A 99-year-old great grandmother has earned a place in the record books by running the 100m in 59.8 seconds. Usain Bolt must be shitting himself. New Yorker Ida Keeling is the first woman in her age group to crack one minute – known in football circles as “the Lampard barrier” – and came in 48 seconds behind the winning runner at the Gay Games event at the University of Akron.
We’re not sure which is more impressive – her speed, or the fact that she’s over 90 and supportive of the gay lifestyle (although it’s possible she thinks it’s just the “Happy” Games).
“I feel like a puppy,” beamed Ida after the race. “I feel younger now than when I was in my 30s and 40s … Every year I am going to keep doing what I am doing, and when running time comes, if I feel I am ready, I will go at it.”
Keeling took up running when she was 67, in part as refuge from the sadness of losing her two sons in separate drug-related killings. She started the sport at the urging of her daughter, Shelley Keeling, who is now her coach.
The pace-setting pensioner turns 100 in May and hopes to break more records. Her secret to staying young and swift?
“Do what you need to do, not what you want to do and don’t leave out your daily exercise,” she said. “Love yourself.”
“Do what you need to do, not what you want to do and don’t leave out your daily exercise,” she said. “Love yourself.”
“I’m running from old age and arthritis,” Keeling said while filling her cholostomy bag. “Believeme!”
The previous fastest run from an old woman came in 2008 when Wayne Rooney was trying out chat-up lines at the Manchester Women’s Institute.

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