Larry Lewis, a long-distance running centenarian who ran six miles through Golden Gate Park almost every day of his life, died Friday at the age of 106.
Doctors at Hahnemann Hospital said Lewis died of cancer of the liver. “He never gave up,” said Robert Brown, a friend who was with Lewis when he died. Lewis became ill recently but until then he was a veritable dynamo who could outrun and outwalk men half his age.
Lewis, a waiter at the St. Francis Hotel, celebrated his 102nd birthday by running 100 yards in 17.3 seconds, half a second faster than on his 101st birthday. The extra speed, Lewis explained, was due to his sneakers. He said he wore street shoes for the 101st birthday dash.
Lewis, a one-time assistant to the great Houdini, ran 6.7 miles through the park every day almost always in a time of 37 minutes. “I can’t sit still,” Lewis once told newsmen. Lewis was reared on a Navajo Indian reservation in Arizona and left at 15 to join the P.T. Barnum Circus as an acrobat and aerialist. For 33 years he was Houdini’s assistant.
