DALLAS -- Orville Rogers took up running 45 years ago and today, at the age of 95, he's still going.
"It keeps me going and I always feel very tired afterward, but I feel good," Rogers said.
He started running right after he read the first of Dr. Kenneth Coopers' 23 books, "Aerobics."
"It inspired me so much, I started running the very next day," Rogers said.
And the rest, as they say, is history. Today, he has logged nearly 40,000 miles and counting.
"We consider him 'Cooperized,'" Dr. Cooper said. "That's eight different steps that we're promoting around the world to try to get people improve the quality of their lives, and he's my star example of that."
"Interestingly, I'm coming up on the total number of miles that will equal the number of flight hours that I had -- 49,000," Rogers said.
He was a pilot for Braniff Airways and served in World War II and the Korean War.
"I was flying out of Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth - the B-36 - then the largest airplane in the world," Rogers said.
Five years ago, when he turned 90, Rogers realized he had the physical ability to break world records for his age group. Today, his world records have reached double-digits, including a 400-meter time of 2:17, set two weeks ago.
"I have 10 total [records,]" he said. "Two weeks ago, I broke the 400-meter world record at Coppell in a regional track meet, and back in March, I set six new world records in my age group, 95-to-99 [years old]."
And all of that after a sextuplet bypass operation 20 years ago.
"So many people don't wear out, they rust out," Dr. Cooper said. "And he's proving the contrary -- if you keep exercising, you can achieve phenomenal records."
In the meantime, Rogers' next track meet is two-and-a-half weeks away, and who knows what records he'll break then.
"I say you don't give up running because you got old, you got old because you stopped running," he said.
E-mail griba@wfaa.com
