North Vancouver's Betty Jean McHugh is now the planet's fastest 87-year-old female marathoner, and it's not close.
The super senior, already a multiple world record holder, raced last weekend's Honolulu Marathon in a time of five hours 36 minutes 49 seconds. That set a new record in the single-age, 87-year-old category, according to the Association of Road Racing Statisticians. The old record of 7:06:48 was set by American Mavis Lindgren in 1994.
McHugh already holds the 85-89 age group world record from her 2012 Honolulu Marathon time of 5:14:26.
BJ ran the race with her son Brent and granddaughter Ava and the McHugh family did a good job of spacing their results out - Brent finished in 3:36:30, Ava was about an hour behind at 4:38:02 and BJ clocked in just about one hour after that.
According to ARRS.net, BJ now has the fastest marathon times ever recorded for a woman aged 75, 81, 82, 85 and 87.
