When she was growing up, Marilyn Olsen of North Olmsted says girls didn’t play sports. She herself was a party girl, preferring dancing to any organized exercise.

“When I got out of high school, it was the bars or the ballrooms,” Olsen said. “Never, never anything athletic, but the dancing was good.”

That changed when she was 45. A coworker recommended that Olsen join her for a race, and from there she fell in love with the sport of running. She ended up placing third in her first 5K.

“I tried it and I liked it. And it kept me fit — I could eat potato chips,” she said with a laugh.

Olsen, now 90, has been running ever since. Most recently she competed in a Skeleton Run in Amherst, dressed as Big Bird. She races nearly 40 times a year, and has been all around the world.

Olsen said she’

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