TUSTIN : Still in the Running : After 1st Marathon, 74-Year-Old Is Eager for More

Lois Edds has scaled Mt. Fuji once, climbed Mt. Whitney three times, and journeyed to the ice fields at the northernmost point of Alaska. And now, at age 74, she has the distinction of being the oldest woman to complete the 14th annual Long Beach Marathon.

As spectators shouted “Go Lois, go Lois,” Edds finished the 26.2-mile race last month in just under 5 hours and 11 minutes. She was the sole competitor in the women’s 70-plus division.

“I think anybody can do it if you just want to,” said Edds, who has been a runner for the past 15 years but had never attempted a marathon before. The Tustin resident had hoped to complete the course in less than five hours, but her main goal was just to finish the grueling event.

“I didn’t know how my body would do,” she said. “But I ran the whole thing. I only stopped once, and that was to tie my shoelace.”

“Lois is sort of our heroine because she’s just a wonderful person and an inspiration for everybody,” said Jeannie Palermo, who ran the entire marathon with Edds. The two became friends through the South Coast Road Runners, a running club that meets Monday and Thursday nights and Saturday mornings at Heritage Park in Irvine.

“She just does what everybody else her age wishes they were doing,” Palermo said. “And she’s very humble about it.”

“That lady is remarkable,” said club member Mellie Clark, who started running with Edds at the marathon’s 12-mile mark.

“I feel very protective of her,” Clark said. “After the halfway point, you start struggling a bit, and I wanted to be there for her.”

Edds said her toughest challenge was battling exhaustion over the final three miles. “I got tired, a little bit, at 23 miles,” she said. “I guess that was where I hit ‘the wall.’ But I just kept on going.

“I didn’t even get a single blister,” she added. “And the next day I really wasn’t sore, except for my elbows--I guess from holding my hands up all that time.”

As for her future running plans, Edds has decided to enter the 1996 Long Beach Marathon and attempt to improve her finishing time.

“I’m going to go for more speed,” she said, “because I know I can make it. I want to do it one more time.”