41 year-old woman runs 2:25 marathon in Melbourne

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Sinead Diver of Australia won the Melbourne Marathon on Sunday morning in a course record time of 2:25:19. The 41-year-old reportedly only took up running eight year ago, and has certainly made her mark on the running scene. 

The runner took home at $40,000 prize on Sunday, $20,000 for the win and $20,000 for the record. Diver had pacers to help her through the race, and she gives huge credit on Instagram to Jack Rayner for pacing her to 37 kilometres. 

Diver’s time has qualified her for the Doha World Championship marathon in the fall of 2019, and places her as the fourth-fastest Australian woman to run the marathon. The runner moved to Australia from Ireland in 2002. 

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RELATED: Jim Finlayson sets Canadian age group record at Victoria Marathon

Diver isn’t only racing on the roads, she’s tackled distances from the 1,500m through the marathon with impressive personal bests in the 5,000m and 10K especially, in 16:13.3 and 31:59. She also represented Australia at the 2018 IAAF World Half-Marathon Championships. 

Age is increasingly seeming like less of a factor in elite women’s marathon running. The Berlin Marathon was an amazing event for Canadian women. Both Lyndsay Tessier, 40, and Catherine Watkins, 47, broke their respective age group records there in 2:30:47 and 2:40:11.  

RELATED: The Shakeout Podcast: Lessons in Ageing

Last week’s Shakeout Podcast addressed these Canadian women’s accomplishments and talked to them about defying age norms by running nationally competitive personal best times later in life.