“I didn’t start running until I was 51 years old. I was a wimp...

“I didn’t start running until I was 51 years old. I was a wimp at the time. A nothing. My marriage had fallen apart. I was only seeing my children on the weekends. I wasn’t sleeping well. I was waking up at 5:30 AM every morning, probably after a long night of drinking, and so I decided that I might as well go for a walk. As I walked around the park, I’d always see these runners out there. So I decided to give that a try. After a few weeks I could run six miles. After a year, I tried to run a marathon. I hit a wall at the twenty-mile mark, but I threw up and took a leak, then I found the energy to finish. I’ve been pushing through walls ever since. I ran sixteen marathons in seventeen years, until my doctor told me that I had to stop because of my heart. After that, I started walking ten miles a day. Now I’m 91 and my kneecap keeps collapsing, and I have trouble with my balance. But I’m still more confident than I ever was when I was younger. I was a wimp.”