Retired Canberra physiotherapist Jennie Kellett did not set her mind to running long distances until she turned 59.
She'd dabbled in triathlons in her 30s.
"Funnily enough, I was good at cycling, good at swimming and hopeless at running," she said.
Hopeless at running? Not any more.
Now 71, the Hawker grandmother runs marathons all over the globe - and breaks records as she goes.
She's so far claimed five single-age Australian records and holds the 65-69 age-category Australian records in the half marathon, marathon, and 50-kilometre ultramarathon.
Her next challenge is the Sydney Marathon on Sunday, August 30, starting in North Sydney, going across the Harbour Bridge and around Centennial Park and finishing at the Opera House.
"The Sydney Marathon is a hard but very scenic course and finishing in front of the Opera House and Botanic Gardens makes it very special," she said.
Jennie's fastest time in the marathon so far was set in the 2024 Chicago Marathon - three hours, 23 minutes and 19 seconds.
Until a few weeks ago, she was ranked number one in the 70-74 age group for women marathon competitors, but a 70-year-old American woman just beat her record recently, by six seconds.
Her "greatest achievement" so far is the 2025 Comrades ultra-marathon in South Africa, a "down run" of 89.98 kilometres.
She covered the distance in nine hours, 29 minutes, "which was an hour faster than anyone else in that category had ever run".
When she's not tackling marathons, Jennie is busy helping her daughter Shannon run the Wee Jasper Distillery.
Raising a family and establishing her then business, Hawker Place Physiotherapy and Pilates, meant there was not much time for anything else. When she turned 59, things changed when she joined her sister-in-law in an running event in Victoria and finished third.
She then started running Wednesday mornings with a group called Wednesday Westers, who ran the West Basin of Lake Burley Griffin, as well as doing parkruns. Then one of her running mates said she'd gone in the Coast to Kosci 240-kilometre ultramarathon from Twofold Bay near Eden to Charlotte Pass in the alps.
That conversation changed Jennie's mindset.
"I never thought I'd ever run a half-marathon, let along a marathon but after she told me the Coast to Kosci was 240 kilometres, 42 kilometres didn't sound that long," she said, with a laugh.
Jennie's first marathon was in New York in 2017. She's just returned from the 2026 Comrades in South Africa, which this time was an "up" course across 85.8 kilometres.
Jennie's Instagram handle is @runningfromoldage She doesn't fear getting older, but she wants to be as mobile and as active as she can be, for as long as she can be. And she's not about to slow down.
"It's funny because I was told a few years ago when I won the NSW half-marathon for my age that I'd never beat [running legend] Lavinia Petrie's long-standing Australian records," Jennie said.
"Now, I've broken most of them - just the half-marathon for 70 to 74 to go."
