93-year-old runs every day, hopes to inspire friendly competition from other seniors

Adam meets a Nanaimo senior who started running during the war, before winning gold medals now

NANAIMO — If you ask Helena Haynes about a black and white picture of her as a girl, sitting with a group of others, the first thing she’ll notice is her position.

“I’m in front,” Helena smiles.

Which is fitting because Helena has always strived to place first.

“I was always running or jumping,” Helena says, before pointing to another picture of her younger self preparing for gymnastics.

You couldn’t stop Helena then. And you still can’t.

Although her four-storey building has an elevator, Helena always takes the stairs.

“I just come down here,” she points before springing down the steps.

And no matter the weather, the 93-year-old runs all around outside her independent living community’s five-acre property, every day.

“I’ve done it for so many years, it’s automatic,” Helena says.

Helena started running as a child in Holland during the Second World War. She’d sprint back and forth to school, more than a mile each way, hoping she wouldn’t run into a Nazi along the way.

“It was horrible,” Helena says of the occupation.

She says a couple of their neighbours were shot, another was killed by shrapnel, and moments after her mom took her brother out of his crib, the baby avoided a similar fate.

“A piece of grenade comes through the window into his bed,” Helena says. “That was very scary.”

And yet young Helena felt compelled to counter it all through kindness, in the only way she knew how, through athletics.

When tasked to choose teams for sports, Helena started selecting the kids who’d always got picked last, first.

“Oh! They were so excited!” Helena recalls. “I think I did a good job because they worked really hard.”

So Helena kept choosing them, until they improved so much, the other kids wanted to pick them too.

“It‘s best to do as good as you can,” Helena smiles. “And hopefully help people do the same.”

Although Helena hopes her winning multiple medals at the recent 55-plus games — including four golds — will inspire other 90-somethings to start running with her, it’s never going stop her from striving for first.

“It would be nice if you had other people doing it also,” Helena laughs. “And then you could beat them all!”