BEACHWOOD, Ohio – On and off the track, in both life and sport, Diane Friedman is an inspiration.
At 98 years old, the Lyndhurst resident isn’t just mobile, healthy, and independent. She’s a champion runner, the new holder of an age group world record at 400 meters.
“Just to be able to run at 98, you’re talking one in a million,” said Bruce Sherman, the Beachwood High School assistant coach who serves as Friedman’s trainer. “She’s the epitome of good exercise physiology.”
Indeed she is. At an official meet in Bedford on a scorching-hot day in July, the stadium came to standstill as Friedman zipped around the track faster than any woman in the 95-99 age group ever had.
She didn’t just break the world record, either. She crushed it, lopping more than a minute off the previous mark set by runner Hollyce Kirkland in Alabama in 2017, at the age of 97. She moved the bar from 4:29 all the way down to 3:21, landing herself simultaneously in the annals of track history and the pages of Sports Illustrated.
“The records she’s leaving will last probably forever,” Sherman said proudly, noting that even Friedman herself is unlikely ever to beat them anytime soon. “She’s buried them [the records] so far, they’re gone.”
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Remarkably, the July meet wasn’t Friedman’s first time around the block, or even the setting of her first world record. Two years earlier, one year after she started training with Sherman, Friedman, a former office worker, broke two records on the same day, setting new benchmarks at both 100 and 200 meters. She’s also in contention for records in the javelin throw.
“I’m still tired from that,” jokes Friedman, now the first holder of simultaneous world records in three distances. “I used to slow down when I saw the finish line. This time [at the 400], I started out fast and got faster and faster as I went.”
How Friedman has managed to remain healthy and fit so long isn’t entirely clear. Friedman is perfectly lucid, even funny, in conversation, but when it comes to recalling details of her past, she struggles.
All Sherman knows is that Friedman used to be an active member of the Mandel Jewish Community Center and was a competitive runner well into her 70s. An acquaintance of her niece, Sherman took Friedman under his wing in 2016 and began prepping her for track meets a few months later, running drills in the hallways and parking lot of her Lyndhurst apartment complex.
He also knows what he’s witnessed firsthand. In the three years since he started working with Friedman, Sherman said he’s seen his friend make huge social, emotional, and psychological gains, all in addition to her athletic achievements, the medals from which she wears like jewelry.
“People say it’s changed her life,” Sherman said. “They thank me for what I’ve done for her. All of this comes with the full blessing of her medical team.”
How much longer it will come with Friedman’s blessing remains to be seen. Sherman said he’s convinced Friedman hasn’t reached her limits, and that a fourth world record in the 800 meters is well within her grasp. Friedman isn’t so sure, but she isn’t saying no, either.
Meanwhile, foremost on Friedman’s mind is a wholly different goal: to serve as an example of what can come from dedication and even a little physical activity.
“The women that I know, they need to walk,” Friedman said. “Not fast, just walk. I want to energize them. They know it’ll be good for them, but if they’re just going to talk about it, they’re never going to do it.”
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