Harriette Thompson, 92, completed Sunday's Rock 'n' Roll Marathon in San Diego in 7 hours, 24 minutes, 36 seconds, becoming the oldest woman to finish a marathon.
She started in her 70s, after a member of her church approached her about being one of her sponsors in the marathon to raise money to fight leukemia and lymphoma.
"At that time I had lost several
people in my family to cancer and I said, 'Oh, maybe I should do that,"
she recalled. "When I got out there the first year I just planned to walk
it, but everybody else was running so I started to run with them."
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This was her 16th Rock 'n' Roll
Marathon and, by far, the hardest.
"It's always harder but this year
has been a bad year for me," she said, adding her husband died in January
following a lingering illness and she battled a staph infection in one of her
legs.
"I couldn't train very well
because my husband was very ill and I had to be with him for some time and then
when he died in January I had some treatments on my leg," she said.
"I was just really thrilled that I could finish today."
She isn't sure if she'll run again next year. But after last year's race she wasn't sure she'd run this one either.
She added she enjoys raising money for cancer research and figures the competition has helped keep her healthy.
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