Fitter After 50

But wait! In 1982, at the age of 59, she entered the Hawaiian Ironman Triathlon (the epic swim, bike, and run-a-marathon competition). In 1989, now a 66-year-old grandmother of 9, she completed the Grand Slam of 100-mile mountain-trail runs (the Vermont 100, the Wasatch 100, Colorado’s Leadville 100, and the Western States 100); plus one more to grow on, the Angeles Crest 100, all in just a 16-week time period. In 1995, in her prime at 72, she ran the Marathon Des Sables, a grueling 145-mile stage race across the Sahara Desert in Morocco; then just 2 weeks later (with hardly time to catch her breath), she competed in AND finished the first annual Eco Challenge, in Utah, a 370-mile multi-sport, multi-day, race (including horseback riding, canoeing, and rock climbing -- 1200-foot vertical cliffs) in which over half the competitors (most just half her age) could not complete this rugged event.

Who is this marvel? Her name is Helen Klein. Helen makes us reexamine our old, outdated beliefs about aging. Helen proudly says to us, through her actions and awe-inspiring accomplishments, that the decline we associate with getting older may be highly exaggerated -- to our detriment.

Helen has unquestionably become fitter after 50. She can show us what gave her 23 injury and illness-free years of competition, years in which she set more than 75 age-group, American and world records. These included her 100-mile world record -- 21:03:01 (21 hours and 3 minutes); her 54 marathons and 130 ultra-marathons (including 5 and 6-day race events); her winning the coveted Arete Award for courage in sports; and her being named Runner’s World magazine’s Woman of the Century (100-mile racing, that is).

Let’s look at how an un-athletic Helen Klein went from emergency-room nurse to world-champion athlete, all after the age of 55. Like many readers of this book, maybe even you, before that first 10-mile race, Helen didn’t like the idea of getting all sweaty from running. She was so embarrassed by just the idea of her neighbors and friends (yes, and even total strangers) seeing her running around town, that she had her husband measure out a one-fifth mile "track" in their backyard where she could run in relative obscurity, in preparation for that first 10-miler. In addition, she thought that running a race was a crazy way for one to spend his or her time; and she regarded walking as a plenty good means of locomotion. However, once she commits to something, anything, even something as insane as giving Norm her word that she would train for and run a 10-mile race with him, there is no turning back.

Her first training session, she could only do two laps around the homemade track, and she told me, "I thought I would die!" The next day she added another lap and found that it was not quite so exhausting. With this experience, she decided to add a lap each day for the several weeks of training. In 10 weeks Helen was ready for the race. She and her husband, Norm, completed the 10-mile race in 2 hours (a 12-minute-mile pace), not exactly a gold medal performance. But, she did get a T-shirt, a trophy (she was the only woman in her age-group), and her picture in the paper (crossing the finish line), which she thought was "cool." Most importantly, she experienced the satisfaction of having completed a difficult challenge.

Norm wanted to keep racing and so Helen sort of got dragged into the running scene, first as a cheerleader for her husband and then as a runner herself (if you are going to be at the races, you might as well run in them -- it makes the time go faster). Eventually she got caught up in the challenge of seeing if she could run this distance and that distance; this race and that race, with their differing obstacles and challenges; and "violá!" a world champion was born. But, why the great success?