As Maurice Tarrant shattered the Canadian record in his 80-plus age group during Sunday’s Prairie Inn Pioneer 8K race, he proved that competitive running knows no age barrier.

The Victoria resident beat the previous record by a whopping eight minutes with a time of 38 minutes, 15 seconds.

“That’s one minute per kilometre,” said Bob Reid, director of the Vancouver Island Runners Association and president of the Royal Victoria Marathon. “On the track, if you shave a tenth of a second off a record you’ve done well. But by minutes, that’s incredible.”

The previous record was 46 minutes and 22 seconds, set in 2004 by Victoria’s Jim Sargent, who — at 86 — was the oldest participant in Sunday’s race.

At the awards ceremony, Tarrant received a standing ovation that lasted several minutes, Reid said.

“It was pretty moving,” said Tarrant, who turned 80 last week. “It’s sort of exciting running with all the young folk.”

The 31st annual race, the first of the year and often a marker for those competing in the Frontrunners Island Race series, starts and finishes at the Saanich Fair grounds. Tarrant has participated for the last 25 years.

Breaking records is not new for the retiree. Since moving to Victoria from England in 1981, he has set 42 Canadian age-class records.

He’s looking to shatter more records at the Times Colonist 10K race, the Royal Victoria Marathon and the five other races in the series.

“I’m planning to at least set course records in all the Island series — and I'll pick up a Canadian record wherever I can,” he said, about as casually as one would talk about a plan to pick up milk on the way home.

Tarrant has been running since his early 20s, which he spent in southwest England. But he became more competitive in his 50s when he moved to the Island.

“So many runners come up to me and Jim [Sargent] and tell us that they would like to be running at our age — and we hope they can,” Tarrant said. “I will run as long as I enjoy it.”

Sunday’s 818 registered runners was a record turnout for the race.

“This was probably the best field of quality runners that’s even been assembled in Victoria,” said race director Randy Jones.

Here is the results page:

http://pih.bc.ca/results/Series.php?race=170

kderosa@tc.canwest.com