Caitriona Jennings, a 45-year-old ultrarunner from Donegal, has set a new world record for the 100-mile race with an impressive time of 12 hours, 37 minutes, and 4 seconds. Completing the Tunnel Hill 100 Mile in Illinois, she averaged 7 minutes and 34 seconds per mile, a pace that most would struggle to sustain even for a marathon, let alone for over 100 miles.
Despite her exceptional achievement, Jennings doesn’t see herself as a superhuman. She’s quick to point out that her success came through consistent and intense training—running 48 to 64 miles every weekend, and fitting in runs during her lunch breaks and before work. She describes the physical challenge of ultrarunning as not just about endurance, but about mental strength. The hardest part of the race, she admits, was not the physical exhaustion but maintaining focus after running for hours, as she hadn’t even reached the point where one can think in terms of just completing “one last marathon.”
Jennings credits her success to a strong mental resolve and a willingness to endure pain. “You need to sustain a certain amount of pain because that’s just the nature of the game. If you’re going to run that fast for that long, you’re going to hurt unless you’re superhuman,” she explains. Her coach, Terry McConnon, believes Jennings’s remarkable capacity for pain and determination are what set her apart, pointing to her ability to finish the London 2012 marathon despite suffering from a stress fracture.
Jennings’ achievement adds to the growing recognition of older women in ultrarunning, with athletes like Sarah Webster and Jasmin Paris also proving that age is no barrier to extreme feats. Sarah Webster, at 46, set a new women’s 24-hour world record in France, and Jasmin Paris became the first woman to complete the Barkley Marathon, known for its grueling difficulty.
Jennings’s success challenges the notion that such accomplishments are reserved for elite athletes or the young. She encourages women to break past mental barriers and take on challenges they might think are out of reach. “It’s not actually that difficult,” she says. Her story is a reminder that with determination, training, and mental toughness, anyone can achieve extraordinary things—no matter their age or gender.
