Oldest Woman to Finish Ironman World Championship in Kona
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An 80-year-old grandmother becomes the oldest woman to finish the Ironman World Championship in Kona, inspiring HN users with her remarkable achievement and late start in triathlons.
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Don’t leave getting fit to your thirties or later. Start now.
I was reasonably athletic, but never tried to "train" or got even close to what peak might have meant, and then continued skateboarding and doing other athletic things throughout my twenties, always being in pretty good shape. Now in my thirties, I'm in my best shape and continuing, it doesn't really matter what my peak hypothetically could have been or where I was at earlier, past is the past, let the good memories stick around, let the bad ones disappear, be present and keep pushing into the future.
Maybe I consider it a blessing that I never tried that hard in my early years, because now I'm not concerned about any ceiling. I let the enjoyment and ambition guide me, not the numbers, who cares.
More info: https://nutskarhunkierros.fi/en/races/83km/
I do want to mention when I said: "surprisingly little training "
I realize now what this sounds like. I want to mention that I did other races to build up my condition to be able to this one (the longest one I ever did).
I also want to mention that it was probably the physically hardest (but most rewarding) thing I've ever done.
It’s also not unusual for ultramarathoners to include speed work early in a training block (see Jason Koop).
The hardest part is finding time for training. For 100k it’s recommended to put in at least 60 miles per week during peak weeks to finish without injury or a lot of suffering.
She is a little older than her cohort life expectancy at birth (which was 78 in the USA in 1945):
https://www.ssa.gov/oact/TR/2011/lr5a4.html
Assessed in 2010 at the age of 65 she might be expected to live to 85. That seems quite likely.
If anything you would have to say it leans towards extending her life because she will not be eating less like elderly people do, she is likely to have excellent venous health, her reaction times must be good, and prosaically she's so physically fit that just that much more likely not to be derailed by a fall. Living at her age starts to be a question of intent but there are loads of really small things that can trigger decline; she is robust against many of them.
What a remarkable woman.
(And assessing the average woman of her age now is not likely to change it that much; AFAIK life expectancy in the USA is actually falling slightly across all age groups)
The issue is, she's not an average woman, at least in terms of physical fitness.
Boring example but an obese woman with type II diabetes her age might already have had one life-threatening fall, may already have other severe health challenges.
Whereas a woman her age with such good vascular health could be delaying the onset of significant vascular dementia by up to a decade, let alone all the other things.
Still, the point I was making is that it is not shortening her life; it's either having no statistical difference or extending it.
yet all the difference for people her age
https://biology.ucdavis.edu/news/how-our-muscles-tendons-and...
This makes you much more resilient not less.
Full triathlon distance has nothing to do with health.
[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32848273/
Of course, mental state is only factor but I do think it is very important - particularly as I've just turned 60!
This gives me some hope about learning some new sports late in my life.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/@RUNLONGAFTER60/podcasts
As for injuries, I have some trouble in my right foot that was due to competing in a 12-hour ruck race on a hilly trail, where we did loops in the same direction. That was May 3rd and it's still giving me a little trouble. I had a different injury in my right foot that was giving me trouble for about two years that I think was due to an aged (about ten years old) orthotic causing hard to diagnose problems that were easy to misdiagnose. I think that trouble is behind me.
One day on little sleep, when I was new to bicycling, I went over my handlebars at over twenty miles an hour, landing on my face. That flat out broke a few teeth and chipped / damaged some others. Last month I had to have six of my front teeth removed, probably due in part to the damage they took on that bike accident, although to be fair, when I was in grad school I drank a lot of sugared coke right out of the bottle and ate away much of the enamel on my upper front teeth, so some of my teeth problems are due to simple negligence.
Oh, and I had an inguinal hernia that was probably due to my rucking. I had mesh put in on one side in 2012. I have continued to ruck competively since. I came in third overall at the Bataan Memorial Death March this year in the male civilian heavy (meaning carrying a 35 pound pack or more) division[0].
[0] https://bataanmemorialdeathmarch.itsyourrace.com/Results/657...
I'm about to start my "Bataan Memorial Death Run" training block and I've put that training plan on GitHub[0]. I also started an mdbook about some of the stuff I've done, but my (then 92 year old) mom had a stroke and it's less than half-baked[1].
[0] https://github.com/ctm/Bataan-Memorial-Death-March/blob/mast... [1] https://ctm.github.io/docs/yld/life/too-public.html
Just when I thought she couldn't be even more awesome.
she has a SUB 7 HOUR half-ironman, that's bonkers
very healthy well-trained 40yo would have a hard time matching that
some people just have excellent genetics and then pair that with excellent training
https://www.athlinks.com/athletes/94494810/results
https://www.npr.org/2025/07/16/nx-s1-5467389/meet-the-oldest...
PS. If you're inspired by this story, this video might be a great watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3J07O6dViHo
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