The Japanese runner finds age no barrier and may even challenge the world record she already holds in Monday’s Boston marathon
niggling knee injury and just one full day to recover from a 13-hour flight across as many time zones are mere inconveniences for Mariko Yugeta as she prepares to compete in the Boston marathon, and beat her own world record again.
Less than a month before her 64th birthday, the PE teacher from Saitama, near Tokyo, is a long-distancephenomenon. In 2019, she became the first woman over 60 to complete a marathon in under three hours – and is still the only athlete to achieve that milestone. In January, aged 62, she beat her own world record for 60- to 64-year-olds with a time of 2hr 52min 13sec at the Osaka international women’s marathon.
Yugeta, who teaches full-time at Kawagoe girls’ high school, has defied sporting logic since she ran her first competitive marathon in 1982, aged 24. Her time of 3:09.21 was markedly slower than those she has logged in recent years. “It was far harder than I’d imagined,” says Yugeta, who had been a middle-distance national champion in her student days.She had to put her quest to break three hours on hold to focus on raising her four children.
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