Ex-marathoner, 102, still piling up miles, smiles

When we met Saturday, the Turbaned Tornado was wearing a brown sport coat, blue shirt with a paisley pattern, brown paisley tie, brown trousers, brown loafers. A gold wristwatch that the good people of Dubai had given him. And a matching brown turban.

His ZZ Top-model beard was by design long and flowing.

The Turbaned Tornado — he also answers to Running Baba and Sikh Superman — is Fauja Singh, age 102, of Ilford, East London, by way of Beas Pind, Jalandhar, Punjab, British India. He is sartorially splendid. A fashionista.

He also is the world’s oldest marathon runner.

Singh retired after running the 2011 Toronto Waterfront Marathon at age 100 because, well, one can’t run forever.

His time for the 26.2-mile distance was 8 hours, 11 minutes, 6 seconds. His time in Toronto in 2003, when he was 92, was 5 hours, 40 minutes. He passed Methuselah and Cher at the 20-mile marker and never looked back.

The Turbaned Tornado was lounging in an easy chair in Room 31.002, a corner suite at Vdara Resort and Spa. He was paging through an Ermenegildo Zegna catalog the man with the tape measure had given him Friday.

The Turbaned Tornado — he loves the name, but out of respect, I still called him Mr. Singh — showed me a photo of a young man with facial stubble who was modeling a fine suit of clothes. A very fine suit of clothes. From the Couture Collection. Zegna silk jacket, printed trousers of cotton and silk. The young man was carrying a travel bag made of hand-buffed leather.

The Turbaned Tornado wanted that suit.

Vin, his interpreter, tried to caution him that this was a high-end haberdashery at Crystals at CityCenter. The suit will cost too much, Vin said. That jacket alone must go for 5,000 pounds.

Actually, it was 2,308.35 pounds for the jacket ($3,595), another 834.73 for the trousers ($1,300). I didn’t ask Alejandro the sales consultant — you can call me Alex, he said — how much the hand-buffed leather travel bag cost.

I explained to Alex that I was just coming from speaking to the world’s oldest marathon runner, Fauja Singh, aka the Turbaned Tornado. That he had been in the store Friday.

That he really liked this suit.

Alex remembered him well, didn’t know that he had run a marathon at age 100. Didn’t know that he had dined with the Queen Mother and been invited to Prince William’s wedding, either.

“So whaddya think?” I asked Alex the sales consultant. “Anyway you can hook a 102-year-old brother up?”

Alex explained that any promotional arrangement like that had to come from the home office in Milan. He did say the shop could hook up the Tornado with custom tailoring. Make him look real sharp for the Las Vegas marathon in December, Alex said.

I had spent about 90 minutes chatting and gesturing with the world’s oldest jet-setter, which is what British Airways and Gatwick Airport call him, a man whose knowledge of English is limited to three words: “Beckham” — he and the soccer star and Muhammad Ali had appeared in an adidas ad together — and “thank you.” But Vin, who works for a London talent agency, was fluent in Punjabi.

Whatever Vin couldn’t translate, Mr. Singh communicated with a magnetic smile and hand gestures that could guide the Concorde to the terminal tarmac, if the Concorde still was flying. And a convivial personality. This old man was practically gregarious. I doubt very seriously he’s ever told the neighborhood kids to get off his lawn.

This is a man who has enjoyed his 102 years on this great earth, as the Apollo astronauts liked to call it. He had farmed cows as a young man. He had used his hands. It took awhile for the early cow-milking machines to make their way to British India, he said.

He didn’t take up running in earnest until he was 81 following a chance meeting with a fitness trainer. Good thing for those Kenyans.

He said he took up running to ease the pain in his heart after his wife had died, and then his eldest daughter, and then witnessing a construction accident that killed Kuldip, his fifth son.

When he began training with other Sikh runners in Essex near the River Thames, he showed up in a three-piece suit. Their group was known as “Sikhs in the City.” Mr. Big, meet Mr. Old.

He ran his first marathon in London in 2000, when he was 89. He said the first 20 miles were easy. And the last 6.2? “I prayed to God,” he said.

When asked about the secret to his longevity, he said he consumes lots of vegetables (Mom was right), no meat or alcohol (Dad was wrong). He rubs oil on his body, he said. He watches boxing and soccer and wildlife programs on TV.

On Friday, after taking Vin on a four-mile walk — “I’m still knackered,” Vin said — they watched “Divorce Court.” Vin had to explain the concept of divorce, because in the village Mr. Singh is from, men outnumber women about 10 to 1. And so a man would never think of getting divorced.

In a couple of hours, the Turbaned Tornado would be appearing at Las Vegas Mela, an Indian food and culture shindig at Clark County Amphitheater. He said he much preferred the dry heat of Las Vegas to the damp chill of London, but that our haberdashery prices were much too high and our women wore too few clothes. He was chuckling when he mentioned the bare midriffs, but I think this was for my benefit.

He said he really wanted that suit at Ermenegildo Zegna.

I told him I would see what I could do. Better hurry, he said. He’s 102.

When I got off the tram at CityCenter to see Alex the sales consultant, I had one foot on the escalator before jumping off. I had just interviewed a 102-year-old man who had run a marathon at age 100.

I would take the stairs.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.