In it for the long run For nimble nonagenarian, there’s been no looking back since exercise epiphany six decades ago By: David Sanderson Posted: 4:12 PM CDT Thursday, Jun. 18, 2026

It’s been 46 years since Ray Elliott completed his first Manitoba Marathon but the spry-looking 91-year-old father of three, grandfather of four and great-grandfather of two remembers the occasion like it was yesterday.

Back then, the annual Father’s Day race ended at Winnipeg Stadium near Polo Park. Elliott vividly recalls turning right as he entered the venue and hearing a thunderous roar erupt from the thousands of onlookers who had packed the stands to encourage participants to the finish line.

“It was quite the experience being cheered on by a crowd that large and after witnessing that I got really serious about running, maybe because I wanted to recreate the moment again,” Elliott says, seated in his third-floor Henderson Highway condo, which overlooks a meandering section of the Red River.

Elliott’s marathon days are long gone. Still, he reserves time for physical activity of some sort, every single day. The former Great-West Life manager typically gets up at 5:45 a.m. to go for a brisk walk through his neighbourhood. Then, after he has breakfast with his wife Lillian at her personal care home next door to where he lives, he heads to the YMCA-YWCA to jog around the track for an hour or so. He also bikes, swims and golfs — last week he shot one stroke better than his age at Kildonan Golf Course — and in April set a new provincial record for men ages 90 to 94, when he bench-pressed 42.5 kilograms at a powerlifting competition held at Glenlawn Collegiate.

“After turning 90 in November 2024, I thought I had a great chance of breaking the Canadian 100-metre (running) record for my age group only to tear one of my Achilles (tendons),” says Elliott, who stands five-foot-eight and tips the scales at 138 pounds. “I lost a lot of aerobic capacity during my recovery, but that record is still on my to-do list.”

Elliott, the youngest of three brothers, grew up in Bangor, County Down, in Northern Ireland, about 20 kilometres east of Belfast. He took up swimming as an eight-year-old but gave the sport up when he dropped out of school at age 16 — also the age he started smoking — to work full-time at a lumber yard.

“I wasn’t a particularly good student, though I don’t think my parents could have afforded to send me to university even if I had been,” he says.

Prospects in his hometown were few and far between, so shortly after turning 21 in 1955, he made the decision to move to Canada, mainly because his mother had visited the country when she was young and always spoke glowingly about her time in Toronto.

He convinced his brother David to join him. Following a series of jobs in and around Toronto, the two of them were hired by a construction company based in Ontario’s Elliot Lake area, in a town called Spragge. They stayed in Spragge for two years before travelling to Winnipeg, to visit friends of David’s who had relocated to Manitoba from Scotland. That was when Elliott heard about opportunities at a nickel mine that was opening at Moak Lake, close to the present-day city of Thompson. He lived in northern Manitoba until 1959, at which point he’d had “enough of the bush.” He returned to Winnipeg that fall and has been here ever since, he says.

Three years after he and Lillian tied the knot in 1961 — they met in the administration offices of the Hudson’s Bay Company and it was love at first sight, he gushes — Elliott was shovelling snow at their home on Macaulay Crescent in North Kildonan. Their driveway was almost 30 metres long and because he still smoked, he found himself unable to catch his breath.

“I reached the end and thought, ‘My god, I’m so out of shape it’s ridiculous,’” he says, guessing he weighed around 175 pounds at the time. “I ended up quitting smoking and joining the downtown Y, where I started off by running two laps, then walking two laps.”

Elliott, who became Great-West Life’s manager of client services after earning a degree in accounting via night school, ultimately started running outside during his lunch hours. There was a period when he ran to and from work three times a week — a distance of 25 kilometres, there and back — in addition to late-night jogs after helping put the kids to bed.

He smiles, recalling another circuit he used to cover in the vicinity of Lac du Bonnet, where he and Lillian owned a cottage. It was a circular route, about two kilometres in distance, and their dog Angel, an Australian Shepherd, often accompanied him. Except when she grew tired, she’d plunk herself down in the grass for a lap or two, waiting for him to come back around the bend.

Elliott entered the inaugural Manitoba Marathon, staged on June 17, 1979. He was 44 years old and made it to the 21-mile mark before hitting the wall.

“I had to sit down, I couldn’t go any longer, but despite my discomfort, I vowed to try again the next year,” he says.

He did just that, finishing with a time of 3:23:00. His best result came when he was 52 and crossed the finish line in a time of 2:46:58 — a number tattooed on his left arm.

“One of my grandsons is running marathons now. He entered one in Eugene (Ore.) a few weeks ago and came up 14 seconds short of my best time, so I still have bragging rights — at least until he runs in Berlin in September.”

Derek Elliott, the grandson-in-question, was too young to see his “papa” run any of his 11 Manitoba Marathons, but he credits him as the reason he decided to take up running five years ago.

“I wouldn’t say either of us would be considered a natural athlete. It’s more a case of loving the work that goes into improving your performance and the personal satisfaction you get from achieving your goals,” Derek says over the phone, while running through the streets of Fort Garry. “It’s very clear when you talk to him that he really enjoys getting out there, even if nowadays it’s just a few laps at the Y.”

Derek, who is getting his grandfather’s top marathon time tattooed on his own knee so he can stare down at it for inspiration during a race, says he of course loves all the members of his family, but “my Papa is such a special guy.”

“When I go with him to visit my grandmother, people approach me to say how he helps everybody in the care home any way he can. If they can’t cut their food, he’ll cut it for them. If they need their wheelchair moved, that’s not a problem. He definitely uses his strong health and fitness to look out for the people he cares about.”

Besides the aforementioned 100-metre running record, Elliott, who was still entering five- and 10-kilometre competitions well into his 70s, and who in 2019 successfully completed a triathlon at age 84, has a few other boxes he intends to tick off in the next while.

He is definitely going to defend his weightlifting title next year, with a goal of 50 kilograms this time, he promises.

“Also, the Canadian swimming record for my age group for the 50-metre freestyle is 51 seconds. Last summer at Kildonan Pool I was doing 54 seconds in the shallow end with a push-off from the side, so in a deep end with a diving start, who knows? And if I can’t get to (do it) before I turn 94 then, oh well, I’ll break the record for 95 to 99.”

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