At 99 Years Old, George Etzweiler Can't Stop Running

SIX OLD MEN gather for a run in the mountains outside State College, Pennsylvania.

- Andrew Dawson

‘Old’, of course, is a relative term. If you’re 25, 60 seems ancient. If you’re 55, 60 is the new50. But by any measure, these runners shuffling down the mountain in the morning mist qualify as old. They are grey-haired, hunched over a bit, creaky in the knees, a little hard of hearing – everything you’d expect from people who came of age when the Beatles crossed Abbey Road.

They are ‘TheOldMenof the Mountains’. But you’d be wrong to call them elderly. They’re runners, after all, members of an 80-kilometre relay team that’s famous in these parts of the Allegheny mountains in Centre County. The youngest runner, ‘the kid’, recently turned 67. The eldest, George Etzweiler, is 99 years old. Ninety-nine! He was born in1920. That’s thesameyearCharlie Chaplin’s silentmovieTheKidmade its debut.

Short in stature, and breathing like a struggling freight train, George leads his team around mountain switchbacks and gravel roads on this cool June morning for a training run. The boys are preparing for theannualTusseyMountainback80kmrun. Since 2007, George has coaxed and cajoled other old runners out of their easy chairs for the event.

A black Chevrolet speeds up the gravel road as the men pause for a rest stop. “Car!” yells JohnKnepley, a four-timeOldMan of the Mountain. Everyone makes their way to the side – except for George, who, even with his hearing aid, doesn’t acknowledge the warning.

“CAR COMING, GEORGE!”

“Oh,” George says, caught off guard.

“Good grief.”

The men assist George to the slanted edge of the road as the Chevy pulls past slowly, then stops. The driver rolls down the window and points at George in his orange jacket. “Hey, that’s the guy, right?” she says. “The old guy who runs.”