My Hero

I have a friend, Ellie, who is amazing. She recently retired as a nurse, is about to be a grandmother for the first time, and has completed five full marathons in the last couple of years. I have totally lost track of the number of half marathons she has entered.

What is amazing about Ellie, and makes her my hero is, she is 71 years old and started race walking about 10 years ago in her early sixties! Oh, and she is quite a bit faster than I am!

When I think about members of my family, and how they have aged, I don't have a lot of strong role models. My Dad died at 61, all four of my grandparents died of smoking-related illnesses and my Mom died of complications of stroke and COPD at the age of 71. Her last few years she needed a walker, needed oxygen all of the time and had constant knee and back pain.

Ellie is a good gardener, giving me tomatoes all of the time (I barely grew any this year -- again), she is a fantastic baker, spends lots of time with her neighbors, loves going to concerts, her house is immaculate, she cleans her gutters, rakes her leaves and mows her lawn... She never stops moving!

Ellie is officially my role model. When I grow up, I want to be just like her!

ADDENDUM:
Recently after we had completed a half marathon, a woman in her twenties walked up to Ellie and asked if it would be OK to ask her a personal question. "You don't have to answer if you don't want to," she said. After Ellie said OK, the woman asked how old Ellie is. "I noticed from your race bib that you did the entire half marathon," she said to explain the reason for her question. "I did just 2 miles of the relay, and it is the farthest I have ever run. This was my first ever race."

When Ellie said she was 71, the young woman was almost dumbstruck. "You are kidding! You are my new hero!" the woman gushed. Ellie went on to say how many half marathons she had completed this year and how many full marathons she has completed over the last few years. The woman was appropriately impressed.

The woman turned to me and said, "And you are..." I replied proudly, "Her friend. Her very good friend."

NOTE: After the conversation, Ellie was worried that the young woman thought she looked like an old lady. Her point was, why else would she have asked Ellie's age. I explained my perspective. She knew Ellie was older -- that is obvious from the gray hair alone. But she was expecting Ellie to say she was at least 10 years younger than what she really is.