Since turning 60 final 12 months, Scottish masters runner Robert McHarg has been on a record-breaking spree. Final week, McHarg set two new males’s 60+ world data within the span of simply 5 days, rewriting the middle-distance document books in masters operating.
On Feb. 12, McHarg shattered the M60+ indoor mile world document, operating 4:50.45—five-tenths of a second sooner than the earlier mark of 4:50.95, set by American Nolan Shaheed in 2012. Nonetheless, his second of glory was short-lived. Simply 10 minutes later, his buddy and longtime rival Andrey Ridley bettered the time in 4:45.16, not simply breaking, however smashing the document McHarg had simply set.
4 days later, McHarg returned to the observe with some extent to show on the England Masters AA Indoor Problem in Edmonton, U.Ok. This time, there was no fast heartbreak. The 60-year-old from Kilmarnock, Scotland, made historical past, changing into the primary man over 60 to run an indoor 800m race beneath 2:10. He dominated the race, profitable by 13 seconds and setting a brand new M60+ world document of two:09.11.
After the race, McHarg took to social media, joking that he was “completely thrilled” to carry onto this document for greater than 10 minutes—in contrast to his ill-fated mile mark, though his rivalry with Ridley isn’t over but–the the 2 will face off this weekend on the British Masters Indoor Championships within the males’s 60+ 1,500m, the place they’ll chase one other historic mark: Shaheed’s longstanding M60+ document of 4:24.
2025 is shaping as much as be a large 12 months for masters runners, with the World Indoor Masters Championships set for the tip of March in Gainesville, Fla. McHarg, who received bronze within the 800m ultimately 12 months’s out of doors world championships in Gothenburg, Sweden (2:10.45), will little doubt be wanting so as to add one other medal, or maybe one other document, to his identify.