Profile of Mariko Yugeta, the first woman over 60 to go sub-3:00, who tried try to break her own world record in March 2021.

Three years later, working as a high school PE teacher, she made her debut at the same race, finishing in 3:09:21 and swearing afterward that she’d break three hours someday.

But life went on, and a year and a half later she was married, pregnant with her first daughter, and staying up through the night to watch the first Olympic women’s marathon. Again she was fascinated, this time by Benoit Samuelson’s bold frontrunning. “We were almost the same age, and I thought, ‘If things had been different, maybe that could have been me,’” she said. “I promised myself when I was done raising children, I’d run marathons seriously.”