Tish Hamilton, an Another Mother Runner podcast co-host and frequent contributor to our site, is a veteran of 50+ marathons and the mother of a college-age daughter. Her most recent post was a race report from the marathon she ran in November in Savannah, where she lives. 

Today, February 4th, is my mother’s birthday. She is 97. Wow!

“I’m old,” she said, when we last spoke on the phone. 

Ninety-seven may not be a milestone in the classic sense of birthdays like the double-digit 10, sweet 16, legal 21 of the children we watch grow up. Or the 30, 40, 50+ we ourselves mark (hopefully, luckily). But every birthday after, say, 90 feels worthy of amazement. (Despite the longevity bros trying to sell us on the idea of living to 150.)

Mother walking last spring, when she was just 96.

Mother has the competitive gene: She captained her college field hockey team in the late 1940s, a time when sweating was considered unladylike, embarrassing. When she was in her 70s and keen to play basketball in the Senior Games, she recruited older teammates and ferried them to practice because they no longer drove. Mother didn’t start running until she was in her 60s, and then only because she had to speed up to reach the finish before race organizers broke down the timing clock and packed up the post-race refreshments. 

In one of her first 5Ks in the late 1990s, Mother won her 60+ age group. “Two plane tickets!” she announced in triumph. “Anywhere in the U.S.!” She used them to fly with her friend Charlotte to a bridge tournament in San Diego.

Guess how many medals Mother collected over 30+ years of running? She won mugs, plaques, and trophies, too.

These days lots of “older” folks participate in road races. Participation in the 70+ age group grew 49% between 2019 and 2023, according to Run Signup’s 2023 Race Trends Report. But back in 1979, Libby James had to petition the race directors of the Boston Marathon to accept a woman runner over the age of 40. (Over the age of 40!!)

These days “older” runners clock times that cause observers (read: me) to swoon. Like Jeannie Rice who set the 75-79 age group record in April’s London Marathon with a time of 3:33:27. And of course there’s the astonishing Julia Hawkins, who died in October at age 108 and whose world records in 100 meters led to a new 105-plus age category, according to her New York Times obituary. My dear longest-running long-runner friend, Jodi, is celebrating her milestone 70th birthday by running the Antarctica Marathon. She is traveling there with a friend who is celebrating her 50th.

I am also mindful that running is an activity or sport that is competitive by definition and that invites, celebrates comparison. Setting aside age-group wins for a minute, it’s worth remembering that comparison is the thief of joy, Mittens. (One of my favorite New Yorker cartoons; trigger warning, dead mice; sorry again, Dimity!) Today’s “slow” is tomorrow’s fast. Ultimately, the point is to just keep moving.

Currently, Mother manages to walk about a half-mile most days, accompanied by my sister. It’s been too cold to go outside where they live in Virginia, so they perambulate up and down each of the hallways in Mother’s home. (This is an indoor strategy similar to ones employed by two running friends, living in different parts of the extreme cold, who texted me this week: one pal ran circles around her kitchen island, while the other did laps around her basement. Ha!)

Sister Leslie, Mother, and me at the Senior Games in 2015. We were so much younger then!

“Don’t get old,” Mother says. Well, it’s better than the alternative, right? And what an accomplishment is 97. Each year another milestone.

Happy birthday, Mother!