 "Who is Natalie Grabow, the oldest woman to finish Ironman World Championship at age 80")
Natalie Grabow, an 80-year-old triathlete from New Jersey, USA, has become the oldest woman ever to finish the Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii. She completed the race in 16 hours, 45 minutes, and 26 seconds, beating the 17-hour cutoff and setting a new age-group record.
Grabow started the race with a 2.4-mile (3.8 km) swim in the ocean at Kailua Bay, Hawaii. After that, she rode her bike for 112 miles (180 km) on a hard course. She then ran a full marathon of 26.2 miles (42.1 km), and the course had hills that went up more than 1,000 feet.
Grabow tripped face down before reaching the finish line, but the lion-hearted woman got up and completed the run. “I am so happy and grateful that I can still race in this sport at my age. Triathlon allows me to feel strong both mentally and physically, and it satisfies my competitive spirit,” she was quoted as saying by NPR.
Who is Natalie Grabow?
Grabow lives in the Mountain Lakes area of New Jersey. She was a software engineer before she started running, and it soon turned into a passion. Grabow revealed that women and girls didn’t have many options for sports when she was growing up.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsShe was not a triathlete at the start of her marathon journey. She began running 5K and 10K races in middle age and only learned to swim in her 60s. Grabow gradually moved from shorter triathlons to half Ironman races, and eventually to full Ironman events like Kona.
“In 2005, the same year I turned 60, I started learning to swim. The cross-training aspect of triathlon appealed to me, and this type of training reduced getting injured. Seeing my running friends take up triathlons motivated me to try it for both the challenge and the fun,” Grabow told NPR.
The previous record for the oldest woman to finish the race was held by 78-year-old Cherie Gruenfeld, who was seen embracing Grabow after she reached the finish line in Kona. The oldest person to finish the competition is Hiromu Inada of Japan. He was 85 years old when he completed the triathlon in 2018.
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