The Cowtown Marathon: That's so 80s

There is a story in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram this morning about two guys in their 80s who are going to run in tomorrow's Cowtown Marathon.
Let me repeat: These guys are 80-somethings and are going to run 26.2 miles. That's just crazy, absolutely crazy. Do you how much work it takes just to get to the starting line to go the distance? That's hard enough, and then the older you get, the challenge gets that much more difficult.
Anyway, the Star-Telegram story said both guys would be the only ones in their age group. One of the gentlemen ran last weekend's Austin Marathon in 5:30:33. I point this out because this time is just 10 minutes slower than the time I ran at the Dallas White Rock Lake Marathon in December. Now, I had some major cramping issues, but still, I'm 30-something, so that shows you how much talent the 80-something guy has.
One more thing about age and running: A good friend of mine has a father who runs a lot. I mean alot. He'll be 69 in April. He had some chest pains while out on a run a few years back. He goes home, tells his wife the problem, then goes to the hospital. Docs check him out and immediately rush him to surgery. Everything was blocked up and he needed quadruple bypass. Docs said he should be dead. The reason he wasn't? He'd run so much that his heart had built another bypass to get blood to and from his working muscles. Now, I'm no scientist and I'm sure I've got some of the terminology wrong here. But you get the point. My friend's dad recovered and, I think, is now able to run again, though not as far or as long. He's run many marathons and his running saved his life.
Like I've said earlier, I'm only running the 10k tomorrow, though now I wish I would have signed up to run the half-marathon. It's my favorite race and in a later post, I'll tell you why.