30-01-2025
Boston Marathon runners are speeding along well into their 70s. I tried to keep up with one.
The Olympic motto is 'faster, higher, stronger.' But they should think about adding 'older' to the list. Because as people are living longer, they're also running faster for longer. When a Boston Marathon champion for the men's over 60 division was first recognized in 1978, the winner clocked 3:07. In 2024, the winning time was 2:48.
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If you're not a runner, let me explain something: That's really fast. In my wildest dreams, I could never run a 2:48 marathon.
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The qualifying times for senior athletes are getting faster, too. Boston is unlike the other major marathons because most of its entry spots go to athletes who achieve a qualifying time. Securing this qualifying time is the ultimate bragging right for a non-elite runner. And it doesn't let up for age group categories. The qualifying times for seniors have dropped by 5 minutes over the past decade.
And the competition can be fierce.
I first meet Dawn Ebbetts on a brittle winter morning in Exeter, New Hampshire. The sky is a flawless, pristine blue. Cloudless and unblemished. It's cold. The kind of cold that would deter a lot of runners and keep them on their couches or in bed. But not Dawn. Before she met me, she got up and ran 12 miles. And with me, she'll run another 4 without breaking a sweat.
We set out along a path that banks the Squamscott River, the snow crunching under our heels. I wanted to meet Dawn because she is the reigning Boston Marathon champion of the women's 70-74 age group. Her winning time was 3:46 (that's 4 minutes faster than my own personal best), and she plans to defend her crown and go even faster this year. I wanted to run with Dawn to see if she could help me understand how senior athletes are running faster, and for longer. I was also just curious to find out if I could keep up.
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When Dawn first started running, it was the late 1970s and the start of the aerobics boom. She bought a book on how to run: It advised to walk from one telephone pole to the next, then to run from one to the next, until your lungs and legs are strong enough to carry you farther.
Back then, Dawn wasn't thinking about winning races. She just wanted to look good.
'I made a cute little outfit. It was terry cloth. Baby blue. I sewed a red stripe down the leg. I knew nothing about running,' she says. 'But I wanted to look adorable.'
Dawn still puts a lot of thought into her running outfits. The day we meet, she's decked out entirely in black Tracksmith gear and a pair of wraparound shades. She's so well dressed, and her outfit so well curated, that it looks like she has a brand deal (she doesn't).
Marathons, and the long brutal training they require, didn't interest her at first. Running was a hobby. Something she did to clear her mind and fill her lungs. 'Six miles to me was a long run,' she says.
She ran her very first race with a friend around Lake Massabesic in Manchester. A couple of miles in, Dawn suddenly realized that she had gotten out in front and lost her friend — so she turned back.
'What are you doing?'
her friend hissed when Dawn found her. 'You're supposed to go and finish!'
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After that, Dawn hopped into a few local 5K and 10K races here and there, placing a few times, but that was it. Then, after raising two kids and retiring from her job working in an elementary school, Dawn joined a running club and was suddenly surrounded by marathon runners. Surrounded by people steeped in the lore of 26.2, with their black toenails, and blisters, and heroic tales of extreme chafing. Marathon runners — and I say this as one of them — are like goalkeepers, mountaineers, and drummers. Total lunatics.
Dawn resisted for a while.
'I'm like, I'm never going to run a marathon. The training's too much,' she says. But the lunatics wore her down. 'You just get talked right into it.'
Dawn made her marathon debut at age 69. She'd heard the stories about what runners call 'hitting the wall.' It's the part of a marathon where you go farther than you ever do in training and reach a kind of no-man's land where you don't have a clue how your body will react. Will it endure, or will it capitulate?
'I felt fine,' Dawn says.
A few miles into my run with her on that icy New England morning, I notice that her form is near perfect. She moves with her head high, arms relaxed, breathing measured. There's a lot of science that suggests the optimal number of strides per minute is 180. For me, that's almost impossible. I had to start listening to music that's 180 beats per minute just to get close (for the record, most of that music is made by Pitbull). I ask Dawn what her cadence is and she tells me it's always 180. It never wavers. The woman's a metronome.
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Dawn Ebbetts running the Boston Marathon in 2024, when she won the 70‑74 age group.
Sarah Stafford
She first ran Boston in 2024. And when she toed the start line, winning wasn't on her mind. And that was partly because she had no idea who she was running against.
When the elite runners set off at Boston, they all line up together. And when the race gets going, they know who's ahead of them, who's behind, and who's on their shoulder. It's not the same for competitive age-group runners like Dawn. First of all, there's no list of competitors ('I don't know who's going to show up,' she says. 'I wish that they would let everybody know who the 70-year-old women were.')
In the throngs of a major marathon, there's a good chance Dawn won't ever see who she's competing with, let alone know whether she's in the lead.
Last year, 'I just kept plodding along, plodding along,' she says. 'I don't even think I ever looked at my watch. I was just focused on running.' When she crossed the finish line, Dawn was satisfied. She'd finished Boston. Made it up Heartbreak Hill.
In the car on the way home, her husband suggested checking to see where she placed in her age group. Dawn scoffed. 'I'm just like,
There's no way,
' she says. 'I'm going to be like 200th, you know?'
But when she checked, she realized she had won. She was the 70-74 age group champion. 'I'm still astonished,' she says.
Like all the great champions — LeBron James, Tom Brady, pre-disgrace Lance Armstrong — one title is not enough for Dawn. She wants to win again. And, just like the aforementioned athletes, she's using science to boost her performance and longevity.
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'Protein bars, eggs, electrolytes,' Dawn lists. There's more: She wears a running watch that tracks all of her data, and she takes creatine supplements to help gain muscle mass, and collagen supplements to support her joints. Dawn races in the latest Nike super-shoes, equipped with energy-returning foam and carbon plates. She's just as optimized as any younger amateur athletes (or the kind of men who host podcasts and shill green juice powder).
This type of preparation also helps her body be more resilient to injuries. And, again, just like the great champions, Dawn is no stranger to battling back from adversity. She tells me that in the early '90s she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and doctors told her to stop running. And she did, for about five years. Finally, she says, 'I missed running so much that I'm like,
That's it. I don't care. I'm going to start running again.
So I did.'
Given her history of injuries, I ask Dawn how it feels to still be running marathons in her 70s. 'I was thinking about that the other day,' she says. 'I live near a retirement village.' She looks at some of the residents, she says, and thinks 'Maybe they used to run and now they can't run anymore.
'So I am very aware of how lucky I am to be healthy at this age and be able to do this.'
I say to Dawn that it's possible a lot of the people watching her run from inside the retirement home are a similar age. 'They could be,' she says. And then she tells me this: 'I run with a friend of mine. We kid with each other and we say we're running because death is right behind us. And we're going to keep running because we don't want it to catch us.'
Dawn and I finish our run together. She easily holds a conversation throughout, and doesn't seem to break a sweat. We stretch out our hamstrings and our calves and our thighs. And then she gives me a ride to the train station.
In the car I ask Dawn a question so basic that, once it tumbles out, I immediately feel embarrassed for having asked.
'What's it like to get older?' I say.
She pauses for a moment, and, eyes still on the road ahead, Dawn tells me that after a certain point she began to feel invisible. 'I could rob a bank and nobody would ever notice,' she says.
I ask if running makes her more seen.
'I guess so,' she says. 'In the realm of running.' And I'm not sure if that answer speaks to her modesty. Or the reality of getting older.
For me, the pain started last year. A stabbing feeling in my right hamstring that migrated to my left knee. I went to see a physiotherapist who specializes in treating runners. She had me run on a treadmill and filmed me from a range of angles. I'm going to summarize the findings of her assessment in non-scientific terms: I'm a lousy runner. All of my fundamentals are off. Duck feet, weak hips, overstriding. Biomechanically, I'm a total disaster.
But I keep going. I have to keep going.
Among other reasons, I'm having a baby this summer. A little girl. She'll be my first. And when she arrives, I'll be 42 years old — an old father. So for me it's less about lowering any personal records, and more about being there for my kid. Being able to play catch. Kick a ball. Squat to pick up Lego blocks for as long as she needs me.
I'm at the point where I'm starting to tell people outside of my inner circle about the pregnancy. I just let my manager know, and my manager's manager, and HR. And then I tell a source from a story: Dawn. She has two kids, and I thought she might be able to give me some good advice on staying active and healthy during the heavy parenting years. Dawn told me to get a jogger, bundle my baby up, and get out there. Keep stacking miles. 'I had always been running before them and I just tried to keep running with them,' she says. 'That's what you do. You just find ways of doing it.'
I tell her I will.
And she'll know whether I'm true to my word or not. Dawn is a power user of
Before meeting up with the writer, Dawn Ebbetts had already run 12 miles that day. She ran another 4 with Nelson.
George Annan Jr. for the Boston Globe
I can't stress how motivating having a Boston Marathon age-group winner monitoring your training is.
The other day, it snowed. I looked out of my bedroom window and wondered if I should stay at home. Brew some tea and watch Netflix. I sent Dawn a text.
Do you run in the snow?
Yes, she replies.
Does that mean I should stop being a baby?
Yes, she replies.
I ran 10 miles that day.
I didn't want to let myself down. And I didn't want to let Dawn down, either.
