In 2017, Christine Hobson, then 63, ran the Tel Aviv Marathon in five hours, 37 minutes and 29 seconds. Which is already impressive – before you learn this feat meant she had run a marathon on every continent (except Antarctica, but more on this later).Afterwards, Hobson returned to her hotel with her husband Richard, a non-runner who travels to every destination to cheer her on. But he had a bone to pick. ‘I feel a bit like you’ve cheated,’ he joked. ‘Tel Aviv is right on the border, barely even in Asia. I think you need to do a “proper” Asian marathon. What do you think about Singapore?’ Two years later, Hobson would travel 6,750 miles from her West Yorkshire home to run in the 30C Singapore heat, finishing in seven hours and seven minutes. It was the ‘hardest of her life’, mainly because every bottle of water cost £10, so she thought it best to ration it.Now 72, Hobson has notched up 126 marathons since retiring as a headteacher in 2014. In 2018, she ran seven UK marathons in seven days, being battered by minus 7C temperatures thanks to the British weather. But really that was balmy: at 69, in 2022, she became the oldest woman to take on the Antarctic Ice Marathon at Union Glacier. An American adventure company had got in touch to offer her a last-minute dropout place – she had just three weeks to train, get to Antarctica, and ‘buy a good pair of off-road shoes’. Christine running the Antarctic Ice Marathon in 2022, with a snowmobile support crewEven then the running was, relatively speaking, the easy part. Hobson’s trip was delayed for endless reasons: Covid; her trainer having a ‘minor heart attack’; her bank account blocking the payment to the travel provider, believing an ‘old lady’ paying £20,000 to do an Antarctic marathon must have fallen for a scam.‘It was a beast all of its own,’ Hobson tells me, her hundreds of medals hanging in the background of our Zoom call. She looks like a tiny grandma – is a tiny grandma – and yet she’s casually discussing a race known as the most brutal endurance test on earth.‘The silence is the thing I remember most,’ Hobson says. ‘We were very close to the South Pole: there was no life, no penguins. When I stopped partway through the race and listened, I couldn’t hear anything. It was disturbing.’The toughest part? ‘Probably the whiteout,’ she shrugs. For reference, a whiteout is a severe weather event when snow and fog become so thick, visibility reduces to just centimetres.‘I went into blind panic for a moment, thinking, “What if I fall into an ice crevice, and nobody can find me.” But after half a minute, I pulled myself together and carried on.’ Instead of water, stations served the 61 runners hot chocolate and tea to keep their temperature up, and doctors tapped their noses to check for frostbite. ‘I found that a bit overdramatic,’ she says, laughing. Hobson finished in eight hours and 33 minutes, giving a thumbs-up as she crossed the finish line. Hobson entered her 50s ‘overweight and so unfit I struggled to get out of the car’. HOW TO GET STARTED USING THE WALK/RUN METHOD Warm upWalk briskly for around five minutes to get your body moving.Pick your run-walk ratioThis could be 30 seconds running, then 30 seconds walking, or one minute running, one minute walking.Run gentlyThe running sections should feel comfortable, not like a sprint.Take your walk breaks earlyDon’t wait until you’re exhausted – walk before you need to.Repeat the patternAlternate running and walking for the length of your session.Build up slowlyOver time, you can increase the running sections or reduce the walking breaks as your fitness improves. Despite being among the world’s most-decorated marathon runners, it wasn’t always so. Hobson entered her 50s ‘overweight and so unfit I struggled to get out of the car’. The decisive moment came when she walked up the small hill near her home and felt her feet aching from the effort. ‘I thought, “If I’m like this now, what am I going to be like in my 70s? My 80s? I need to get my act together.”’ Her daughter Liz was a huge support and helped her sign up for the local running club, Holmfirth Harriers. Just two days later, they told Hobson they had a spare space for one of the club’s runners to do the London Marathon. She signed up.Her training began following the Jeff Galloway method (see right), which uses strategic walk breaks to help beginners tackle long distances. She still uses this walk/run method, saying there’s no need to ‘run continuously’ and ‘traumatise’ yourself. Her logic is you’re still getting the steps done, and usually faster than if you try to go all-out.Hobson now lives like an elite athlete: she stopped drinking in 2017 and started eating a protein-rich diet. She has lost more than 3st since her 50s, and health tests say her biological age is decades younger than her actual one. When I ask if there’s anything she won’t try to improve her performance, she says only one thing: the trendy glucose gels Gen Z runners love. When she needs a sugar boost while running, she opts for slices of fresh fruit or jam sandwiches. ‘Although by mile 20, I’m often so tired they’re hard to chew, so I have to cut them into tiny pieces.’ Hobson shows the results of her fitness routine.Hobson shows no sign of slowing down – quite literally. She has now shaved her times firmly into the five-hour zone and is hoping to run the North Pole Marathon in the next few years. She’s keen to encourage other women her age to dream this big, too. Her top piece of advice? ‘You can’t blame your age for your problems. You’ve got to push through. Lots of older people think, “I’ve just got to lie down and wait to die.” Well, look at me: no, you don’t.’