The Oldest Honolulu Marathon Runner

Gladys was a Finnish immigrant with five siblings. She is the youngest, also stating "we were poor and lived on a farm." Now Burrill has two homes one in Waikiki a condo. She is actual from Prospect, Oregon where her other home is. Burrill was married for almost 69 years to her husband Gene. She had six children and many grandchildren. However, she had one son to past in the mid 80s's.

"Gladys Burrill" is the oldest record holder at 92 years old. She is the oldest female to complete the Honolulu Marathon. She has achieved her fifth run at this track. This is her pick of all the races. She finished it in "nine hours, fifty three minutes and sixteen seconds" on December 12, 2010. Although her plans were to finish the race within eight hours and a half it took her over nine hours.

Another woman holds the Guinness record for the oldest female runner. "Jenny Wood-Allen at age 90 years and 145 days old" completed a marathon.

Her husband Gene was her number one supporter. He encouraged her by standing behind her all the way. He never missed a race until 2008.

Running her first race at age 86 in 2004, she has ran that same race every since. However she was unable to finish two of the races. One in which her husband has passed 4 days earlier. She was saddened by her best friend, most dedicated supporter and companion's death. Therefore, she stopped about one mile from the finish line of that race in 2008. Again in 2009 cramps in her stomach forced her to stop after running 16 miles. However a six time race winner gave her few words just to encourage her to finish. She than finished the race with her arms held high in victory.

Burrill's completion of the marathon was submitted to Guinness in Dec 2010. If confirmed this will be the world record for the marathon at Honolulu. This race is 26.2 miles which is the approved length. When running these types of races a chip is placed on the runner's shoe. The chip gives the time and shows the crossing of all checkpoints. At this time (Dec 2010) it has been confirmed in the US that she is the oldest woman to finish a marathon.

She has no plans to return to the Honolulu marathon next year. Although, this has been said in the past but she returns the next year.