Ed Whitlock, Dead at 86

Milton’s own Ed Whitlock has died.  His family said he died of prostate cancer in a Toronto hospital.

Whitlock owns 36 world records in running.  His achievements include being the first septuagenarian to run a marathon in under three hours.  He did it twice; the first with a record of two hours 59 minutes and 10 seconds at age 72.  The next year he finished with a time of 2:54:49.

“This is an enormous loss to Canada and the global running community,” Toronto Marathon director Alan Brookes said to the CBC. Whitlock didn’t like training, often skipping his  daily routine training runs around Evergreen cemetery  for family commitments, or if it rained.

He’s taken time off to recover from several injuries including bad hips, arthritic knees and a frozen shoulder.  Doctors once told him that his “running days were behind him because of his bad knees.  Whitlock became one of five inaugural inductees into the Milton Sports Hall of Fame.