort by Thompson months earlier than her demise in 2017 nonetheless makes her the oldest girl on file to have accomplished a half-marathon, a file beforehand set by Canada’s Gladys Burrill in 2012 at age 93.)
Sowerby, who took up working in her late forties, informed 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, no matter their age.
“I feel older folks can do something, and I similar to to maintain energetic, and also you’re by no means too previous to get on the market and run,” Sowerby stated.
Sowerby has been reinforcing this message by means of his actions in addition to his phrases this 12 months, each in street races and on the observe. In July, she thrilled a hometown crowd on the USATF Masters Out of doors Championships in Greensboro by working the 1,500m in 11:30.62, taking greater than a minute off the file held by North Vancouver’s Lenore Montgomery, who lined the gap in 12:34.67 at a observe meet in Surrey, B.C., in Sept. 2020.
🚨World File Alert!🚨
This previous weekend on the Greyhounds Monitor Meet, 90-Yr-Outdated Lenore Montgomery set a brand new World File for the 1500m working an incredible 12:34.67! Congrats Lenore! 👏
*Pending ratification pic.twitter.com/nknGEdzjgp
— BC Athletics (@BC_Athletics) September 16, 2020
The championships noticed Sowerby rack up a formidable assortment of medals, together with gold within the 400m (2:35.33), 800m (5:52.93), lengthy soar (1.05m) and shot put (4.51m), and silver within the 100m.
Her success at this 12 months’s USATF championships got here only one week after she collected six gold medals on the 2023 Nationwide Senior Video games in Pittsburgh.
“I’ve a philosophy that you’re by no means too previous to do one thing like working or no matter you need to do,” Sowerby informed Greensboro’s Information & File heading into the USATF Masters Out of doors Championships. “After I got here alongside, they might not let women in highschool and faculty run as a result of they thought they have been too fragile or one thing. So, I did my first race after I was 50 years previous.”
In response to the Chicago Half Marathon and 5K web site, Sowerby trains nearly day-after-day, various her exercises from working to swimming to train lessons. She usually begins coaching at 6 a.m. “One in every of my motivations is to encourage others to maintain exercising, regardless of your age or circumstance—simply get on the market and do one thing,” she stated.
