LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – PJ Sullivan laces up her running shoes every day, rain or shine, and makes her way across Lubbock.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just enjoy the birds singing to me. I enjoy seeing animals. I enjoy seeing the sunrises,\u201d Sullivan said.<\/p>\n
Even after 60 years of running, she\u2019s never seen the same sunrise twice. The 80-year-old is looking back on six decades of doing what she loves. She started running after high school in 1966.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike I was telling my friends, if I run a mile or two or three, back then I thought I was running long distance,\u201d Sullivan said.<\/p>\n
Her day job was in healthcare. She became the first ultrasound technician in West Texas. Even after a long shift, a run would refresh her mind and body.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy key to health. Because I always believed that you need to move,\u201d Sullivan said.<\/p>\n
The story of Terry Fox inspired her to train for her first marathon. He ran with a prosthetic after losing his leg to cancer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought, if this young man can run 26 or more miles with one leg, I can run longer. So then I got motivated,\u201d Sullivan said.<\/p>\n
At that point, she\u2019d only run 10 miles in one session, but her friends told her she could do it, even if she had to walk.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I didn\u2019t walk. I ran the entire time and I did my first marathon in five hours. But that afternoon and the next day, I couldn\u2019t get in or out of the car,\u201d Sullivan said.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s learned a lot since that first marathon. She\u2019s completed 49 more, including her latest one last fall.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I thank God for letting me run,\u201d Sullivan said.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s created memories from Lubbock to Boston to New York.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was coming off the Brooklyn Bridge, there was a huge orchestra playing New York, New York, and that\u2019s why I fell in love with it,\u201d Sullivan said.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s run in honor of family, like her dad and husband, but mostly her motivation is simple.<\/p>\n
\u201cI run because I can,\u201d Sullivan said.<\/p>\n
Just like Terry Fox\u2019s prosthetic, she wants her white hair to be a symbol for others.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, maybe people look at me and they say, if she can do it, I can do it too,\u201d Sullivan said. \u201cGet up, put on your walking shoes or running shoes and go out the door.\u201d<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 KCBD. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – PJ Sullivan laces up her running shoes every day, rain or shine, and makes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[20349,39453,113195,113197,113196,7990,8466,27405,8467,41593,26411,11921,17852,5922,6169,168,170,169,12743,27418,36211,15713,4396,47040,113198,27,13655,98,20350],"class_list":["post-314718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lubbock","tag-20349","tag-5k","tag-113195","tag-113197","tag-80-year-old","tag-brittany-crittenden","tag-catholic","tag-celebrates","tag-charities","tag-decades","tag-honor","tag-inspiration","tag-inspire","tag-job","tag-journey","tag-lubbock","tag-lubbock-headlines","tag-lubbock-news","tag-marathon","tag-pj-sullivan","tag-remember","tag-run","tag-running","tag-six","tag-terry-fox","tag-texas","tag-to","tag-woman","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}