What Makes Olga Run?

January 13, 2014
Olga Kotelko took up track and field at age 77. Today, she holds 26 world records, setting most of them in 2009, the year she turned 90. Over a four-year period, journalist Grierson (U-Turn) accompanied Olga to meets and practices as well as to appointments with physiologists, geneticists, trainers, and others as they studied Olga's extraordinary achievements. Analyzing everything from Olga's life history, diet and daily routine, to her genetic makeup, brain, personality, bone density, aerobic capacity, muscles, sleep patterns, memory, and more, they found that although Olga is an outlier, there could be more people like her given the right circumstances. As Grierson explains, studies show how older athletes benefit from having started their sport later in life without the accumulated damage from early overexertion, and highlights conditions that worked in Olga's favorâher active childhood on a farm in rural Saskatchewan, the way she has always integrated movement into her everyday life, and her intuition about her body. The middle-aged, fairly sedentary Grierson compares his exercise routines and his DNA to Olga's, portraying their growing friendship as he describes the mysteries of longevity and extols the benefits of exercise. Grierson's fellow boomers have much to learn from Olga's example, given that scientists now think that longevity is 70%â75% lifestyle and only 25% genetic.

January 15, 2014
A Canadian freelance journalist probes the fascinating mystery behind a nonagenarian female's stunning success as a competitive athlete. When Olga Kotelko first took up track at age 77, it was simply for fun. But by the time she reached her 90s, the former schoolteacher had become the holder of more than 20 world records, and she was the fastest nonagenarian female in the world. In a book that is part biography and part exploration of the latest research in exercise physiology, gerontology and neuropsychology, Grierson (U-Turn: What If You Woke Up One Morning and Realized You Were Living the Wrong Life?, 2007) grapples with the question of why a little old lady barely 5 feet tall breaks records rather than bones. Science offers answers that are as tantalizing as they are incomplete. For most people, healthy aging boils down to three-quarters good lifestyle and one-quarter good genes. Grierson suggests that Olga's habits--which include an "an abiding faith in water, reflexology," intense workouts that target every moving part in her body and personal traits such as extroversion, friendliness and resilience--no doubt help to account for her impressive good health. Her family history, however, does not reveal exceptional longevity nor does it explain where Olga derived her almost freakish physical capabilities. Grierson proposes that the mystery surrounding Olga's achievements has less to do with her lifestyle and genetic inheritance and more to do with how her particular body has somehow managed to develop mechanisms, which scientists have yet to understand, that have slowed the aging process. Olga's body may be unique in its age-defying abilities, but her determination to push the limits of her own physicality is what is most inspiring of all, especially to baby boomers like the author. For Grierson, Olga is living proof that "[n]ot only is midlife not too late [to start exercising]...in some ways, it's the best time to go for it." Eye-opening and insightful.

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Starred review from March 15, 2014

In this exhilarating book on longevity, freelance journalist Grierson (U-Turn) masterfully combines the latest studies with the story of the great nonagenarian athlete Olga Kotelko--and of himself, a great middle-aged couch potato. Kotelko took up track and field when she was 77 and keeps running strong, and this work is rife with intriguing reasons why. Exercise is Longevity, Rule One. We should probably alternate "aerobic" with "resistance" activity, says Grierson, as this mirrors our paleopast dodging tigers and digging for tubers. Another rule: be a mensch, translated from Yiddish into English as a person of integrity. It was an evolutionary plus to be one--and a clear health gain now. Grierson, no slouch as a writer, consults top scientists. His deft re-creation of the moving and humorous bond between Kotelko and himself gives the book its center. Proof of gains from physical and mental stimulation--neuron growth, cognitive boosts--mount daily. Grierson joyously pursues claims both silly and divine. (Travel spurs longevity; "incredisocks" don't.) The prose can boil over. "The minor miracle here is, you can introduce exercise at any point, right up into very old age, and 'completely reverse any decline you've had, '" he writes. No, not "any" decline. But proper context prevails. VERDICT A stimulating and inspiring read for all, especially aging boomers and late bloomers.--Cynthia Fox, Brooklyn

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