Just for inspiration:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/ar...er_just_wont_stop_after_257_races_in_2_years/
Link won't work. This is from the Boston Globe:
Runner just won't stop, after 257 races in 2 years
At 84, she takes the lead in a coming movie, but her own story is even more remarkable
By Jason Schwartz, Globe Correspondent | September 15, 2005
She was born in the 1920s, started running in the 1970s, and is still pounding the pavement today. Eighty-four-year-old Louise Rossetti has participated in more than 80 road races so far this year, after running 114 races in 2004 and 143 in 2003. She belongs to eight different running clubs and even has a race named after her.
''I don't play bingo," Rossetti said.
Now the Saugus resident is taking her passion to a new level. She was recently cast to play the title character in the locally produced independent film, ''Run, Grammie, Run."
It's the story of a 75-year-old woman who wants to reinvigorate herself after years of growing increasingly depressed while watching her friends slow down and pass away. Deciding that she needs to do something big, she determines to try qualifying for the Boston Marathon.
Although Rossetti has absolutely no experience in the performing arts and is almost a decade older than the character she plays, she never hesitated when offered the starring role.
''I'll do anything to support the sport of running," she said.
Rossetti is particularly interested in promoting the sport to seniors and women, even if it means running a little bit less herself.
''She's giving up some races specifically so she can be in the movie," said David Singer, the film's writer, a first-time producer and director. ''I think she sees it as a tradeoff. She's still able to get her message out, [but] it's a different vehicle."
Singer, who is based in Lakeville, is financing the movie. He has bet $50,000 of his own money on the chance that Rossetti's onscreen performance will prove every bit as remarkable as her running career.
''You can teach somebody to act," he said, ''but you can't teach somebody how to run." In fact, he designed the Grammie role knowing that an experienced runner, and not necessarily an experienced actor, would play it. He is convinced that authentic-looking running scenes are vital to his movie's success.
Rossetti did not become an authentic runner until she was 50. She had always been interested in athletic activities, particularly swimming, but had never participated in a race or contest. Women just didn't do that sort of thing.
That all changed for her one day in 1971 while she was participating in a physical education class at the Lynn YMCA.
''The phys-ed director had us running around the suspended track," Rossetti said. ''I said, gee, can't we go outside and run?"
Rossetti has seldom stopped running outside since. Although knee problems forced her to stop participating in the annual race to the top of Mount Washington, she still holds the women's time record for the over-75 age bracket. In 2000, she carried the Olympic torch through Charlestown.
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''I enjoy it," she said. ''It gets the blood circulating. It makes you feel good."
But the ever-humble runner constantly laments that she is getting slower and slower, as her miles clock in these days at between 15 and 20 minutes. She can no longer run races longer than 5 kilometers.
''I get a big applause when I finally come in," Rossetti said. ''They're all glad to see me, because the race is over and the festivities can begin."
Running has also been a refuge for Rossetti.
Twenty-six years ago her daughter, Suzanne, was kidnapped, raped, and murdered by two drifters in Arizona. She had locked herself out of her car, and the two men helped her get back in.
In gratitude, Suzanne offered them a ride and a six pack of beer. She did not know that they were both psychopaths with long criminal records.
''That was a terrible thing; I had a hard time getting over that." Rossetti said.
Still, she did not throw herself completely into the sport until her husband, Peter, died in his sleep in 1993.
''Because I didn't have him to go out with at nighttime, I started to add more races all the time," Rossetti said.
The memory of her husband and daughter remain etched into Rossetti's life as a runner. The proceeds of the Rossetti Women's 5K Race held annually in Louise's honor go to the Peter A. Rossetti and Suzanne Maria Rossetti scholarship fund, which benefits graduates of Saugus High School, as well as the Northeast Metropolitan Vocational School, which Peter helped to found.
Despite tragedy, the Rossetti family has persevered.
''Everybody's there for one another," said her 53-year-old daughter, Donna Rossetti-Bailey, who added that either she or her older brother Peter are always by their mother's side throughout the course of her day.
''We were always close," Rossetti said. ''An Italian family, we're close."
Her acting coach, Marianna Scarpellini, believes that this family closeness projects through the camera.
''Because she has such a close family tie in her life and there's so much love in her family, that part of her comes through," Scarpellini said.
Singer discovered Rossetti simply by scanning through race results. Her name ''kept popping up," and she finished with consistently good times for her age. After determining that Louise was ''highly photogenic" based on pictures he found on the internet Singer arranged for an audition.
''Louise was wonderful," he recalls.
Although her octogenarian pupil has sometimes struggled with remembering all her lines, Scarpellini said, she is ''very natural" and ''quick with improvisation."
Both the director and coach agree that Rossetti's transition into acting has been eased by the many parallels between Rossetti's life and ''Grammie's."
But Rossetti sees this issue from a different angle. She believes that the most difficult part of playing the role has been coming to grips with the many subtle, yet significant, differences between the Grammie character and herself.
''It is challenging," she said. ''I'm not accustomed to doing something other than being Louise Rossetti."
The hard work has just begun for Rossetti and the rest of the film's cast, though. The majority of the film's scenes remain to be shot. Once the film is completed, Singer hopes to be able to sell it to a cable television network. There will also be an abbreviated version posted on the internet.
The planned release of ''Run, Grammie, Run" is the holiday season of 2006, by which time Rossetti will be still another year older, but chances are she won't look it. Indeed, she takes it as a compliment that she is an 84-year-old playing a part that is meant for somebody nine years her junior.
''It is pretty neat," she said. ''Nobody ever guesses that I'm 84."
''I feel very honored and very humbled about the whole thing. I'm just an old runner who's getting slower and slower."
© Copyright 2005 Globe Newspaper Company.
Sounds like a great movie!
aw:
Hockey on the other hand...that's a WHOLE other story (Try being a Caps and Maple Leafs fan in Red Wings country... yikes!)
6-miler this morning in 57:02 or about 9:30/mile pace. I have got to figure out some way to control my pace when I start... I split the first mile at 8:57 and I feel like I paid for it later. I'm happy with the time-- I knocked a full minute off my 6-mile pace two weeks ago. 
Also, it's pouring rain here in West Michigan this morning. I decided to go ahead and run anyway-- after all, what are you going to do if it's raining on race day?? Well, I'm glad I did it, but it was kind of miserable there towards the end. 
Keep up the awesome training everyone!
And DD12s soccer season has started so we're now traveling all over the state every Saturday. There has been no cross training, but I haven't missed any runs...my long runs are just getting done on Fri now. I'm on my first week of week 5 of the MFM W/R program, but I stretched the long run to 4 miles instead of 3. 
I will go stir crazy. Sunday should be pleasant, if not, I'll take a couple hours of vacation on Monday to get it in. 
Maybe the IC is planning something I'm not away of 
At local races, my EC, mean marathon girl, comes back to get me and runs the finish with me! You could do that!!! 
