Record-setting marathoner Bob Walker dies at 65

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This article was published 13/04/2015 (4041 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Bob Walker, a man who set a record as the fastest Manitoban to ever run a marathon, has died of brain cancer. He was 65.

His family released the news following the funeral in Toronto Sunday.

Walker was well known in business and amateur sports and games circles. He was a partner in the Winnipeg-based chartered accountant firm PKBW; he played chess and curling but his true legacy is running, family said Monday.

Walker ran the full marathon in 1981 in two hours, 19 minutes and six seconds, setting a record as the fastest Manitoban that remains unbroken. Decades later, in 2009, Walker was inducted into the Manitoba Runners’ Road Running Hall of Fame.

“With a running record that spanned almost 20 years, Bob is deserving of Hall of Fame status as one of the best of the outstanding group of Manitoba long distance runners that competed in the 1970s and 1980s,” his bio read on the runners association website.

“He was an amazing runner. He started off running for the Razorbacks, the University of Manitoba running team and from there he progressed through different distances. He started running the 10 K and then moved into marathons. He ended up running 14 marathons in seven years and setting the record there,” said Walker’s son Adam by phone from Toronto.

Walker and his widow, Joy Walker, moved east for health and family reasons in December.

Walker was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer last September and with the couple’s three children grown and living outside Manitoba, the family decided to move to Toronto, Walker said.

“My father was a very healthy guy. After he was diagnosed, the three kids were already in different places across North America. My sister Erin is a professor at Arizona State University, I work in Toronto in marketing and my brother Sean is doing a masters at the University of Waterloo. We wanted to get them as close to us as possible so we could be together as a family and to help with his treatment so in about three months we moved them out.”

The family is devastated, Walker said.

“It’s been a real upheaval. It’s been a big shock to our family because our father was in incredible shape, even up to today,” Walker said.

Marathoning runs in the family: Walker’s nephew, Brian Walker, won the men’s full marathon with a time of two hours, 36 minutes and 14 seconds at the 36th annual Manitoba Marathon last June.

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca