Dubai: A 100-year-old marathon runner has admitted his times are slowing, but his will to cross the finish line is as strong as ever.
Fauja Singh — unofficially the oldest person to have ever completed a full-distance marathon when he finished the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront 42.195km run in eight hours, 25 minutes and 17 seconds on October 16 — has been in the UAE as a guest of the Dubai-based Sikh community group Sarbat Da Bhala, which translates as Welfare of Mankind.
Last week the ‘Turbaned Tornado', made famous by a 2004 Adidas campaign advertisement alongside David Beckham and Muhammad Ali, ran 7.5km with the Dubai Creek Striders from the front of Novotel Hotel in Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) around the free car parks and back again, in order to promote a healthy and active lifestyle among young people.
Enjoying Dubai
Singh, born on April 1, 1911 in Beas Pind, Jalandhar, Punjab, in what was then British India, told Gulf News of his UAE stay, which has also taken in a Sharjah Kabbadi Cup tournament, plus cricket and volleyball matches: "The weather has been to good to me while I've been here. There was no sun and I enjoyed the rain. I like Dubai, it's so multi-cultural."
Often referred to as the real life Forrest Gump, due to his spur of the moment need to run in 1963, the London resident who lives off phulka, dal, green vegetables, yoghurt, milk, water and tea with ginger, has been running ever since, taking in his first marathon aged 89. His next — and ninth — will be, injury-permitting, the San Francisco Marathon on July 29, 2012.
"I've done eight or nine big ones now and do city events like this every week," said Singh, whose marathon personal best is five hours 40 minutes, recorded in Toronto in 2003. The centenarian runner, who once famously said, "The first 20 miles are not difficult. As for the last six, I run while talking to God," has run London five times, Toronto twice and New York once, also hopes to participate in the forthcoming London Olympics torch relay.
"By the grace of God I am still in good health and I am in a position to give back to charity. I only have death to look forward to now and I am just focusing everything on running and helping others. Everything I earn goes to charity — there is nothing I need or want for.
"I'm in a good place to give and I hope to do this for the rest of my life — running has been the best thing to have happened to me," said the 2003 Ellis Island Medal of Honour winner for his services to ethnic pride, tolerance and integration.
‘I want to die running'
Speaking after his Dubai run, Singh said: "I'm not at all tired. I do feel slightly weaker and I am starting to slow. But I don't want to stop. I want to die running."
The Guinness Book of Records' refusal to add him to their list as the oldest marathoner — due to his failure to provide a birth certificate, which weren't issued where he was born in 1911 — is shrugged off as one of many bumps in the road.
