US woman, 95, sets new 60m-sprint record after training in her hallway
By ANITuesday, February 22, 2011
LONDON - A woman in the US has set a new 60m-sprint record at the age of 95.
Pensioner Ida Keeling, from New York, set a new world best for her age group with a time of 29.86 seconds on the track, and she did it while running alongside girls a quarter of her age.
“I feel like a puppy. I feel younger now than when I was in my 30s and 40s,” the Daily Mail quoted her as saying.
The 4ft6 former factory worker, who weighs just 83 pounds, decided to take up running at the age of 67 after her lawyer daughter, who coaches track and field at a nearby high school, convinced her to give it a try.
Keeling, whose husband died of a heart attack at the age of 42, and who lost her sons Charles and Donald to drug-related killings in 1979 and 1981, found refuge in running.
She trains in the corridors of her Bronx apartment block, lifts weights and cycles on an exercise bike, and prefers to eat her evening meal, a fish, hamburger, or liver, for breakfast.
“Gives me fuel for the day,” she stated.
She is determined to keep running as long as possible, and to outlive her grandmother, who survived until the age of 104.
“Every year I am going to keep doing what I am doing, and when running time comes, if I feel I am ready, I will go at it,” she added. (ANI)
