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85-Year-Old Woman Prepares To Run 14th Boston Marathon

BOSTON (CBS) – Katherine Beiers of Santa Cruz, Calif. won first place for her division in the Boston Marathon in 2017 when she was 84 years old.

Related: Boston Marathon Forecast

Now at 85, she is ready to add another Boston racing bib to her wall of accomplishments.

"Well Boston is the biggie, it really is," Beiers said.

KatherineBeiers
Katherine Beiers. (WBZ-TV)

Katherine didn't start running until she was 49. She was a librarian at a local university where they brought in a time management guru who kick started her running.

"He talked about no martini lunches to me, which to me is white wine at lunch. But he said you have to pump your heart cardio 12 minutes a day," Beiers recalled.

On her lunch hour, she started jogging laps around the track.

"It took me months to do a mile without stopping," she said.

Katherine Beiers
Katherine Beiers trains in California for the Boston Marathon. (WBZ-TV)

Then a group of runners invited her to keep up. In her early 50s, she completed her first marathon in Napa with her son.

Katherine has now run around 38 marathons. This will be her 14th Boston.

"It's wonderful and extremely exciting and that's what does it every year - you just want to go back," she said.

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