On Sunday on the TCS Toronto Waterfront Marathon, Rick Rayman, a professor of dentistry on the College of Toronto, marked his four-hundredth marathon end. Rayman is 77, and never solely has he now accomplished 400 marathons, however he has participated in each single Toronto Waterfront Marathon within the race’s 34-year historical past.

As if that weren’t sufficient, for the previous 44 years and 10 months–a day by day run streak that’s topped by just one particular person in Canada, based on . (That’s Simon Laporte of Notre-Dame des Prairies, Que., whose streak is three years longer. Rayman is #20 on the worldwide run streak listing.) “I don’t know if the 19 runners forward of me have run as many marathons as I’ve, however who cares?” he says, including, “The older and slower I get, the extra notoriety I get.”

On Dec. 10, he’ll have fun 45 years of operating with out lacking a single day. He runs for a minimum of half an hour, although some days he runs for an hour or two. And he takes care so as to add that he by no means runs on a –although he has participated in 10 indoor marathons prior to now, together with six at York College, three on the College of Toronto’s Hart Home and one the SkyDome (now the Rogers Centre).

“It’s such an amazing marathon!” Rayman says of the Toronto race, despite the fact that he struggled with again ache within the second half, most of which he walked. “I can run 12 miles (or 20 km) with none ache,” he says. When requested if he’s ever thought of switching to the half-marathon, he replies, “By no means.”

“It’s query,” he concedes, “as a result of my is significantly higher than my full. However I benefit from the problem of the marathon.” Rayman was the one particular person within the M75-79 age class.

Through the years, Rayman has seen a couple of modifications on the Toronto Waterfront Marathon. The expertise for monitoring runners on the course, particularly, has developed significantly for the reason that early days, and he enjoys the current modifications to the course, which permit midpackers and back-of-the-packers like himself to see the elites operating previous within the different course on Wellington Avenue and Japanese Ave. He credit race director  and his employees at Canada Operating Sequence with placing on a world-class occasion. 

Rayman admits he’s slowing down. “I’m not going to do one other marathon this yr,” he says, including that subsequent yr, he has plans to run the Fort Lauderdale Marathon in February, Ontario’s within the spring, the Buffalo Marathon in Could and the marathon on the Niagara Extremely in June. “I did 11 [marathons] this yr; I’d reduce that in half subsequent yr. Possibly six or seven.”

Regardless, you’ll be able to catch him operating on daily basis, rain or shine, from his house in North York. “I’ll maintain doing it till I can’t,” he says.