Like many parents, Sally Cooke was used to ferrying her children to weekly swimming, athletics, ballet and football classes. One day, shivering under a blanket on the sidelines at Stevenage Athletics Club, she asked whether she could jog around the track to keep warm.
Two years later, 52-year-old Cooke holds all the British records from 100m to 800m in the women’s 50-55 age group, and her 400m time — 57.55 seconds — is also a world record. Not bad for someone who hadn’t done any sport since her teens.
Cooke, who grew up in Lancaster, lives in Hitchin in Hertfordshire with her husband, Alex, and works as a part-time hairdresser. She used to run with friends as a teenager and entered local competitions, but it was always only a bit of fun. “There wasn’t really any support for me at that age,” Cooke says.
After rediscovering her love of running just before lockdown, Cooke joined Luton Athletics Club and was surprised to discover she was good — very good. “I never would have thought I could have got so fit,” she says. “I’m faster than a lot of the younger athletes at the track. I don’t know how.”
Although Cooke says she is not a competitive person, her coaches recognised natural talent and coaxed her into entering competitions. First she won the 100m, 200m and 400m at the British Masters Championships in 2021, setting records in the 100m and 400m in the process. Since then she has set a British record in the 800m, 200m and 100m, and a world record in the 400m, making her the only athlete to hold consecutive British records for distances from 100m to 800m. To top it all, this year she was named Athletics Weekly’s masters athlete — the term for competitors over the age of 35 — of the year.
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While Cooke says she has no regrets, she does think about what might have been if she had taken up running earlier. She is the same age as Dame Kelly Holmes, who won gold in the 800m at the Athens Olympics in 2004. “I could have been one of the best in the country,” she says. “I could have been at the Olympics.”
One person did spot Cooke’s potential when she was younger. “My dad used to say, ‘Why don’t you try to be a professional runner and I’ll try and get some of my friends to sponsor you’. I just thought: ‘What’s he talking about? I have to get a job.’ ”
Instead, Cooke moved to London to study fashion and textiles and, later, hairdressing. Last year she took her father to the British championships, where she won three gold medals. “I said, ‘There you go, Dad. I’ve done it for you’ and put the medals around his shoulders.”
Far from being held back by her age, Cooke says she is in better shape than she has ever been. “Now my body feels just way fitter because I didn’t do the endurance training when I was younger, but I could run faster at shorter distances.”
Although she feels lucky to still be fit, she doesn’t know how long she will be able to continue improving on her record-breaking times. “As long as my body is feeling good and I don’t get injured, I’ll just keep trying,” she says. Next year she hopes to beat the world record for the 800m: she would need to shave two seconds off her current time.
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Cooke has always had a healthy diet, heavy on salmon, raspberries, blueberries and broccoli. She does not eat meat, bread or pasta and never drank alcohol as it causes her migraines.
“I don’t follow a strict diet or anything like that. I still eat chips and I do love chocolate. I eat lots of that,” she admits. Changes in technology have been the biggest boost. “When I was 15 I had no idea how fast I was and where I was ranked, or what the training was,” she says. “I would just go along and do the sessions and it didn’t mean anything. There was no purpose to it.”
Now Cooke keeps track of her progress using a smart watch, studies YouTube videos of elite Olympic athletes to hone her technique and has consults nutrition and training plans. She trains six days a week and also goes to the gym.
She is faster than her children, Bluebell and Archie, aged 19 and 18, and her family are proud of her — although she is not one to shout about her achievements at home. “We don’t talk about it really,” she says. “When I broke the British record for the 800m, I just walked back in the house as if I’d been to the shops.”
Sally Cooke’s tips for getting fit in midlife
• Start off at the ability your body will allow and try not to get out of breath
• Try going for two runs a week
• Mix it up: go on a variety of runs — sprints and aerobic — to keep it interesting and gradually increase your speed and fitness level
• Slowly build it up: run the same distances but start trying to beat your time using an app or Garmin watch
• When you start improving, strength training in the gym will help
• You don’t need expensive trainers to begin with, but they do make a difference. Cooke uses Nike ZoomX Streakfly trainers for 5k runs
