She was 86, only started running after retirement in her late 50s, and completed countless Marathons since then. A Full Marathon is about 42km in distance, an average regular Marathoner takes about 5-6 hours to complete a FM. Slightly more ambitious ones will aim for sub 4 hrs. Professional runners? Probably 2-3 hrs!
Joy Johnson completed her 25th New York City Full Marathon in closed to 8 hours at the age of 86 a few days ago. She fell when she was half way through but insisted on completing the run despite suffering a knock on her face and head.
She woke up fine the next morning, attended a brief interview at a morning show - something she had been doing annually after the race. She went to rest after the event but never woke up.
"I want to die running" she once said.
I think she had no regrets leaving this world. She had lived a full life. "Many people my age are in wheelchairs, I'm just so thankful that I can still get up and run everyday" she said in a recent interview.
And here I am, don't even have any guts to try completing Full Marathon and I'm already thinking about slowing down, I'm not even half her age!
Read more about Joy Johnson - http://blogs.wsj.com/dailyfix/2013/11/05/joy-johnson-86-dies-after-finishing-new-york-city-marathon/
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