Most people think of retirement as the moment when life finally slows down, and all the sweet time becomes about more tea, more telly, fewer alarms.But for Christine Hobson, a grandmother from Yorkshire, retirement was the exact opposite.It was the starting gun.While her peers were transitioning into quieter routines and slower lives, she was lacing up trainers for the first time in decades, chasing a finish line she hadn’t even known she wanted.
Meet Christine Hobson: The 72-year-old granny who set a world record for doing 100 marathons
Christine Hobson, now 72, spent her career as a headteacher, and most of her work was centered around sitting on a desk, according to woman&home. Retirement, for most, might have meant putting her feet up.Instead, she marked her final day at work with an extraordinary act of defiance. In one of her Instagram posts, she narrates, “I retired on the Friday, and I did the London Marathon on the Sunday.”She initially intended that to be a one-off achievement and has thought that was to be her one and only marathon, but turns out it was just the beginning.The turning point came during her second marathon in Chester, when she noticed a runner wearing a “100 Marathon” t-shirt. “I thought ‘that’s a stupid thing to do’, and then I thought ‘you know you were looking for some stress’, so I decided on my second marathon that I was going to do 100. I ended up doing Antarctica, I got a world record,” she said on the show The Morning.
An injury kept her out for two years, and now she has completed her 125th
Christine was enjoying her streak of marathon races after being inspired by a man’s T-shirt at one of the marathons saying ‘100’, but it was when her injury kept her home for two years, “ I was enjoying my journey, but then a disaster struck. An injury took me out for two years; I thought my running days were over. But this weekend I completed my hundred and twenty-fifth marathon”
Her marathon streak now spans seven continents
Since her decision to take up her first, Hobson has completed 125 marathons across all seven continents, running races in cities including Marrakech, Singapore, Tel Aviv, Buenos Aires, and Niagara Falls.She has twice run seven marathons in seven consecutive days, and in 2022, at the age of 69, she became the oldest woman to complete the Antarctic Ice Marathon, finishing in temperatures as low as minus 50 degrees Celsius.
Changing perspective to what having strength looks like
Hobson has a different perspective to offer on how she demystifies fitness. In one of her viral videos, she pushed back against the idea that lifting weights has to be dramatic, instead demonstrating it through daily actions like putting away plates or lifting a washing basket. “It’s this, this, and this. The gym just helps me do it better,” she said. “It’s not training for the gym. I’m training so life stays easy.”She also warned about being inactive in one of her videos, “It’s not getting older that will stop you moving, it’s too much sitting and too little challenge. They call sitting the new smoking,” she said, adding that at 72, running and lifting give her “freedom,” not just fitness.
