77 Year Old Korean-American Woman Sets World Records in Distance Running

It is amazing how fast her run times are at her age:

At 76 years old, Jeannie Rice is still setting age group world records and altering what we thought we knew about aging and running. She currently owns the world record for every distance between the 1500 meters and the marathon. It’s not just that Rice is fast for her age—and just plain speedy, full stop. She’s also not seeing the decline in speed you’d typically expect for a septuagenarian runner. That’s why, when UK-based researchers learned that Rice would be racing the London Marathon last April, they pounced on the opportunity to study what biomarkers and physical characteristics set her apart from her peers.

Six days after she set a new age-group world record in the marathon, running a time of 3:33:27 (averaging 8:08 miles), Rice agreed to visit an exercise lab in England where she underwent body fat measuring, treadmill testing, and other running and jumping assessments. In the resulting case report, which was published last month in the Journal of Applied Physiology, the authors shared that Rice has the highest V02 max (47.8) ever recorded for a woman aged 75 years or older, and a surprisingly high max heart rate of 180.

Runner’s World

You can read more at the link, but even more amazing is that she started running at age 35 to lose weight after a visit to her native South Korea. Since then she progressed to being able to run 50 miles a week to maintain her current fitness level.