Sunday’s Sydney Marathon marked seven-for-seven for American masters celebrity Jeannie Rice. The 77-year-old crossed the end line in a powerful 3:37:48 in the course of the occasion’s first yr as an Abbott World Marathon Main, finishing all seven marathon majors and successful her W75-79 class by a astonishing one hour and 21 minutes.
Remarkably, she additionally outpaced all the lads in her age bracket, with the highest male finisher clocking 4:00:52–giving her a lead of greater than 22 minutes. That’s sooner than 5:10/km (or 8:19/mile tempo) over 42.2K.
Hideko sato-fraser of Japan took second within the W75-79 division in 4:59:30, whereas Eva Seidlova of Slovakia ran 5:11:53 for third.
An esteemed masters runner
Rice, an Ohio native, has now received her age class in any respect seven World Marathon Majors. Simply final April, she shattered her personal W75-79 world report on the London Marathon, working 3:33:27 to win her division by half-hour, along with beating the lads by 11. One yr earlier, on the USATF Masters Monitor and Area Nationwide Championships, she had rewritten the report books on the monitor as effectively, breaking the ladies’s 75-79 world data within the 1,500m, 5,000m and 10,000m.
She additionally holds the ladies’s 70-74 marathon report of three:27:50, which she set in 2018 at 70. In 2023, Rice even ran 3:33:15 on the Boston Marathon (10 seconds sooner than her present W75-79 world report) however Boston’s point-to-point, net-downhill course makes it ineligible for report functions.
The very best W75+ VO2 max in historical past
Simply six days after her world-record run in London, Rice travelled to an an train lab in England to endure a sequence of assessments like treadmill work, physique composition evaluation and soar assessments. Earlier this yr, the fundings have been printed as a case examine within the Journal of Utilized Physiology. Researchers reported that Rice recorded a VO2 max of 47.8–the best ever measured in a lady aged 75 or older–together with an unexpectedly excessive most coronary heart charge of 180 bpm.
76-year-old girl units spectacular world report at London Marathon
This previous summer time, Rice additionally posted a string of standout performances over a lot shorter distances: in July, she ran 39:56 on the Johnnycake Jog 5-miler (8K), 24:06 from the Friday Evening Lights 5K, and 23:04 at Ohio’s Rock Corridor 5K in mid-August.
Rice spends half the yr coaching in her hometown of Mentor, Ohio, earlier than heading to Naples, Fla., every winter.
