90 y/o woman training for 5th marathon (Read 895 times)

http://www.kitv.com/cnn-news/18048676/detail.html ------------------- HONOLULU -- Thousands of runners are training for the Honolulu Marathon, which is in three weeks. KITV's Dick Allgire met a 90-year-old great-grandmother who is training to set a world record. Gladys Burrill is in training for her fifth Honolulu Marathon. In 2003 Burrill saw the fireworks at the start of the marathon from her lanai, and thought: "How exciting! I should do that." So she trained in racewalking and now she's going for a record. "Well, I plan to break the world record for women between 90 and 94 years of age," she said. She hopes to finish the marathon in eight hours and 30 minutes. Gladys is nicknamed the Glady-ator. "Oh, it is exhilarating, even though back about a mile you get kind of weary, when the finish line gets in sight it's so exciting," she said. Burrill has been a pilot, she's climbed Mount Hood and has 22 great-grandchildren. Her advice? "It's important to be athletic -- exercise and doing something, walking is the best. Your attitude -- think positive and sometimes it might be hard to think positive, but you just do it." That's not a bad athletic slogan. She'll do it beginning at 5 a.m. Dec 14 when runners line up on Ala Moana Boulevard for the Honolulu Marathon.

I ran in a little race recently and a 78-year old woman was there. The conditions were tough that day and she "only" ran the 5k in 29:22. I see she ran a 27:03 earlier this year. At age 78! There are some tough ol' ladies out there. http://www.athlinks.com/myresults.aspx?rid=26068587

Earlier this month, I ran the Manchester City Marathon in a so-so time (for me) of 3:48. I got beaten by over 3 minutes by a guy who is 81. His 3:45 at 81 is the age equivalent of a 2:17, according to marathonguide's "AG Time" conversion.

I ran in a race yesterday -- 5 miles --- what is amazing to me is to look at all the times for the 60-69 age group......5 miles in 30 mins - 33 mins...one after the other at age 60... My time (Im 56) would have qualified me for 18th place in the 60-69 and 8th place in 60-69 womens category.... There are some tough senior runners out there.........thats for sure...

so....since we are on the topic. I saw an age graded chart somewhere and it showed that women are expected to decline much faster than men in their later years. Do you think that is true, or simply an effect of their being many fewer female senior runners and as us title nine babies age, the curve will be recalculated. Oh I remember what it was...it was the BQ times. The gender gap is held constant by the BAA, but the Age Graded time becomes much tougher for senior women. Like the men for all ages were about 65% and women started out at ~ 60% but by the time they were 80 it was 80% - I cant remember where I saw the chart.

I just can't believe she'll be out there for 8 and a half hours. I have never run even half of that. I have stood up that long before, but never have I ever even walked that long. WOW!

Do you think that is true, or simply an effect of their being many fewer female senior runners and as us title nine babies age, the curve will be recalculated.

That would be my guess. Very few women my age ran at all when we were younger. After all, we were told that if we ran more than a mile the uterus would fall out. And we didn't want to get hot and sweaty and have people accuse us of being lesbians since it was obvious that no girly girl would do such a thing as run. I'm not sure that most of us knew what a lesbian was when we were in high school, but we certainly didn't want to be one. Even if some of us were. Now, you Title 9 babies had much better options than your older sisters.

so....since we are on the topic. I saw an age graded chart somewhere and it showed that women are expected to decline much faster than men in their later years. Do you think that is true, or simply an effect of their being many fewer female senior runners and as us title nine babies age, the curve will be recalculated. Oh I remember what it was...it was the BQ times. The gender gap is held constant by the BAA, but the Age Graded time becomes much tougher for senior women. Like the men for all ages were about 65% and women started out at ~ 60% but by the time they were 80 it was 80% - I cant remember where I saw the chart.

I think you are spot on. I expect by the year 2050 women at age 70+ will have better times than men. The Gilmores (who I linked above) are an example. He runs a 5k in about 31:00 and he's 75 I think. She runs a 5k in 28:00 or 29:00 and she's 78. In most events I look at the women 50+ groups are very thinly populated. In age 60's I bet men would still hold an advantage but by age 70's I think women are naturally more likely to hold onto the ability to run reasonably well.