77 year old Helly Visser of Vancouver, BC will attempt to break the World Record mile time in the female 75-79 age-group, at this Saturday’s meet of The Q’s Victoria Track Series – meet # 4. The meet takes place at the University of Victoria’s Centennial Stadium, starting at 6:30PM sharp.

She already broke the Canadian mile record, Saturday, May 21st. Visser ran the mile in Calgary, AB in the time of 8:05.048. This was at the New Balance #2 Athletic Series she was just short 9 seconds for a World Record.

The world record is currently held by Mary Harada from the USA. Her time is 7:55.74. Visser is very confident that she can break that record.

Master runner, also from Vancouver, Colin Dignum will attempt to take the Canadian 45-59 men’s age-group record, which is 15:27. Dignum is a highly competitive master’s runner and often wins his age group in distances from 5k to the marathon.

Also, running in the elite men’s 5000m field at 7:30 PM are Trevor O’Brien, who is expected to win.

O’Brien has won both of his comeback track races during the Q’s Victoria Track Series in both the 1500m and 3000m distances. O’Brien is known as a top level 800/mile runner and as the pacer who pulled Steve Osaduik to a new Royal Victoria Marathon (Good Life Fitness Victoria Marathon) course record of 2:16:49. O’Brien battled injuries for 4 years and is now rounding nicely into form. Additionally, two-time Olympian, Bruce Deacon will race in the master’s division, he also battled injuries recently and is once again fit. Deacon was Canada’s top marathon runner for more than a decade competing in two Olympic Games and winning Silver at the Pan American Games. Deacon also won the California International Marathon twice. He owns a personal best of 2:13 (twice) and had won the Royal Victoria Marathon and the Times Colonist 10k several times.

Before the men’s elite race starts there will be three open-mixed races for all levels of runner, from beginner to the serious age-group athlete, starting at 6:30PM with the 400m distance, followed by the Classic Mile and the open-mixed 5000m.
Full results will be available at the track series website: www.victoriatrackseries.ca/results/