Roy Jorgen Svenningsen is one of those people who believes it's only cold if you're standing still. Perhaps that's how the 84-year-old Canadian became the oldest person to run a marathon in Antarctica on Friday when he crossed the finish line of the Antarctic Ice Marathon in 11 hours, 41 minutes and 58 seconds. Svenningsen, a retired oil executive, suited [...]
At one time, no one thought anyone could run a mile in under four minutes. Then came Roger Bannister. For years, no thought anyone could run a sub two-hour marathon. Now there's Eliud Kipchoge. Kipchoge, a 34-year-old Kenyan, made history by clocking a 1 hour, 59 minute and 40.2 second marathon at the INEOS 1:59 Challenge in Vienna. That's a 4:33.5 [...]
Some count their age in years. It would be more than fair for Roy Englert, 96, to count them in world records. Englert set a new age group world record, running 5,000 meters, or 3.1 miles, in 42 minutes and 30 seconds at the USATF Masters Outdoor Championships in Ames, Iowa on July 11. The Virginia native and former attorney [...]
It's one thing to get better with age. It's another to get faster. Just look at Julia Hawkins, the 103-year-old retired schoolteacher who collected more gold medals after running the 50- and 100-meter dash at the National Senior Games in Albuquerque, NM. According to the National Senior Games, Hawkins, whose nickname is the "Hurricane," is the oldest woman to ever [...]
It turns out that man's best friend is also runner's best friend. In March, Thomas Panek became the first blind person to complete the NYC Half Marathon, but he didn't do it with a human to guide him along the course. Instead, three specially-trained dogs shouldered that responsibility. Panek finished the 13.1-mile race in 2 hours, 20 minutes and 51 [...]
Marko Cheseto may be on two prosthetic legs, but he blazed through Boston on Monday to set the new Boston Marathon course record in the double amputee below the knees category. The 35-year-old ran the race in 2 hours, 42 minutes and 24 seconds to beat the previous record of 2 hours, 42 minutes and 53 seconds set by Richard [...]
There's no doubt runners move fast, but that goes beyond the roads, too. Take, for example, the community of runners in Nebraska who organized the Nebraska Strong Run in less than a week, and raised more than $163,000 for flood relief in the state. After a "bomb cyclone" devastated the Midwest and caused more than $1 billion of flood damage [...]
In 2017, Kayleigh Williamson made history by becoming the first person with Down syndrome to finish the Austin half-marathon. Now she's a seasoned pro. The 28-year-old didn't only run her third straight Austin Marathon. She crushed it. After finishing the 13.1-mile course in 6 hours, 22 minutes and 57 seconds the first year and 4 hours and 36 minutes the [...]
Holocaust survivor Nat Shaffir, 81, didn't start running until he was 65, but when he did, he discovered something magical: The sport gives him the endurance to share his life story. Shaffir gives tours of the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C., and tells visitors about his life, which started in Romania, but suddenly took a major turn. "One of our [...]
There's stamina, and then there's the kind of endurance Jasmin Paris throws down. The 35-year-old veterinarian at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland not only won the 268-mile Montane Spine Race outright, but she beat the course record, which was set by a man, by 12 hours. Add in the fact that Paris pumped breast milk for her 14-month-old daughter, [...]
