M95 distance superstar Roy Englert Sr. once was asked three short tips for those seeking to be lifetime runners. Roy replied: “1) Keep moving. 2) Keep moving. 3) Keep moving.” Today his son Roy Jr. shared the sad news that we won’t be seeing his dad run anymore. He died a week ago in Lake Ridge, Virginia, at 102 surrounded by his loving wife and children.

I met him at 2019 Ames masters nationals, where he kicked off the meet with an M95 world record in the 5000. I taped him being interviewed and asked some questions myself.

I also covered his 2014 appearance on the legendary M90 relay teams, all setting three world records at North Carolina masters nationals. Roy, a WWII Navy veteran who helped deliver troops to Utah Beach on D-Day, competed in every National Senior Games since their inception in 1987. He was a retired lawyer who worked for the government in Washington.

His last competition, according to mastersrankings.com, was the 2023 Pittsburgh National Senior Games, where he ran the 400 in 6:10 — ranking first in the world that year.

Here’s his formal obituary:

Roy T. Englert passed away in Lake Ridge, Virginia, on December 11, 2024, at the age of 102 surrounded by his loving wife and children. He is survived by his wife Maureen, daughter Lee Ann Regan and husband Jonathan, son Roy Englert Jr. and husband Daniel Boettcher, grandson JJ Regan, his wife Robyn, and two great grandsons, Jake and Will.

Mr. Englert rose from difficult origins to distinguish himself through his World War II Navy service, his long career as a Washington lawyer, and his athletic accomplishments beginning at the unlikely age of 60 and continuing past his 100th birthday.

As a young Navy officer, Roy Englert participated in the invasions of Normandy, Southern France, and Okinawa. He and his shipmates were in the Philippines, preparing to invade Japan, when the Japanese surrender made the invasion unnecessary.
His ship, a Landing Ship Tank (LST 49), was the first LST to land at Utah Beach on June 6, 1944, and made 7 total crossings between England and France in June 1944. The officers and men of that ship were among a minority to see action in both the Atlantic and Pacific Theaters. The Library of Congress recorded his oral history of the war in 1997.

Roy Englert’s entire legal career was spent either as a government lawyer with the U.S. Department of Treasury or working with former Treasury colleagues at Charls E. Walker Associates, Inc. He began in the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and in 1958 achieved the top legal position in that Office, Chief Counsel. He moved to the Office of General Counsel in 1962. He held several positions in that Office, culminating in service from 1966 to 1973 as Deputy General Counsel, the highest position available to a career lawyer.

Among many projects at Treasury, he played a large role in the creation of the Asian Development Bank in 1966 and in 1970 legislation extending the Bank Holding Company Act to one-bank holding companies. Though he was a career civil servant and not a political appointee, he came in direct contact with Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. In 1975, President Gerald Ford appointed him as a Member of the U.S. Assay Commission.

After reading the book “Aerobics” by Dr. Kenneth Cooper, Roy took up running, for exercise and health, at the age of 50. At age 60, he began competing in track meets for senior athletes. At age 63 he participated in the first-ever National Senior Games in St. Louis, and he participated in every National Senior Games held in his lifetime, culminating with the 2023 Games in Pittsburgh, when he was officially 101 years old.

He and teammates set 3 new world records in a single meet in 2014, earning themselves a front-page story in the New York Times sports section on July 24, 2014 (“Track Team is Peerless and, Seemingly, Ageless”). They were all in their 90s and set records in relay races because no other group of nonagenarians had ever attempted those relay races in an official meet.

With a similar team Roy set indoor world records in the same relays a few months later. In 2019, at age 96, Roy beat the previous world record in the 5-kilometer race for men 95-99 by almost 8 minutes, leading to publicity around the world. In all, Roy set more than a dozen age-group world records either as an individual or as part of a team. Despite his international renown, he himself dismissed some of his athletic accomplishments as a mere “gimmick” — “Don’t believe him,” said the New York Times article. Roy Sr. also was supportive of Roy Jr. and the judo community, scorekeeping at many judo tournaments, and he was a technical official for judo at the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta.

As accomplished as he was, Roy never achieved anything at the expense of his family. Roy was a devoted husband to first Helen and then Maureen, devoted father to Lee Ann and Roy Jr., devoted grandfather to John Joseph (JJ), and devoted great grandfather to Jake and Will. His nieces and nephews – his sister’s children Edward Kromer and Linda LeGrande, and his brother-in-law’s children Carol Ann Clifton, Jane Temple, Larry Wiggs, and Bob Wiggs – enjoyed his kindnesses and sense of humor.

Roy Theodore Englert was born September 11, 1922, on Fourth Avenue North in Nashville, Tennessee, at the home of his parents, Roy T Englert and the former Ruth Rowe Tindall. At birth he joined an older sister, Emma Ruth. His father died in an accidental drowning on October 16,1928, leaving Ruth at age 29 with 2 small children and a looming Great Depression. Young Roy thus became the man of the house starting at age 6 and remained so for 96 years.

Roy entered Vanderbilt University, in his home town of Nashville, at the age of 16. He was a junior, majoring in both Business Administration and English, when word came of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. Roy joined a program that allowed him to complete college before going on active duty but required him to train while still in school and to accelerate his studies.
He graduated in April 1943 and immediately reported to Officer Candidate School at Columbia University in New York City. A “90-day wonder,” Roy found himself at age 20 a lieutenant junior grade in charge of even younger men on a ship headed to Europe and the war.

After the war, Roy worked for an insurance company in Nashville, where he met Helen Frances Wiggs. Roy and Helen were married in the First Presbyterian Church in Nashville on September 25, 1948. Roy then returned to Columbia, accompanied in the move to New York by 21-year-old Helen. Roy started law school just 2 days after the wedding and later earned an LL.M. from George Washington University. Helen was to become the mother of his children and his wife for some 65 years before she passed away on March 2, 2014.

Roy and Helen made their home in Northern Virginia from 1951 to her passing 63 years later. In 2015, Roy married Maureen, née Payne, who was a blessing in his life for the next almost 10 years.

A Celebration of Life will be held at 2 pm. EST on January 4, 2025, at Westminster at Lake Ridge. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to the Westminster Ingleside Foundation.

A Vanderbilt University profile included this memory:

During his three years of active duty, Englert was involved in some of the most famous military operations in U.S. history, most notably D-Day, Operation Dragoon in Southern France, and the Battle of Okinawa in the Pacific.

“It was a great experience,” Englert said of his time in the military during an interview with the Veterans History Project for the Library of Congress. “In those days, at that age, you think you are immortal, you don’t think anything is going to happen to you. I saw the world. I wouldn’t take anything away from my time [in the service].”

The Pentagon even posted a story on Roy, including this:

His record over the decades has gotten more and more impressive. In 2014, Englert and a team of 90-year-olds set a world record in the 4×100-, 4×400- and 4×800-meter relays. In 2018, he set a world record for men in the 95-99 age group at the USA Track and Field Masters Outdoor Championships, finishing the 800-meter race in under 6 minutes. At the same event in 2019, he set another world record for completing a 5,000-meter race in just over 42 mins.

“The other record had been 50 minutes and some seconds, so that was quite outstanding,” Englert said. “I got a lot of comments about that, a lot of praise.”

He’s also competed in every National Senior Games since the event’s inception in 1987. Earlier this month, about 12,000 senior athletes competed in the annual event in Pittsburgh. Several veterans took part, but Englert, who ran the men’s 400-meter race, stood out from the rest.

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