When Ida Keeling crouched at the starting line for the 100 metres shortly before her 101st birthday, she had already rewritten nearly every expectation about ageing. The New York-born sprinter became the first woman aged 100 or older to complete a 100-metre race in sanctioned competition, crossing the finish line at the Penn Relays in Philadelphia in April 2016 before a crowd of more than 44,000 spectators. Her achievement made headlines around the world, but the race itself was only the latest chapter in a story that had begun decades earlier after devastating personal loss. Keeling did not take up running until she was 67, when her daughter, veteran track coach Shelley Keeling, persuaded her to join a local 5K to help cope with the murders of her two sons. What began as a way to ease overwhelming grief gradually evolved into a career that produced multiple age-group world records and made Keeling one of the oldest competitive athletes in history. According to The Washington Post , Keeling often described running as the activity that helped pull her out of what she called a “deep hole” after losing her sons.
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