Photo: Thinkstock

As a college student in the southwest, I had a brief and humbling hiking phase, during which I often found myself asthmatically ambling up mountain paths, trying to compose Percy-Bysshe-Shelley-esque-poems in my head, only to eat the dust of chipper senior citizens passing me on either side. At the time I thought it was because I was such a weakling, but now I wonder if it's not just that some older people are total bada**es. Think about it: they've had, like, 50 years to train. Probably, their lungs have had time to heal from youthful debauchery. I made a vow to work hard, train every day, and become an all-star hiker. Some day.

Well, here's a dose of inspiration for 70-something-year-old me: Tamae Watanabe just climbed to the summit of the world's tallest mountain (that's Everest, geography whizzkids). She's 73. She broke the standing world record for oldest woman to climb Mount Everest, which had been held by, uh, her. When she was 63. How awesome is this woman? According to the Telegraph, she's scaled "some of the most famous mountains in the world, including no fewer than five of the 14 peaks that are more than 26,246 feet high." My favorite detail about this story comes at the very end of the Telegraph's account: apparently Watanabe has a rival, another septuagenarian climbstress, who is currently in the midst of her own hike to the peak. Maybe this could be a new trend -- extreme retirement for fit ladies. I hope to someday be as bold. And as fit. And as -- check out the photo of Watanabe here -- totally psyched about it all.

Read More:
Valuable Lessons From an Alpha-Grandma
"She Got So Old!"