Gina Muaau looked down at her GPS watch toward the end of the 5K race she was in. “Five more minutes,” she told her running partner, Bob McAdam, as runners and spectators continued shouting, “Go Bob!”
McAdam, at 96 years old, was on pace to set an age-group record at the Turkey Day 5K in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, on Thanksgiving.
Even while fighting 30-degree temperatures and 13 mile-per-hour winds at 5,000 feet of elevation, nothing was going to stop him. As Denver’s KUSA first reported, he crossed the finish line in 48:19, beating the previous 5K record for 95- to 99-year-olds of 50:10.
It all started back in late August when Muaau, the fitness coordinator at McAdam’s retirement community in Highlands Ranch, got an email about five free entries into the race. Though she didn’t know who he was at the time, McAdam was one of the only people who used the treadmill at the fitness center.
“I would see him three or four days a week, and he had a pretty good clip going on,” Muaau, told Runner’s World by phone. “I approached him and said, ‘I notice you’re a runner. There’s a Turkey Day run in November. Would you like to run it?’”
McAdam wasn’t sure he could. He told her he is legally blind and doesn’t typically run outdoors. But Muaau’s enthusiasm struck a chord, and he went back to her office a few days later to tell her he’d race.
“She said, ‘I’ll be your eyes,’ and that’s what really did it for me,” McAdam said.
Fitness has been a huge part of his life from a young age. When the World War II vet was 27, he participated in an experiment at the University of Illinois that required him to run all out on a treadmill for as long as he could.
“I only lasted 55 seconds, and I knew from that moment I never wanted to be out of shape again,” he said.
He went on to teach kinesiology at Northern Illinois University as well as coach tennis, gymnastics, and basketball. At age 57, McAdam added racquetball to his fitness regimen and was even inducted into the National Masters Racquetball Association Hall of Fame in 2005. Running became a regular part of his training.
To train for the 5K at 96 years old, Muaau mapped out a course around the retirement community, and the pair went over the course so he’d know where potential potholes, curbs, and shadows would be.
“He’s very mathematical, so he was able to figure out, ‘Okay, I have to run this 13 times, and that’ll be 3.1 miles,” Muaau said. “He wanted to run something that would emulate the course. The course itself was a lot of uphill, especially that second mile.”
When McAdam took to the treadmill to train, he walked as fast as he could at a 7 percent incline. Knowing what the previous world record was for his age group, he wanted to be prepared.
“Based on that [14-minute-per-mile] time, I knew that if I walked the whole race, I’d have the record,” he said.
The Turkey Day 5K was McAdam’s first race since 2011, and although he felt tired at the end of the first mile, Muaau’s encouragement combined with his own ambition kept him going.
“We let him set the pace,’ Muaau said. “We did the first two miles in 28 minutes, which I thought was pretty impressive. He really pushes himself—he’s a very competitive person.”
Along the way, Muaau gave McAdam verbal commands like “stay to the left” or “mile three is coming up” so he would always know where in the race he was.
“I felt like crawling across the finish line, but I was happy,” he said. “One little girl even came up to me and asked for a picture.”
Muaau called it one of the most inspiring runs she’s done.
“He stopped training for a time when his wife got very sick. She recently passed away, and I think that this kind of ignited a little spark for him and gave him that purpose he always talks about,” she said.
And McAdam isn’t done. He said he wants to run another 5K to improve his time.
“I walked [the Turkey Day 5K] more than I ran it, but I know I can do better—maybe get down to 45 minutes,” he said. “But my purpose for doing this is to stay in shape, and I’d love to encourage even one other person to get in shape too.”
