Fauja Singh

I first heard of Fauja Singh a few years ago when I was training for my first marathon back in 2011.  I was still riding the high and savouring that feeling of crossing that finish line after training for a year and a half, one thwarted marathon attempt in 2010 and many kilometres notched in my belt.  The soreness was just starting to abate a week after my race when I was following my bloggie friend Hunnybee at her first full at the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon...and all over the news I kept hearing about this guy Fauja Singh, who was 100 years old and was running the marathon at the Toronto race.

Wow.

I recall thinking man...if I could still be that fit to be able to run a marathon at the age of 100?  Amazing.  Even more amazing is that he didn't run his first marathon until the age of 89.  Now my legs were pretty damn sore after the marathon and I clearly recall how exhausted I was for those last few kilometres, but this guy was more than double my age and he was running marathons and posting some pretty good times considering his age.  Crazy...I remember thinking...I gotta write a blog post about that guy!

So fast forward to today...I was moseying about a sporting goods store with Hubs and was a little bored after watching him examine the curve of ten thousand hockey blades, so started cruising through Twitter on my iPhone and saw this ESPN article about Fauja.  Now for those of you who don't know me well, I have an incredibly huge soft spot for seniors.  Like a massively-huge-Grand-Canyon-sized-soft-spot.  I also find stories about people who find happiness through exercise and healthy living get me right where it counts as well...so can you just imagine what I was like when I was reading this story?  Yep, standing huddled in the corner of Sports Traders with my face practically buried in a massive pile of used hockey pads, doing the ugly cry and hoping no one would see me.  Oh le sigh.

Anyways...this is an absolutely amazing story of an inspiring man who overcame tragedy and found happiness and purpose through running...pretty freaking cool.