100-Year-Old Runner Holds 4 World Records — and He's Still Lacing Up: 'I'm Having the Best Time of My Life'

Matthew Allen/Matthewallenphoto Mike Fremont

As Mike Fremont steadily jogs along his favorite routes near his home in Cincinnati, Ohio, he "salutes" nearly everyone he passes. They know him well, because at age 100, Fremont has been running these same paths for decades.

"They're all accustomed to me," he tells PEOPLE. "They say, 'I've seen you here for 40 years!' "

Fremont is something of a running celebrity, even outside of Cincinnati — he holds multiple single-age world running records in everything from the mile to the marathon — but he came to the sport later in his long life. Fremont only started running in his late 30s, after the sudden death of his first wife from a brain hemorrhage left him widowed with three kids, including a 2-week-old.

"I was very stressed when my wife left me, and I needed to do something every day to take the stress off. So usually I'd take one of my little kids, and she would hold my little finger and we'd run," he says. "I enjoyed it and I thought it was good for me. It was much better than the two martinis I used to have."

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And running — along with long-distance canoeing — quickly became a vital part of Fremont's days. Though he was lacing up regularly and logging extensive miles, Fremont didn't start competitively racing until after 1992, when he was diagnosed with colorectal cancer and told by doctors he had just three months to live.

"It was a terrible, terrible thing to tell me," he says. Fremont lived beyond those three months, and two and a half years later, physicians removed the cancerous tumor. There were shocked to find there was no spread of the disease. Says Fremont: "The surgeon said that he had looked for metastasis in 35 places and found none. Zero."

Inspired by being given a new lease on life, Fremont started signing up for races, anything from 10Ks to marathons. "I found that I wasn't too bad at running. I didn't weigh too much, and I was small. It helped," says Fremont, who says he benefitted from a macrobiotic, vegan diet. "Then I began to win some races, and the pressure was on."

His wife of 29 years, Marilyn Wall, 69, proudly says "that's when he started to make records for his age."

Mike Fremont and his wife, Marilyn Wall

Fremont now holds an astounding five titles: world records for the fastest marathon time at age 80 and again at age 90; the fastest half-marathon time at age 90 and 91; and the U.S. record for the fastest mile by a 96-year-old.

"I took 53 seconds off the one-mile race record," Fremont boasts. "I was very pleased."

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These days, Fremont says he has no plans to take down other world records. "I think I'm sensible enough not to try to run marathons at 100," he says, before adding with a smile: "Why should I have anything to prove?"

Instead, Fremont is simply enjoying his days with Wall and his family, including five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. On his 100th birthday, on Feb. 23, they celebrated with a vegan cake and a run along the ocean in Vero Beach, Florida.

Matthew Allen/Matthewallenphoto Mike Fremont and Marilyn Wall

"I'm having the best time of my life," Fremont says.

And for anyone daunted by running or training for a marathon, Fremont says to simply get moving and give it a try: "Come with me. I'll walk with you. I'll run with you. Whatever you want to do."