There’s the 169 kilometers worth of marathons Peng Perngsa is known to have completed, plus innumerable half-marathons and smaller races.
What had to be one of the healthiest humans in the realm, Peng died Tuesday at 99, three decades after becoming famous as an elderly athlete at age 70.
“I eat Thai traditional food which does not contain too much fat, and I don’t smoke and drink alcohol, or even coffee,” Grandfather Peng said in an interview with the Bangkok Post four years ago.
Peng died just after midnight at a hospital in Ratchaburi province.
Since finishing his first marathon at age 72 at Chom Bung Rajabhat University, Thailand has become a much more health-conscious place, with joggers and cyclists becoming a regular site in its cities.
He was that race’s oldest entrant but finished the full 42.2 kilometer-course before half of the other, much younger racers.
Before out of his 80s, he’d completed four full marathons, the bet time of which was four hours, 20 minutes.
He last ran in the the Chom Bung 10K mini-marathon in 2012, Bangkok Post reported.
Photo: Perngsa family
