At 70, she’s now a powerlifter. How this retired teacher refuses to slow down

Anjali Hazari hit the ground running when she arrived in Hong Kong as a newlywed in her early twenties more than four decades ago – and she has not stopped. Despite developing knee pain that has required surgeries and now having osteoporosis and more, the retired teacher and tutorial company owner keeps pushing forward – first as a marathoner, then a mountaineer, now a powerlifter – at the age of 70. Raised in Amravati, a city in the Indian state of Maharashtra, Hazari studied in Mumbai and represented her college in table tennis and swimming before marrying and leaving for Hong Kong. She and her merchant navy officer husband lived on a ship docked on the city’s outskirts when they first landed. Running from the port into the city and back was the fastest and cheapest way to commute, and she soon started running seriously over longer distances and joining races. “I definitely have slow-twitch muscles,” Hazari says, referring to the type of fatigue-resistant muscle fibres designed for endurance that everyone has to varying degrees. She trained the old-fashioned way, before the internet became common use: by reading books. “There was no Google, no training plans online. I’d read whatever I could find about marathons and then apply it to my training.” She fitted her runs around her work as a teacher and family life, raising two children. Long runs were saved for weekends, tempo runs for midweek, and intervals whenever she had time. Hong Kong’s hills and trails became her natural training ground: Bowen Road at lunch, Mount Davis before work, and, when time allowed, the more challenging Violet Hill or the Peak. From her thirties to her early sixties, she typically logged 30 to 40 kilometres (19 to 25 miles) a week, and took part in 60-plus races. She ran mostly marathons, with a string of half-marathons, 15K and 10K events in Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, Mumbai, Thailand, Malaysia and Iceland. Running was a form of meditation. “Like [celebrated Japanese author and runner Haruki] Murakami says, it’s time to be alone with your thoughts,” she says. “I grew up with a lot of emotional baggage. Running gave me the space to process that.” Her challenges included losing her mother when she was six, as well as having to drop out of medical school due to financial constraints. “Running is a metaphor for life. If you put one foot in front of the other, you get to your destination,” she says. A build-up of health challenges Years of pounding the pavement took their toll, though. Hazari suffered common running injuries such as shin splints, plantar fasciitis and torn ligaments. Her knees were affected the most. She underwent three arthroscopies to repair the joint on her right knee and another on her left. A chondral detachment – when the protective cushioning in the knee essentially unzips from the bone – eventually left her with bone-on-bone pain in the right knee. By 62, osteoarthritis had forced her off the marathon course. “I never did strength training, yoga or stretching. Many of the injuries could have been prevented with that,” says Hazari. Her health challenges grew after her last marathon in 2018. “I noticed blood in my urine,” she says, a common condition in runners known as haematuria. Scans showed two tumours on her ovaries, though, which turned out to be benign. She had major abdominal surgery to remove her ovaries and Fallopian tubes in 2020. After 10 weeks, she began running again. “Running up Mount Davis was my daily morning run. It’s how I felt normal again,” she says. But the haematuria returned, alongside severe leg pain. A bone density scan showed she had osteoporosis, for which she was prescribed medicine and calcium. The bleeding persisted, prompting her son Akhil, a surgeon, to push for more tests. Her calcium and iPTH (intact parathyroid hormone) levels were off the charts: the hormone was working overtime, signalling her system to strip calcium from her bones to flood her bloodstream. A tumour on one of the four tiny parathyroid glands in her neck was the culprit. She had it removed in 2022. “These tumours are quite common in women over 60. The excess calcium ends up in the urine. Those crystals [it formed] had been scratching and damaging my bladder lining for nearly three years,” she says. The haematuria stopped, but the damage to her bones had been done. Her knees worsened, and doctors advised her to take up swimming, a low-impact option. She tried twice, but it never held her interest. “I couldn’t stare at tiles for hours. Humans are bipedal; we’re not meant to move horizontally for sport,” she says. So she trained to climb mountains. A move to other sports Working with the B-Active clinic at the University of Hong Kong’s centre for sports and exercise, she underwent VO2 max testing, training-zone analysis and a climbing programme tailored to her fitness level. The results were striking: her aerobic capacity ranked in the top 5 per cent of women worldwide in the 45 to 49 age category, despite being two decades older. In 2023, at 67, she summited the 6,250-metre (20,500-foot) Kang Yatse II in Ladakh, India. The following year, she climbed Africa’s highest peak, Mount Kilimanjaro, at 5,895 metres. Then, in 2025, during a 10km race in Taiping, Malaysia, her right knee gave out. After another surgery, her running and trekking days were effectively over, doctors said. They recommended knee replacements, but she refused. “I realised strong hips and ankles are the knees’ best friends. I wanted to see what would happen if I strengthened the muscles and ligaments around the knees first,” she says. She opted for platelet-rich plasma therapy, which uses the patient’s own blood, concentrates the platelets and injects them to promote healing and tissue repair. She also hired strength coach Kedar Deshmukh, who works with her online. “[People] lose bone density and muscle tissue if they aren’t loaded with heavy weights,” Deshmukh says. He designed a programme aimed at strengthening the muscles on the back side, building quad and glute power, and improving balance and control. “Counter-intuitively, single-leg squats alleviated my knee pain. My knees don’t hurt any more. I feel stronger than I have in years,” says Hazari, who now deadlifts 115kg (250lb) and bench presses 40kg. On April 11, she will compete in her first powerlifting competition, in the open category of the 2026 Hong Kong Powerlifting Championships. She also does Pilates and mobility work, and follows online trainers for hip, core and abdominal conditioning. Her most recent win: she is able to hold a plank for five minutes and 35 seconds. She practises intermittent fasting, eating two protein-rich meals within a six- to seven-hour window, with occasional indulgences. “Consistency, not perfection, is the secret,” she says. Her two children, Akhil and tech entrepreneur Akanksha, grew up watching their mother train, recover and begin again. “My mother is the definition of dogged determination,” Akhil says. “Raising two children, working, studying and running a house were not things that were going to stop her from achieving her goals. ‘Exercise is medicine’ Hazari offers sage advice on ageing well: “A strong body and mind go together. We have this narrative that ageing means fragility, that we should slow down. But a lot of what we call ageing is actually just underuse. If you want to stand up without help at 85, you have to load your frame at 70. “Exercise is medicine. Running gave me clarity. Trekking gave me courage. Powerlifting gives me strength. I’m not doing this to look fit. I’m doing it to survive. “At every setback, I asked: what can I still do? When I couldn’t run, I hiked. When I couldn’t hike, I climbed. When I couldn’t climb, I lifted. I refuse to let the story end with what I can’t do. “Whether you’re running a marathon, climbing a mountain or lifting a barbell, you only ever do it one way, one foot or one rep at a time. You just don’t stop.” Like what you read? Follow SCMP Lifestyle on Facebook, X and Instagram. You can also sign up for our eNewsletter here.

At 70, she’s now a powerlifter. How this retired teacher refuses to slow down

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Hongkonger Anjali Hazari used to run marathons and climb mountains before major knee and abdominal surgeries. Now she has a new challenge

Hongkonger Anjali Hazari used to run marathons and climb mountains before major knee and abdominal surgeries. Now she has a new challenge