32 | Ingrid Walters

07/20/23 • 73 min

Starting Line 1928

Running was not Ingrid Walters’ first love. Nor was it her second, or her third. She didn’t run in earnest until she turned 41, at which point she immediately began (quite literally) making up for lost time. After swimming competitively through the first two years of college, she began lifeguarding, and picked up beach running to stay in shape. She enjoyed it enough to accept a college classmate’s “dare” to run the 1993 Los Angeles Marathon, which she completed in 4:03:00. After that, she effectively spent two decades away from the sport. At age 33 she ran the LA Marathon again, this time in 3:37 – almost exactly one minute per mile faster than her first attempt. Then, six years later, she pursued marathoning in earnest, running 3:17 at age 39, then 3:07 at age 40. She first broke three hours at the 2014 Chicago Marathon with a 2:54:58, good for third place in the Masters Division and a spot on “The List” of American-born Black female runners who have run a sub-three-hour marathon. Her marathon progression culminated when she, at age 47, won the women’s Open division at the 2019 Los Angeles Marathon with a time of 2:48:03. Afterward, medical issues temporarily sidelined her—but as she explains, she might not be done with the sport yet. Walters is also an actress who's appeared in the film “Amistad,” and she has appeared in shows including “Baywatch,” “Scandal,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Shameless,” and “Parenthood,” as well as on stage at the Geffen Playhouse and in over 50 national commercials.

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31 | Toshiko D'Elia

Toshiko d’Elia, the first female in the world to run a sub-three-hour marathon at age 50, took up running at the age of 40 to become a better mountain climber. In 1975, d’Elia started going into Manhattan to race with New York Road Runners, the only races in the area. She made friends with Nina Kuscisk, Fred Lebow, Ted Corbitt, and Kathrine Switzer, and was recruited to run with a female elite team, Atalanta, coached by Bob Glover. She was unstoppable and was given the nickname Seabiscuit after the horse that would never quit. By 1977, she was running 90 miles a week and winning long-distance races as well as sprinting events in 40-years-and-over competition. Despite having open-heart surgery when she was 78, d’Elia kept setting age-group records until December 2014, when she was diagnosed with brain cancer. She passed away peacefully surrounded by family at age 84. NOTE: This interview with Toshi and her daughter Erica was recorded by phone in 2013, a year before she passed away.

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33 | Julia Chase-Brand

On Thanksgiving Day 1961, at 19 years old, Julia Chase-Brand turned heads when she defied the orders of the Amateur Athletic Union and entered and completed the historic Manchester Road Race. Her participation in the widely followed event opened the door for women’s cross-country later that spring and in turn a great number of other changes allowing women to run distance events. Julia faced discrimination from both men and women. Among many things, she was told she’d risk her fertility and ruin her beauty if she ran distance events. But Julia pressed on. She competed in distance running at the elite level for six years and then went on to challenge academic gender norms by pursuing a graduate degree in science where she studied bats and orangutans. Twenty years later, she challenged age norms by completing a medical degree in psychiatry at the age of 53.