Record-breaking round-the-world voyage for 70-year-old
In an extreme case of a nice elderly lady wandering away from home, 70-year-old Jeanne Socrates has become the oldest woman to sail around the world, solo, without stopping. The grandmother from Ealing, west London, completed her circumnavigation last week, when she docked her 38-foot yacht Nereida back in Victoria, B.C., after 259 days...
Oldsters one-upping each other at the top of the world
On Everest, there’s always someone older coming up behind you Back in 2008, Japan’s (then) 75-year-old Yuichiro Miura was about to set the record for being the oldest person to climb Mount Everest—until Nepal’s 76-year-old Min Bahadur Sherchan beat him out, getting there one day ahead of him. There was no trash talking...
Fauja Singh: don’t want to look, can’t turn away
When you’re, say, 50, it’s easy to feel like you’re dull. Uninteresting. You can feel invisible. So when you find something that puts you in high relief, that gives you an identity—especially if you excel at it and it demonstrates what a complete badass you are—you’re going to hold on to it. No. More...
L.L. Bean’s 100-person kayak is ridiculous and splendid
L.L. Bean turned 100 in 2011 and even though we’ve turned all the pages in the calendar,making it 2012, the company continues to celebrate. Fair enough. Turning 100 is kind of a big deal. And the celebration isn’t just an exercise in corporate vanity. Bean is also sponsoring the Million Moment Mission: every time someone...
Saturday mash-up: June 16, 2012
This sounds like a fairly ominous collection: detailed maps, rolling protests, killer kilocalories and powerful 80-year-olds. Read closely, though, all is benign. Except the calories. Ever find yourself in a new town and wonder about nearby recreational resources? It’s easy enough to find the national parks, and fairly easy to find the state parks. But...
Tamae Watanabe is sitting on top of the world. Again. And Everest claims four others.
UPDATED: On Saturday, May 18, Tamae Watanabe became—at age 73—the oldest woman to summit Everest. This is an amazing accomplishment because (1) it is Everest, (2) she attacked the mountain from the difficult north face and (3) she broke her own record, set in 2002, when she was a spry 63-year-old. So congratulations to her....
Century-old Frenchman (with the body of a 75-year-old) sets biking record
There are many, many things to say about this, and there is nothing that is necessary beyond the following: at the age of 100, Robert Marchand—citizen of France, former inhabitant of Venezuela and former Canadian lumberjack—has just ridden a bike 15.1 miles. In an hour. That sets a new record because it...
Rainer Hertrich takes a break: The run of runs comes to an end
It’s over. Rainer Hertrich, the 50-year-old madman who had skied every day for 2,993 consecutive days, has stopped. The run of runs that started in 2003 is at an end, which means that Hertrich can finally claim his Guinness record for “Accumulated Vertical Descent in Consecutive Days on Telemark Gear.” ESPN...
AARP-eligible adventurer currently attempting first winter solo attempt of Denali
It’s probably too soon to be talking about Lonnie Dupre’s epic/insane attempt to be the first person to climb the highest peak in North America…in the winter…by himself. He’s still in the early stages of the ascent, at 12,300 feet, so it’s like talking about a no-hitter in the seventh...
So much of a good thing: skiing 365 days a year for eight years
There’s a point where the guy with an awesome idea becomes the guy with the epic ambition. And another point where his epic ambition becomes his white whale, his Daisy Buchanan, his driving and terrifying obsession. We’re not sure where Rainer Hertrich lands on that spectrum. At the moment,...
Glory is fleeting, as is not quite achieving glory
After three attempts to swim the 103-mile span between Cuba and Key West, and after multiple stings from jelly fish—correct that, make it Portuguese-men-of-war, a profoundly wicked animal that made her face and lips swell up like a collagen injection from Satan—Diana Nyad has announced that she’s packing it...
62-year-old has 400 marathons to go
We’re not sure if we should be impressed or appalled by Japan’s Hajime Nishi. Maybe we’re both. We like the idea of setting ambitious goals, and Nishi is certainly unafraid of reaching beyond his grasp. He’s aiming to complete 1,000 different marathons in 250 countries, which would sound ludicrous...
