After quitting sprinting at 19, Ottawa’s Wendy Alexis returned to the game at 50. Now 71, she’s one in all Canada’s prime Masters sprinters and a multi-time age-group world report holder. This season, she has bold targets: reclaim the 100m W70 report, ship at August’s World Masters Championships and line up within the open 100m at Canadian nationals.
An unreal resume
Alexis lengthy hovered close to age-group data, however since coming into the W70 division final yr, she’s been rewriting them. On the 2025 World Masters Indoor Championships, she broke the W70 200m world report twice in someday (30.68, then 30.33) and anchored Canada’s W65 4x200m group to a world report of two:07.42. In June, she took the W70 100m world report, clocking 14.44.
In January, Alexis broke Canadian masters legend Karla Del Grande‘s W70 60m world report–after which, a couple of weeks later, lowered the mark once more, working 9.07 seconds. On Wednesday, Athletics Canada awarded Alexis the Earl Payment Award for her 2025 performances.
Again on the monitor
When Alexis talks concerning the keys to success in Masters athletics, she quotes 97-year-old Ontario masters star Earl Payment: “Decelerate slower than everybody else.”
A sprinter rising up, Alexis stepped away at 19 as a result of accidents. Later in life, her son joined the Ottawa Lions–and advised her to affix the “outdated folks.”
“I didn’t know there was masters monitor, particularly in Ottawa,” Alexis advised Canadian Operating. “If you happen to have been working at an older age, it was at all times 5K and up.” She started coaching once more at 50, and has been competing for the previous 21 years.
Prioritizing restoration
Accidents are a part of the sport, Alexis says, however with age, coaching takes an even bigger toll in your physique. “Like everyone else, we get injured, and we take care of it,” she stated. “The distinction is, I take rather a lot longer to get again.” Coaching alongside athletes aged 17 to 25 has made that distinction clear: the place they could want six weeks to get well, she might take six months.
Physio and rehab have turn out to be a precedence, moderately than one thing Alexis solely turns to after harm. She units apart an additional hour every day for biking and stretching, and sees her physiotherapist each few weeks.
The structured strategy has additionally eased her psychological load. “Another person, who has a lot extra experience, is asking the photographs,” she stated. “I simply present the legs.” Regardless of being advised she was “achieved,” Alexis stated the added concentrate on restoration has given her an edge that she didn’t have earlier than.
She credit her physio, coaching companions and particularly her coach, Sean Burgesfor serving to her get to the place she is and maintain her success.
Balancing coaching and life
Alexis’s schedule is demanding: entry to trace time in Ottawa is restricted, and coaching generally features a seven-hour spherical journey to St. Lawrence College in Canton, N.Y. Between the monitor, weight room, pool and bike, she trains round 20 hours per week. Outdoors of sport, she cares for her grandchildren and volunteers on the elementary college the place she taught for 20 years.
“If I had youthful youngsters, there isn’t a method I might’ve achieved this,” she admitted. “I’m grateful now that I’m retired.”
Grasp’s atmosphere
Alexis describes masters athletics as an inclusive, encouraging neighborhood. Her principal “rival,” Del Grande, is a really shut pal–her “monitor sister.” Even at world championships, the ladies are extremely supportive and have a good time everybody.
Alexis lists three explanation why she retains exhibiting up: for good well being, as a result of she will, and to encourage those that are watching to do it, too.
One of the vital significant moments of her profession got here on the 2014 nationwide championships in Toronto, when Del Grande introduced footage of their race to the hospital to indicate Alexis’s mother, who was sick. “It actually speaks to the sisterhood and neighborhood we have now in masters sport,” Alexis stated. “We’re a household.”
Seasonal and lifelong targets
One other W70 runner has since damaged Alexis’s 100m world report, working 14.37–however the Canadian plans to take it again this season. She additionally hopes to have a robust exhibiting on the world championships in South Korea in August.
The Canadian monitor championships can be hosted in June by the Ottawa Lions. “I need to run the 100m within the open division at 71,” Alexis stated. “I’m not going to get that chance once more–it will be thrilling simply to be there.” It’s an enormous aim, however doable: the ladies’s normal is 14.00, however generally, different runners will be invited to run if there are empty lanes.
Alexis has one elementary aim: to run for the remainder of her life. “Operating makes me breathe, makes me free, and makes me a child once more, enjoying with my mates,” she stated. “What could possibly be higher than that?”
