Mavis Hutchison
laterally known as the Galloping Granny
Mavis Hutchison - laterally known as "The Galloping Granny"
Mavis Hutchison (born 24 November 1924) is a South African athlete.
In 1966 she was as an unofficial entrant the third woman in history to finish the 90 km of the Comrades Marathon. In later years she completed the race six more times.
She became famous as the first woman that ran across the United States, from Los Angeles to New York City. Her route, run in 1978, took her 2871 miles and 70 days.
Since 2005 she has set South African W80+ master records for 100 metres (18.84 sec), 200 metres (45.46 sec), 400 metres (1:52.88 min), and 800 metres (4:34.13 min).
Hutchison is since the end of the 1970s a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
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was able to be partially distracted as I attended to my son Jess who had traveled from Cape Town where he had competed in the Arthur Grey Memorial 50 kilometer walk on the Saturday. Immediately after the walk he and Willie De Beer, a fellow athlete, drove non-stop to Pietermaritzburg (about 1900 kilometers), to be in time for the race. They arrived at about 6p.m. on Sunday evening , the day before the race, very tired and hungry. At least this helped me to temporarily get the attention off my own nervousness.
Monday morning, race day, we were up very early. After a light breakfast we jogged to the City Hall for the start. What an impressive sight!
It was overcast but not raining. I was hopeful but, unfortunately, just before the race started, it began to rain softly. I tried to convince myself that the rain would not last long; in any event it would give the runners a cool start to the day.