Runners over 50

Are you ever too old to be a runner?

In the latest segment of Running Voices, created by producer Karen Barrow, four athletes over 50 tell amazing stories of life on the run.

Jacque Carter, 53, from Washington, D.C., is a former runner turned race walker. Even though she is technically walking, she still moves at a 12-minute mile pace. During a recent team meeting, Ms. Carter raised $4,100 by shaving her head as a tribute to cancer patients who had lost their hair during chemotherapy. "We are not mall walkers," she says. "We are endurance walkers. We are out on a race course for six or seven or eight hours at a time and that does take a lot of endurance."

Marshall Ulrich, 57, from Idaho Springs, Colo., began running about 30 years ago after his doctor suggested he exercise to control his high blood pressure. He has since completed 121 ultramarathons of more than 100 miles each, and he is a four-time winner of the grueling Badwater Ultramarathon from Death Valley to Mt. Whitney, Calif. More recently he decided to run 3,063 miles from San Francisco to New York City — the equivalent of running a combination of two marathons and a 10K each day. "I just wanted to cross the country…and go through some of the extraordinary places that exist in the United States," he says.

Alan Schappe, 52, of Madison, Wis., began running seven years ago to get in shape. "I was about to be 45, and I realized I really let myself get out of shape and thought, 'My life is probably half over,' " he says. "It woke me up to the fact that I want to get in shape, and if I don't do it now when would I ever start?" His effort paid off. Now Mr. Schappe competes in Ironman triathlons. "I was never a fit person," he says. "If someone told me 20 years ago that I would be doing a race that was 140.6 miles long consisting of swimming, biking and running — it would have just been a laugh."

Sab Koide, 85, of Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., began running at the age of 56. Since then he's completed 60 marathons, 28 of them in New York City. His goal this year is to run the New York City marathon in seven-and-a-half hours. "The most uplifting part is to get to the 26 miles," he says. "I try to race the last two-tenths of a mile to show I'm still in good shape."

To see photos and to listen to these and other runners tell their stories, go to theRunning Voices audio slideshow.