Reading. 100-YEAR OLD MARATHON RUNNER (Pre-Int)

100-YEAR OLD MARATHON RUNNER

Although British marathon runner Fauja Singh is 100 years old, there is no sign of him slowing down. In fact, he is now training harder than ever. Fauja has broken all the records in his age group, including many marathons, and has won lots of medals. But the most impressive thing of all is that Mr Singh only started running at the age of 89! He is the fittest he has ever been and one of the oldest marathon runners in the world.

Fauja was born in Punjab, India in April 1911 and spent most of his life working as a farmer. As a young boy he was very fit and enjoyed running, but never thought about running competitively until he moved to England 20 years ago. He became bored with his inactive lifestyle and wanted to get fit, so he hired a personal trainer to help him.

Once Mr Singh began training, he was taking part in races against other people of his age. Before he knew it, he was fit enough to run marathons. The first marathon he ran took him six hours and 54 minutes, which was the fastest anyone of his age has ever run in the race. Fauja is planning to take part in the London Marathon later this year and wants to beat the world record for his age group. He first ran it in six hours and two minutes when he was 89, but he wasn’t happy with his time. Fauja says he is going to run much faster this time, as he is fitter now.

Fauja hasn’t been injured very often, but he has to do a lot of stretches and warm-up exercises so he doesn’t injure himself. He also has to eat healthily and run every day to keep fit.

Fauja’s passion in life is to raise money for charity and to keep on running as long as he can. He runs 10 miles every day and says the secret of his success is eating healthy vegetarian meals, drinking lots of ginger tea and thinking positively. He believes that the first 20 miles of a marathon are the easiest, but after that you need lots of determination.