A fresh start after 60: I ran a 100km ultramarathon at 70 – despite my arthritis
When Ken Campbell's wife, Susan, injured her foot, she needed help joining her running group, so Campbell came with her to keep her company and share recovery. “At first we were just walking,” he says. “And I was heavy. I weighed over 200 pounds [14th 4 pounds or 90 kg]. But as the weeks and months passed, the weight dropped, Susan recovered - and Campbell's abilities increased. At 63, he ran 50km, and at 70, he ran all night to complete a 100km ultramarathon.
Before Susan's injury, Campbell , who is now 71, had last attempted athletics in high school. Even then, he mostly triple jumped. When he was editor at the Sacramento Bee for 20 years, fitness was just about riding a bike to work and using the gym. "I don't like sport," he insists. But that sounds incredible, given his accomplishments. "I wouldn't call it a sport," he says. "I would call it 'an activity'." Campbell is also a jazz guitarist with swing bands.
So how does someone with unprecedented athleticism become an ultra-distance runner in their 60s and 60s? Susan had run marathons before her injury. But for Campbell, the turning point came when Susan's Fleet Feet racing group hit the trails of the Sierra Nevada foothills near their home in Citrus Heights, Calif.
Campbell went out to visit Susan's group, and "the trails were a terrible mess. It had rained. And I was running around in my road shoes. Slipping and slipping and falling. And I was struggling. I was like, well, I like this a lot, but I could do better."
What he loved most was the feeling "of being enveloped by the path, of being embraced by the proximity of the vegetation and the proximity of the river. I was walking where the natives had walked for thousands of years and where miners had walked on their way to gold. coyotes, ospreys and bald eagles. Susan once encountered a bear. Unlike the road race, "to less is miles, you're on your own," Campbell says. "Everyone has their own rhythm."
And there is "the feeling of continuity: the earth to the feet, the air to the lungs, the sky to the vision, the heart blood supplying an effort that has no purpose beyond the next step through root or stone".
Campbell likes to watch a good runner down a steep descent - the way "their feet just seem to know where the rocks are… It's very danceable."
On the other hand, it is "a bit of a hard worker," though he sometimes achieves a more transcendent flow. In one trail run, two runners were "breathing and thumping behind me. Crash, crash, crash through the woods. But Campbell made "one last dash across flat space and I was just flying...
When Ken Campbell's wife, Susan, injured her foot, she needed help joining her running group, so Campbell came with her to keep her company and share recovery. “At first we were just walking,” he says. “And I was heavy. I weighed over 200 pounds [14th 4 pounds or 90 kg]. But as the weeks and months passed, the weight dropped, Susan recovered - and Campbell's abilities increased. At 63, he ran 50km, and at 70, he ran all night to complete a 100km ultramarathon.
Before Susan's injury, Campbell , who is now 71, had last attempted athletics in high school. Even then, he mostly triple jumped. When he was editor at the Sacramento Bee for 20 years, fitness was just about riding a bike to work and using the gym. "I don't like sport," he insists. But that sounds incredible, given his accomplishments. "I wouldn't call it a sport," he says. "I would call it 'an activity'." Campbell is also a jazz guitarist with swing bands.
So how does someone with unprecedented athleticism become an ultra-distance runner in their 60s and 60s? Susan had run marathons before her injury. But for Campbell, the turning point came when Susan's Fleet Feet racing group hit the trails of the Sierra Nevada foothills near their home in Citrus Heights, Calif.
Campbell went out to visit Susan's group, and "the trails were a terrible mess. It had rained. And I was running around in my road shoes. Slipping and slipping and falling. And I was struggling. I was like, well, I like this a lot, but I could do better."
What he loved most was the feeling "of being enveloped by the path, of being embraced by the proximity of the vegetation and the proximity of the river. I was walking where the natives had walked for thousands of years and where miners had walked on their way to gold. coyotes, ospreys and bald eagles. Susan once encountered a bear. Unlike the road race, "to less is miles, you're on your own," Campbell says. "Everyone has their own rhythm."
And there is "the feeling of continuity: the earth to the feet, the air to the lungs, the sky to the vision, the heart blood supplying an effort that has no purpose beyond the next step through root or stone".
Campbell likes to watch a good runner down a steep descent - the way "their feet just seem to know where the rocks are… It's very danceable."
On the other hand, it is "a bit of a hard worker," though he sometimes achieves a more transcendent flow. In one trail run, two runners were "breathing and thumping behind me. Crash, crash, crash through the woods. But Campbell made "one last dash across flat space and I was just flying...
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