Running a 100-meter race at 105 years old is no ordinary feat, but for Julia Hawkins, the competition was one of her many achievements.
“This is just a drop in the bucket,” Hawkins, who joined the record books for the Louisiana Senior Olympic Games after she became the oldest American and the first woman in the centenarian age group to run a 100-meter race, told CBS News.
With a finishing time of just under 1 minute and 3 seconds, Hawkins described herself as “so happy” for the opportunity, saying she might even do it again.
“Yeah, right now,” she joked to a group of reporters after the event, wearing her first-place medal. “[At 106], maybe so. Who knows? I’ll have to see how I feel in the morning.” (She turns 106 in February.)
“Hurricane,” as Hawkins is known by her community, says she stays in shape by jogging a mile or two each day near the Baton Rouge home that she and her husband built in 1948, but the training and the world record do not compare to other things in her life.
After correspondent David Begnaud asked if she was impressed by the record, Hawkins answered: “No, not particularly. I had too many other wonderful things before this. This is just a drop in the bucket.”
One of those wonderful things: her 70-year marriage to her husband, Free Hawkins Jr., a former schoolmate at LSU and a soldier in the United States military.
“I met him the first day at LSU. I went home and wrote about him in my diary. He was so smart and so clever and so fun. He had a good sense of humor, and he was vivacious and wonderful. We were married by telephone,” she explained.
The couple raised four children and were joyously married until “Buddy,” as she called him, passed away at 95 years old.
“This is just a drop in the bucket”: At 105 years old, Julia Hawkins became the first woman and first American in her age group to run 100 meters.
But she says it doesn’t compare to the many wonderful things in her life, like her 70-year-long marriage to her husband, Murray. pic.twitter.com/Z18rWKEm5Y
— CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) November 9, 2021
“Without him, it [life] is not the same. It’s not quite as wonderful,” Hawkins shared.
Besides running, a passion Hawkins took up after she turned 100-years-old, she enjoys gardening and was a teacher during her working years. Two of her students, Rosemary and Evelyn, 90 and 89 years old respectively, ultimately joined her for the record-setting race.
The record is her most recent, after first setting a running record at 101 and 103 years old.
“I’m most proud of my children and my husband. They were the wonderful things in my life — and the grandchildren, and the great-grandson. Those are things you just can’t beat that,” she said at the time. “This other (the running) is just a little icing on the cake.”
This post first appeared on Nypost.com
ncG1vNJzZmhqZGy7psPSmqmorZ6Zwamx1qippZxemLyue82erqxnYWWCbsXEmqlmp5yZeq271KKqopmelnq4u8yapWaalZi8rrHSZp2iqqOpeqmx0WaYoJ1dqbxuvtSnZGpoYGK6psDEq6po