It never gets old

BEND, Ore. – Unlike age, which is measured precisely by years, vitality is not so easy to gauge. Rather, it is observed.

John Keston, a Bloomsday regular, is a spry 85.

“Everybody says life is short, but it doesn’t have to be,” said Keston, sitting in the comfortable living room of his home in Sunriver.

“You’ve got to enjoy your waning years as much as you do when you are younger,” he said, speaking with a pronounced British accent that reveals his English roots. “We hear about people who retire and then in a year or so they die because they don’t do anything. You need to stay as vital as you always were. And keep doing things that interest you. And keep exercising.”

Keston is many things: a husband and father, with 16 grandchildren and four great-grandkids. An actor. A singer. A teacher and a writer. And … a runner.

He started running at age 55, he said, to reduce his high blood pressure. Running not only brought his blood pressure down, it took his interest in the sport way up. Since then, he has in his age group broken countless USA Track & Field world records and course records at various distances. At 70, he began his quest to break the marathon world record in the men’s 70-74 category.

“It took me 10 marathons in 20 months to finally get the world record,” Keston said.

At 71, after traveling around the world racing, he reached his goal at the 1996 Twin Cities Marathon in Minneapolis. His time – 3 hours, 58 seconds – still stands as the USATF marathon world record in the men’s 70-74 category.

“When I first started running,” Keston said, “I had no idea that I would become ranked among the world’s top distance runners in my age group. … I entered my first race and won my age group at 55, and so I was hooked.”

Keston has been ranked among the world’s top age-group runners since age 65, and in 2001 he was inducted into the USATF Masters Hall of Fame.

Even now, at 85, Keston runs up to 40 miles a week. Some of those miles he logs in a swimming pool to reduce the pounding on his recently injured right knee. Each year, Keston said, he averages 20 to 30 running races of different distances. He travels around the Northwest and beyond, seeking out running races and breaking records.

“One of the races that I’m most proud of is a half marathon that I did at 80 years of age,” he said. “I ran 1:39:25 for the half marathon.”

He still holds that USATF half-marathon record for the men’s 80-84 category.

Keston estimates he has competed in nearly 800 races – 53 of them full 26.2-mile marathons – all accomplished in the middle to late years of his life.

“I don’t feel any less fit than I did 30 to 40 years ago,” Keston said. “I think you might definitely say that I do feel fitter.”

Despite suffering a torn right quadriceps tendon less than a year ago, Keston continues to attempt setting records. Last Sunday, he attempted to break the men’s 85-89 5-kilometer world record in the Light of Hope 5K race held in Bend. He had to beat 27 minutes, 42 seconds. He ran the 3.1-mile race in 28:28 and placed 90th out of more than 200 finishers.

“It’s never too late to start – you’re never too old to start racing or running,” Keston said.

“The dynamic athletes in their later years, they may not extend their life span much. But certainly their quality of life is so much better.”

Born Francis Douglas Arthur Keston in 1924, he spent much of his 20s and 30s acting on the stages of his hometown London. He first visited the United States in 1956 to audition for a play in Chicago and to promote the music he had recorded with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) Studios. In 1961 he attended Indiana State University and worked evenings as a singer at a posh hotel lounge in Chicago.

To be with family after studying music for two years at Indiana State, Keston moved back to England and continued his acting career. After 10 years, he was drawn back to the United States, where he was offered an artist in residence position at Bemidji State University in Minnesota.

His career as a performer includes spots in TV commercials, voice parts in video games, stark solo acts, singing opera, and playing lead roles in numerous musicals.

Keston and his wife of more than 50 years, Anne, moved to Sunriver in 2005 from McMinnville, Ore. The woods in Sunriver are Keston’s favorite place to run. When Keston is not running or hiking, he is walking with Anne or enjoying gourmet meals prepared by Anne or other members of the cooking club to which the two belong. Keston also cross-country skis and downhill skis in the winter. Travel and visiting family, above anything else, are what occupies most of the Kestons’ time.

Recently, Keston finished writing an autobiography – his first book – titled “Expressions of Aging.” In it, he catalogs many of his running feats, highlights his acting and singing career, and blends in his life philosophy. Keston writes in his as-yet unpublished book: “As long as health persists, the people I know have too much life still in them.”

Even as a boy, Keston felt that the older a person was, the more mystery in his or her life stories. Now that he is what he once considered an old man, he carries the mystery in his stories of full life experiences. He leads his life not fooled by some concept of agelessness, but rather embracing his life now, as he expects to do for years to come.

“My philosophy on aging is: Be kind to everybody and keep moving,” Keston said. “And be involved in life.”