Almost for 15 years. Seems too long, but it does work for me.
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What has your dosage protocol been?
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Just your typical 72 year old, out for a row…
Source: https://x.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1897315022197678182
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(Loughborough University)
At 77, she’s as fit as a 25-year-old. What her body tells us about aging.
Most runners see substantial performance losses after they turn 70. Not Jeannie Rice, who just turned 77 and ran the Boston Marathon on Monday.
She has broken world women’s records in the 75-79 age group for every distance and, at times, beaten the fastest men in that age group. At the Boston Marathon, according to unofficial results, her time was 4 hours, 27 minutes and 17 seconds. It was very slow for Rice, but she still placed first in her age group.
Researchers are studying Rice to understand how humans can stay fit as they age, regardless of natural ability and the reduced physical activity often seen in older people, said Bas Van Hooren, assistant professor in nutrition and movement sciences at Maastricht University in the Netherlands and one of the study authors.
Rice, a retired real estate agent, proves “it’s never too late to start exercising,” Van Hooren said.
Full article (paywall): https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2025/04/20/healthy-aging-exercise-benefits-jeannie-rice/?utm_campaign=wp_must_reads&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter
Non-paywalled articles on Jeannie Rice:
Six days after she set a new age-group world record in the marathon, running a time of 3:33:27 (averaging 8:08 miles), Rice agreed to visit an exercise lab in England where she underwent body fat measuring, treadmill testing, and other running and jumping assessments. In the resulting case report, which was published last month in the Journal of Applied Physiology, the authors shared that Rice has the highest V02 max (47.8) ever recorded for a woman aged 75 years or older, and a surprisingly high max heart rate of 180.
And a longer interview with Jeannie:
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I may have missed it but did anyone find her actual VO2 max?
Her VO2 max was measured at 47.9 , the highest ever recorded for a woman over 75,” Zanini says. “That would still place her among the best 10 per cent of 20 to 29-year-old females.
Here is the paper: A case report of the female world record holder from 1,500 m to the marathon in
the 75 1 age category
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16.02.This is the best podcast I’ve listened to in a long time. This story, about an 83 year old super athlete, is amazing. I suspect people of all ages may be able to learn something from this guy. I may not want to ever live in a bus, but he does prove that longevity and health can be achieved on a pretty minimal budget.
The limitless mind and body of an 83-year-old super-athlete
“Never let anyone tell you that you’re old,” says Dag Aabaye, an 83-year-old super athlete who defies age. He runs two to six hours daily in B.C.'s Okanagan Valley, where he lives alone on a mountain. For him, running is “life itself." Blizzards, heat waves, even running 24 hours straight
Until he met Aabaye, Brett Popplewell used to dread growing old. But now the sports journalist says he has reframed his thoughts about life, death, and the limits placed on us as we age. Popplewell chronicles Aabaye’s life from childhood to being a stuntman and extreme athlete in his book, Outsider: An Old Man, a Mountain and the Search for a Hidden Past — winner of the 2024 Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction. Last month, Popplewell accepted his literary prize and delivered a public talk at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario.
The speaker here in the podcast has written a book about the guy (10 years ago) - and it sounds really good, so I’m going to read it. Details below:
A video on the guy:
Some stories about Dag:
He doesn’t get lonely up on the mountain, says he’s too busy to. He’s up at 4:30 every morning and his days are filled with running, chopping firewood, reading and clearing his trails.
“It gives you an inner thoughtfulness,” he says. “You become a person that enjoys your own company.”
He eased into this simple life as one might relax into a pair of old boots.
The Book:
British Columbia has long been a magnet for eccentric new settlers with mysterious backgrounds who come here seeking to reinvent themselves. Thanks to an investigative journalist from Ontario, we now have another whose fascinating back story has been captured for the record: Dag Aabye, a ruggedly athletic, 82-year-old mountain man from Norway who lives in a school bus on a forested hillside near SilverStar outside Vernon—a man who, until he was 75, competed as a long-distance runner in the brutal, 125-kilometre Canadian Death Race.
Buy on Amazon: Outsider: An Old Man, a Mountain and the Search for a Hidden Past: Popplewell, Brett: 9781443457859: Amazon.com: Books
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I am such a slacker…
Jerry Leo is more fit than most, even at 100 years old! But holding a 3-minute plank isn’t her only secret to healthy aging.
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Yes. I think his dad was 96
If George Burns did it, I’m sure Tom Cruise can too…
When Men’s Health asked in 2023 how he stays young, he said: “Sea-kayaking, caving … fencing, treadmill, weights … rock-climbing, hiking … I jog … I do so many different activities.”
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This 93 yo Korean looks 50. She is active and working on her passion for education.
Her keys to looking young are hydration, humidifiers, and laser skin treatment. 
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Ha, it was yesterday I saw a clip of Tom Cruise on Jimmy Fallon and I immediately emailed a friend and said I must find out who his surgeon is!!!
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People have posted on this guy previously, and he’s a pretty amazing story. He was running sub-4 hour marathons at age 85. But a year later he was dead from Prostate cancer. So obviously a high VO2Max will only get you so far…
“I do what not to do to an extreme,” Whitlock told Runner’s World back in 2010. “I go out jogging. It’s not fast running, just that I do it for a long time. I don’t follow what typical coaches say about serious runners. No physios, ice baths, massages, tempo runs, heart rate monitors.”
What he did have, according to a New York Times story on the scientists studying Whitlock’s abilities, were a high VO2 max (54), a thin build (5-foot-7, 110 pounds), and good genes. More important, said one scientist, Dr. Michael Joyner of the Mayo Clinic, was Whitlock’s “physical and emotional vigor,” an attitude of curiosity and joy that kept him going (and going) deep into old age.
That’s how it was for Whitlock, who died from, of all things, prostate cancer — one of those illnesses you can outrun for a long time, though never long enough. He certainly seemed to think he could keep going.
Ed Whitlock, who died Monday in Toronto, was not that kind of legend. In fact, he was the opposite. Whitlock was old, and famously so. He was 85 last October when he ran the Toronto Marathon in 3:56:33, becoming the first person in his age group ever to finish under four hours. He was 72 when he finished a marathon in 2:59:10, then cut more than four minutes off that time the following year. His 5K time at age 75 was 90 seconds faster than my own personal best, set when I was several decades younger than he. And those are just a handful of the 22 world records he began setting when he was in his sixties.
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The nub of this is that an aged body can function well. Exercise is a positive, but it can only take you so far.
I think prostate cancer is properly to be described as a disease of aging.
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With today’s screening detection rates for prostate cancer, there is no reason to die from the disease. However, too many people refuse to get tested for it or just ignore it and say that it won’t kill them… until it does.
My grandfather died of prostate cancer. My father detected prostate cancer early and removed it before it got too bad. My father has no trace of cancer 5 years later, although he is no longer able to have an erection. At 78 yo, that’s not too big of a tradeoff.
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Yeah, another reason in my book to keep in mind QOL. If you enjoy exercise, have at it. If not, just do the minimum, since as this case proves (for the millionth time) that exercise won’t save you beyond that minimum. No need to make yourself suffer with endless exercise degrading your quality of life. Just do “enough”, which is not much at all. Stay active, but don’t stress.
Do preventative measures, drugs and diagnostics. That will do more for you than running an extra marathon. Colonoscopies, PSA, CAC, MRI in sensible intervals, nothing extreme. No need to reside full time in the hospital. Get your lipids, glucose, BP under control. Reasonable diet and exercise, have some passions and hobbies, stay active and socially connected. Be a little crazy and eccentric, it expands your mind and psychological capabilities. And enjoy life, as much of it as you get to have. I’m hoping to last a bit longer than 85, but I’ll take what I can get, hope Lady Luck smiles on me.
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