For centenarian runners, getting into the sport is often less about defying age than about having a second or third act, a chance at reinvention — after grief, retirement or upheaval.
Many of those covered in The New York Times picked up running late in life. They ran for joy, the pleasure of competing, a sense of discipline or a feeling of liberation, sharing an uncommon drive that kept them going to 100 and beyond.
We’re remembering the lives of a few of those athletes after Lester Wright, who was believed to have set a record for the 100-meter dash in 2022, died on April 20 at 103.
1916-2024
Julia Hawkins
Julia Hawkins, who took up running after her 100th birthday, set world records in the 100-meter dash, earning the nickname Hurricane. Her secret to life, she said, was keeping busy.
She raised a family, taught in Honduras for a year, became a competitive cyclist in her 80s, did her own yardwork and spent 30 years writing a memoir that she self-published. She also kept unconventional pets, including a monkey and an alligator. She died in 2024 at 108. Read her obituary.
1911-2025
Fauja Singh
Running gave Fauja Singh new purpose after the deaths of his wife and two of his six children. He began competing when he was said to be in his 80s, running marathons in London, New York and Toronto and appearing in an Adidas ad campaign.
A Sikh, he was known as the Turbaned Tornado. Running, for him, was a spiritual act. “The first 20 miles are not difficult,” he told reporters. “As for the last six miles, I run while talking to God.” Even when he was no longer running marathons, he walked up to 10 miles a day. He died in 2025. Read his obituary.
1919-2019
Ugo Sansonetti
Ugo Sansonetti began running track in his 70s and won numerous medals at World Masters Athletics championship events, breaking several world records.
By then, he had already led an eventful life. He had served as the mayor of his hometown in Italy and spent years in Costa Rica overseeing a settlement founded by Italian migrants. Later, he helped start the Italian division of the frozen-food giant Findus, based in Sweden. At 85, he took part in a zero-gravity flight. He died in 2019 at 100. Read his obituary.
1915-2021
Ida Keeling
Ida Keeling, a civil rights activist, fell into a deep depression after her sons were killed. Her daughter Shelley, a track-and-field coach, suggested running as a form of therapy.
By her late 60s, she had begun racing. In 2011, she set a record for the fastest time in the 60-meter dash by an American woman in the 95-99 age group: 29.86 seconds.
“You see so many older people just sitting around — well, that’s not me,” she told The Times in 2016. “Time marches on, but I keep going.” She died in 2021 at 106.
1915-2020
Don Pellmann
Don Pellmann was the oldest athlete in the San Diego Senior Olympics in 2015, the year he became the first centenarian to break 27 seconds in the 100-meter dash and to clear an official height in the high jump.
That day, the temperature was also around 100, but Pellmann stubbornly refused most offers of water. “I don’t want to drink too much because that will make me take a trip to the restroom,” he told The Times. Gary MacDonald, the event’s track and field commissioner, joked: “Now I know how he got to be 100 — because he has an attitude.” Pellmann died in 2020 at 105.
Amisha Padnani is an obituaries editor and the creator of Overlooked, a series that tells the stories of remarkable people whose deaths were not originally reported by The Times.
The post These Runners Kept Going to 100 or Beyond appeared first on New York Times.
