80year old grandmother becomes oldest woman to finish Ironman World Championship
32 comments
·November 6, 2025lr4444lr
Grabow worked as a software engineer.
Just when I thought she couldn't be even more awesome.
TheAlchemist
That's incredible. Especially the swim ...
PS. If you're inspired by this story, this video might be a great watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3J07O6dViHo
amelius
From the title I assumed this was about using exoskeletons.
Qem
If you're 80 years old and still able to finish ironman, I wonder how many additional years of expected lifespan this gives you, statistically.
basisword
Or is it too much and more likely to take from you? I wonder if the fitness benefits or offset by so much stress on joints.
f311a
Leonid Boguslavsky started triathlon at 62 and had two femoral neck fractures because of it. He's now 74. I think he also has a knee prosthesis now.
Full triathlon distance has nothing to do with health.
exasperaited
For a woman of 80 in 2025 you can already say it is making no real difference in terms of statistical outcome so it's at least not obviously taking from her.
She is a little older than her cohort life expectancy at birth (which was 78 in the USA in 1945):
https://www.ssa.gov/oact/TR/2011/lr5a4.html
Assessed in 2010 at the age of 65 she might be expected to live to 85. That seems quite likely.
If anything you would have to say it leans towards extending her life because she will not be eating less like elderly people do, she is likely to have excellent venous health, her reaction times must be good, and prosaically she's so physically fit that just that much more likely not to be derailed by a fall. Living at her age starts to be a question of intent but there are loads of really small things that can trigger decline; she is robust against many of them.
What a remarkable woman.
Qem
Life expectancy at birth is different from life expectancy at given age. Each year you manage to survive after birth increases your current life expectancy, because you already managed to avoid all causes of death up to that point.
pantulis
Obviously there is some training here and kudos to the lady, but no doubt her genetical baggage is giving her some advantage here. She's got older not because she's training, she's able to train and perform at this level in spite of being older.
NooneAtAll3
no difference for the young
yet all the difference for people her age
game_the0ry
Makes me feel pretty pathetic that I probably can't even run a mile un under 12 mins, if that.
srameshc
I wokeup to read this and I am inspired. I am a late starter, could barely run for 5 minutes, but now I can do 5 miles. I was thinking to myself few days back, "how can people run a marathon and 100K run". After learning about this lady, I think if I try , I can as well.
bwv848
Marathon and ultra are different paradigms, for ultra all you need to do is get a heart rate monitor and try running at zone 2 as long as you can, the most difficult part is probably refueling, eating enough calories while preventing stomach cramps. Marathoners chase speed cos 42km/26miles is not that much if you are acclimated, which leads to a lot more interval/tempo/threshold training.
notesinthefield
It takes time and I encourage runners of any level to start thinking about running, if they like it, in yearlong blocks with annual goals. My longest race to day is a 30 mile trail ultra. Ive done a variety of sports all my life so the fitness base was there. Then I committed to specifically training for that distance. Truth be told - as long as your training is consistent, intentional and you want it, eating is the hardest part. By far. 100k is a different beast altogether. It takes a community to tackle 24-30 hours of ruunning!
nake89
I've run an 83k with surprisingly little training or background. I obviously worked up slowly to get there. But it is very doable for anybody.
croisillon
is the fact that she had child(ren) who themselves had child(ren) noteworthy?
Qem
Yes, it is, because the current mainstream discourse treats childbearing and achievement as mutually incompatible. I think it explains part of the fertility crash. This is a cute counterexample to the mainstream view.
notesinthefield
Economic factors of childbearing overwhelmingly account for reasons why people dont have children - not personal achievement.
r0x0r007
yes, in fact If she was asked about her greatest achievements I would bet she would say having (grand)children.
lr4444lr
The toll that children and grandchildren (by caretaking, which is common) take on a human female is significant, so yes.
iberator
PLEASE don't normalize it! This is abnormal and now some capitalists would argue that you can work up to age of 80.
danw1979
Oh come on, nothing in the article suggests she’s still working. This is recreation and only that.
Of all the old folks I know in their 80’s the happiest and healthiest are, and have always been, the active ones who still do circuits classes, swim, gym, etc.
Keep your elderly loved ones in your life moving and they’ll last a lot longer.
zwnow
Funnily enough the current reigning party in Germany actually wants the elderly to continue working past retirement age. What makes this even more ironic is that these are also their biggest group of voters...
artur_makly
The mind can be so powerful.. age is just a #
2muchcoffeeman
If you trained when you were younger, you’ll know this is complete BS. My performance as I age is on a steady downward slope. Recovery is noticeably worse, diet is becoming more important to maintaining a stable weight.
Don’t leave getting fit to your thirties or later. Start now.
tock
The point of saying that is to inspire people to just start trying now. People cannot choose to become younger.
Synaesthesia
Yeah, I only started taking fitness seriously at 39. I'm now 41, and I'm glad I did, I might be in the best shape of my life.
> It was her 11th Ironman race despite not learning to swim until she was 59 and not starting triathlons until she was 60.
This gives me some hope about learning some new sports late in my life.