Inspiring Seniors - Grandma Can Kick Your Butt!

by Duncan Rinehart, Ph.D., NBC-HWC, ACSM-CPT

Seniors can be very capable, creative, productive and active, contrary to common media images and popular perceptions. Here are a few examples of what seniors can do and to inspire us at any age to not accept the media images and ageist perceptions.

Some Inspiring Senior Athletes

Fauja Singh – Just 5 weeks shy of his 102nd birthday, he completed his last marathon (26.2 miles). While Fauja ran some as a child in Punjab, India, he returned to running after witnessing the death of his fifth son in 1994. At the age of 89 he turned to running seriously, entering international marathon events. He has set a number of age group records at various distances and events.

Betty Jean McHugh – In 2016, Canadian Betty McHugh finished the Honolulu Marathon in 6 hours and 31 minutes at the age of 88, shattering the previous record by 92 minutes. While she had always been athletic, she only began running seriously at the age of 50.

Paul Freedman – In 2016, at the age of 90, Paul finished the London Marathon. He began running marathons at the age of 69 and continued running even after a heart attack at the age of 79. Through his running, Paul raised over £100,000 for St. Francis Hospice in the UK.

Harriette Thompson – American Harriette Thompson became the oldest female to finish a marathon at the age of 92 in 2015 and completed another run in 2017. And she has beaten cancer twice! Before getting into running at the age of 86 she was a concert pianist.

Sister Madonna Buder – Since 1982, when she was 52 years old, Sister Madonna Buder has completed over 350 triathlons (swim, bike, run races). She holds the current world record as the oldest woman to ever complete an Ironman triathlon which she did at the age of 82. (An Ironman triathlon is a 2.4 mile open-water swim followed by a 112-mile bike race followed by a 26.2-mile marathon run, all non-stop except twice and briefly to transition to the next event.)

Exceptional but not Exceptions

It is easy to see the above examples as anomalies, extreme exceptions. But consider this:

New York City Marathon – Of the 55,643 finishers in the 2024 NYC Marathon, 3,396 were 60 years old or older. That’s over 6% of the finishers. A third of those 60 or over were women, possibly grandmothers. The oldest male finisher was Garth Barfoot from New Zealand who was 88 years old. The oldest female finisher was Tamerra Buckhanan of Illinois who was 80.

Inspiring Creative and Productive

It is not just the athletic achievements of seniors that is inspiring. Seniors can be creative and productive even in their final years. In her book The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul, (2021) Connie Zweig, Ph.D. list some well known examples of people who defy the ageist “peak-and-decline” narrative.

“Verdi and Strauss wrote some of their greatest operas in their eighties and nineties. Georgia O’Keefe, nearly blind, enlisted assistants to help her paint from memory into her nineties. Grandma Moses didn’t even begin painting until she was 78! Boris Pasternak wrote Doctor Zhivago at sixty-six. I. M. Pei designed the pyramid for the Louvre at sixty-six. Frank Loyd Wright designed the Guggenheim Museum in New York at seventy-three. Margaret Atwood published the sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale at age eighty-one. Leonard Cohen released his last album just before his death at age eighty-two. And Bob Dylan, approaching eighty, continues the never-ending tour.” (pp 212-213)

Live Better Longer

You need not run a marathon, finish a triathlon or paint a masterpiece in your “golden years”. But you can be active and productive even through the changes and challenges that come with age. Be inspired! Get motivated! Live better longer!