Jeannie Rice began her 2025 racing year with a strong performance in the Tokyo Marathon. This was a particularly important race for Jeannie, as she had missed the Berlin Marathon last September due to a foot injury (really, an accident) when she rolled her foot over a rock on the road.
At Tokyo, Rice ran 3:38:57. As usual, she placed first in the Female 75-79 division.
Next she turned her attention to the Boston Marathon. This time she suffered the first true running injury in her 40+ years of running--a hamstring strain.The hamstring didn't force her out of Boston, but dictated that she should run just for fun.
Rice did just that, finishing in 4:27:17, which was still good enough for first place in her age group. She turned 77 just prior to the 2025 Boston Marathon.
A month after Boston, she returned to more or less her normal training routine.
In mid February, The Journal of Applied Physiology published the results of Jeannie's lab testing, completed in 2024 just after her world-record in the London Marathon. The paper concluded that she had "the highest V̇o2max ever recorded in a female >75 yr-old." In fact, her cardiac fitness measured at the 90th percentile for females aged 20 to 29.
A number of publications took note of the physiology paper, and followed up with feature stories on Jeannie. These included the Washington Post, Runner's World magazine, and the Times of London (photo below).
