Gail Emms promised herself to try something new every year when she retired seven years ago.
That included donating blood for the first time, attending a Rolling Stones concert—a bucket list item—learning to play pickleball, and snowbirding to warmer parts every winter, among other exciting endeavours.
Safe to say, it had already been a busy and fruitful retirement for the longtime Gimli resident, but there’s no doubt her latest achievement will go down as one of her proudest.
Competing on the national stage for the first time, Emms, 64, won three medals on the track at the Canada 55-plus Games, a multidisciplinary event held in Quebec City last month.
While Emms maintained the weekend was an unqualified success, it was filled with emotional highs and lows.
It started in the 100-metre sprint, which yielded her a bronze medal.
“That was such a relief to get that one under my belt,” said Emms, who ran in the 60-64 year old category.
She encored with a gold medal in the 400m race.
“And then the pressure was off.”
Before Emms could get too high on her horse, she was humbled by a fourth-place finish in the 200m event.
Finally was the 800m run, in which Emms gutted out a silver medal. It was the most satisfying piece of hardware she collected on this trip.
“I’m just so happy with my time. I beat my personal best by over 18 seconds on that run,” said Emms.
“When I run, I just run down a gravel road so obviously I don’t have a good track. Yes, the track was amazing, but also with the 800, it was the only race that we ran with other age groups (due to low participation numbers). I knew that one of those people was definitely in our younger group and I thought, ‘If I can just stay in this top four, I can get something’ so I just kept up,” she continued.
“I went into the Games, I guess I didn’t want to be disappointed so I thought, ‘Well, if I can get one medal, hey, that’s great,’ but three of my races I had personal bests on and just the way I pushed myself in that 800 metre, yeah, you can do a lot of stuff when you need to.”
Indeed, three out of four ain’t a bad result for someone who hadn’t run track since high school. It was an even greater accomplishment for someone who needed to overcome a few injury setbacks during her training.
While Emms continues to ride the high from her sensational performance, a decision on whether to participate in the World 55-plus Games in Florida next spring looms in the back of her mind.
Emms said she’ll continue to weigh her options but admitted she’s concerned about whether she’ll be able to keep up against some stiff competition on the world stage.
“We’d be in the state (snowbirding), but I haven’t made a commitment yet,” Emms said. “I’ve got to think about this because people that run in there, they’re anywhere from recreational athletes to former Olympians.
“I haven’t taken it off the table so we’ll see.”
Emms, who qualified for the Canada 55-plus Games in 2022 but couldn’t compete due to a schedule conflict, planned on this being her only trip to the national event, but said that may have changed with the next event set to be held in Manitoba in 2026.
Though it wouldn’t be another new endeavour in her retired life, it may be too convenient of an opportunity for her to pass up.
She also knows it would once again be a weekend to remember.
“It was so amazing. We started off with opening ceremonies. We marched in by province, we got to wear the buffalo on our back. The other thing is, you meet so many great people, both from Manitoba and all over Canada, and you find a connection with them,” Emms said.
“It was great. I highly recommend it.”
