> It was her 11th Ironman race despite not learning to swim until she was 59 and not starting triathlons until she was 60.
This gives me some hope about learning some new sports late in my life.
I started programming professionally at 16. I ran my first mile at 46. I'm 62 now and have run quite a bit. There's a very good (IMO) podcast that is mostly interviews of runners over 60[0]. At least one of his early interviews was with a woman who also finishes Ironmans. Disclosure, I'll be interviewed a week from today, although I don't know when it'll be published.
What kind of exercise do you do or have done besides running? And if not too personal, what injuries do you have? Cheers.
Funny you should ask. I do my core exercises on Tuesdays and Thursdays and read Hacker News while I'm doing my unweighted squats. "Normally", I run Monday through Saturday and ride my bike on Sundays, with the aforementioned core work done in addition to my Tuesday and Thursday runs.
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
D'oh! I didn't think to mention that I do serious rucking, because I tend to think of that as running, because I actually run when I ruck. Most ruckers don't.
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...
An 80 year old also completed Badwater ultra (135 mile run in Death Valley in the summer).
https://www.npr.org/2025/07/16/nx-s1-5467389/meet-the-oldest...
Grabow worked as a software engineer.
Just when I thought she couldn't be even more awesome.
I know right? And given her age, she was a developer in the 1980s. When she finally passes, they're going to cut her open and just find a big sack of grit.
Both the article title and body mention that she is a grandmother. Why is this relevant for running an ironman? Is it much harder or easier for grandmothers than for mothers with no grandchildren? I don't think so. Whas there a special category in this race for grandmothers? I don't think so. Then why?
Why is being a grandmother more important to mention than e.g. party affiliation, religion, favorite soap opera, diet and mental health?
Are you not a human too? I am, I can see why they want to highlight that, obviously "grandmother finishes ironman" is more "newsworthy" than "mother finishes ironman", and obviously not because her daughter had children of her own, but because it's implied she's old and people see the old as frail, and she proving she is anything but frail.
"Grandmother" is more important than all of those other things, because of the whole "old+frail" thing usually makes people not participate in ironman challenges, at least where I live, and none of those other things implies anything of the sort.
Not everything is a scientific journal, and people with hearts like "feel good stories", even the stories with a bit of flowery language to really drive home some of the points. It's OK.
It's a kind of context about the person's life, since this is a local community publication, not a news wire service. One that is palatable to a wider audience than religion or political affiliation for a feel-good story like this. Though if she had no loving family and were engaged in the church, that is what I would have next expected to hear about since she is retired. If not retired, I would have expected a blurb about her job instead.
There's also a good chance, since she was interviewed, that that's how she described herself first.
"Tell me about yourself."
"Well, I'm a grandmother..."
It means she had normal life and achieved that so can you
You want to know her party affiliation? My god we are so cooked.
It's a human interest story.
Why are you so concerned by this? People commonly describe children as their greatest accomplishment, and it’s the only one of the ones you listed which doesn’t change back over time. The writer was trying to humanize the subject and that’s a very common way to describe someone in a relatable, non-intimidating manner.
Childbirth and pregnancy can be significant hurdles for some women in staying healthy- it's good to inspire people
This is such a silly thing to be upset about...
That's incredible. Especially the swim ...
PS. If you're inspired by this story, this video might be a great watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3J07O6dViHo
If you're 80 years old and still able to finish ironman, I wonder how many additional years of expected lifespan this gives you, statistically.
I think in later years a lot has to do with mental state as much as physical state - I've known people who died in their 70s from what appeared to be a lack of will to stay alive but I also know people in their 90s who seemed determined to live as long as possible.
Of course, mental state is only factor but I do think it is very important - particularly as I've just turned 60!
Or is it too much and more likely to take from you? I wonder if the fitness benefits or offset by so much stress on joints.
It obviously depends on intensity, and is sometimes described as reverse J-curve[1] relationship. Moderate exercise helps, while intense exercise diminishes these benefits and might also increase mortality risk.
I'd expect your lungs, cardiovascular system and bones to contribute much more to your life expectancy than your joints. And all of those benefit from stress (if given sufficient recovery periods, especially for the bones).
Leonid Boguslavsky started triathlon at 62 and had two femoral neck fractures because of it. He's now 74. I think he also has a knee prosthesis now.
Full triathlon distance has nothing to do with health.
The Oct-2025 National Geographic has an an article entitled How to age like an athlete. It has stories like that of Nora Langdon, 82 YO woman, that started powerlifting in her 60s. She set personal records in her 70s of 203lbs bench press, 381lbs dead lift, and 413lbs squat. Heavy exercise doesn’t appear to have negatively impacted lifespan in her or others in the article.
As long as you’re training responsibly your body adapts and builds a ‘base’ over time.
This makes you much more resilient not less.
For a woman of 80 in 2025 you can already say it is making no real difference in terms of statistical outcome so it's at least not obviously taking from her.
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.
Life expectancy at birth is different from life expectancy at given age. Each year you manage to survive after birth increases your current life expectancy, because you already managed to avoid all causes of death up to that point.
Yes, I amended my comment but it's still pretty solid. Her average life expectancy assessed at age 65 would have been 85.
(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)
> And assessing the average woman of her age now is not likely to change it that much
The issue is, she's not an average woman, at least in terms of physical fitness.
She's a hell of an anecdatum but she's still an anecdatum.
Assuming no lying or cheating, the plural of anecdote is existence proofs.
Obviously there is some training here and kudos to the lady, but no doubt her genetical baggage is giving her some advantage here. She's got older not because she's training, she's able to train and perform at this level in spite of being older.
It's entirely possible training has extended her life already.
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.
no difference for the young
yet all the difference for people her age
I wokeup to read this and I am inspired. I am a late starter, could barely run for 5 minutes, but now I can do 5 miles. I was thinking to myself few days back, "how can people run a marathon and 100K run". After learning about this lady, I think if I try , I can as well.
Marathon and ultra are different paradigms, for ultra all you need to do is get a heart rate monitor and try running at zone 2 as long as you can, the most difficult part is probably refueling, eating enough calories while preventing stomach cramps. Marathoners chase speed cos 42km/26miles is not that much if you are acclimated, which leads to a lot more interval/tempo/threshold training.
Ultra typically has much more vert, if you don’t strength train or train downhills your quads get destroyed. It gets to the point where you want uphills because the downhills are all pain.
It’s also not unusual for ultramarathoners to include speed work early in a training block (see Jason Koop).
It takes time and I encourage runners of any level to start thinking about running, if they like it, in yearlong blocks with annual goals. My longest race to day is a 30 mile trail ultra. Ive done a variety of sports all my life so the fitness base was there. Then I committed to specifically training for that distance. Truth be told - as long as your training is consistent, intentional and you want it, eating is the hardest part. By far. 100k is a different beast altogether. It takes a community to tackle 24-30 hours of ruunning!
I ran my first ultra in the past month (55k, 7000ft vert). A year ago I didn’t run at all but I’ve always done strength training.
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.
I almost thought I couldn't run more than 6km without getting knee problems. But now I run +10km without issues. I just needed to run often enough, have patience and not run when the body clearly told me to stop.
I've run an 83k with surprisingly little training or background. I obviously worked up slowly to get there. But it is very doable for anybody.
That’s impressive, how much vert?
imho her half-ironman times are exponentially more impressive
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
From the title I assumed this was about using exoskeletons.
is the fact that she had child(ren) who themselves had child(ren) noteworthy?
Yes, it is, because the current mainstream discourse treats childbearing and achievement as mutually incompatible. I think it explains part of the fertility crash. This is a cute counterexample to the mainstream view.
Economic factors of childbearing overwhelmingly account for reasons why people dont have children - not personal achievement.
I was wondering the same thing. My mom was once assaulted by an anti-protestor and our newspaper published an article about it (slow news day maybe?). The article mentioned that she was a grandmother of 20. I thought it was a sort of strange and insignificant thing to mention an article about an assault.
I think in the context of an athletic accomplishment, being a grandmother does have some small significance because raising children does often hamper one's ability to stay fit during that period of their life. Her personal fitness during her 30s probably contributed to her success in her 80s.
The toll that children and grandchildren (by caretaking, which is common) take on a human female is significant, so yes.
yes, in fact If she was asked about her greatest achievements I would bet she would say having (grand)children.
Makes me feel pretty pathetic that I probably can't even run a mile un under 12 mins, if that.
The mind can be so powerful.. age is just a #
If you trained when you were younger, you’ll know this is complete BS. My performance as I age is on a steady downward slope. Recovery is noticeably worse, diet is becoming more important to maintaining a stable weight.
Don’t leave getting fit to your thirties or later. Start now.
I've had a concept 2 rowing machine for almost 20 years, so I (automatically) have a detailed record of every workout for two decades. N=1, but for me at least, I have clear evidence that the same level of effort does not produce the same result as you get older. onsistent effort does produce results at any age (that I've reached at least).
The point of saying that is to inspire people to just start trying now. People cannot choose to become younger.
Yeah, I only started taking fitness seriously at 39. I'm now 41, and I'm glad I did, I might be in the best shape of my life.