🎉 We want to wish a very special happy birthday to one of our favorite runners, George Etzweiler. The Old Man of the Mountains turns 100 today and is still running strong. He's even planning on finishing his 14th Mount Washington Road Race this June.
Six old men gather for a run in the mountains outside of State College, Pennsylvania. “Old,” of course, is a relative term. If you’re 25, 60 seems ancient. If you’re 55, 60 is the new 50. But by any measure, these runners shuffling down the mountain in the morning mist qualify as old. They are grey-haired, hunched over a bit, creaky in the knees, a little hard of hearing—everything you’d expect from people who were coming of age when the Beatles crossed Abbey Road.
Though many hang up their running shoes as they get up there in years, George has other plans for down-and-out old timers who still have a pep in their step.George follows today’s workout with a post-run nap and then sits down for lunch. The microwave-hot bowl of pinto beans, rice, and vegetables cools as he sifts through a stack of lined graph papers, his running log, dating back to 1969.
Take Ed Keller. Joint problems had slowed him down, but a decade ago, Keller did a 5K in his 70s. Two days later, George called.“Well, it depends on how you define running,” Keller replied. Keller was having a hard time convincing himself he was still a runner. He was marathoner who could no longer go the distance. But George was persistent. He saw Keller’s time and knew he had what it took to run a leg at Tussey. Still, Keller resisted.George with Ed Keller on a Tussey Mountain training run.
Mary and George fed off of one another’s passion for life. They married in 1942. After serving in the Navy, George earned an electrical engineering degree from Penn State, and eventually returned as a professor. Mary worked part-time and volunteered, drove the car and cooked. George was a handyman fixing everything around the house. They were happy together and they did everything together one way or another.
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