Mary Kaplan may have stayed on the go as an Air Force nurse, but since she began running competitively, she has scarcely stopped.

The 69-year-old Sunrise Beach resident calculates that she has run 573 races. As of April 12, when she crossed the finish line in St. George, Utah, she had taken blue ribbons in her age group in every state in the Union.

From the time Kaplan graduated from Bethesda School of Nursing Cincinnati, Ohio in 1960, until about 1983, she didn’t have more on her athletic record than memories of high school softball.

“In the Air Force, we were allowed each year to walk our aerobics, three miles, or run, one and a half miles,” she said. “I always walked. Then, in 1983, they said we had to run it. That’s how I started.

“My first race was October 5, 1984, at a OB/GYN convention in Atlanta, Ga.

Kaplan met her husband, Hal, when they were both stationed in Austin, at Texas’ Bergstrom Air Force Base in the 1970s. In addition to U.S. assignments, they spent time in Spain and in Germany at Ramstein and Weisbaden.

He had advanced to the top enlisted rank of the Air Force as Chief Master Sergeant before he retired in 1976. Earning a bachelor’s degree in art history made him a great guide through Europe and finishing up a master’s degree in public administration left him time to become her coach and one-man support team.

“He is my biggest supporter and fan,” said Kaplan. “Hal goes with me to every race. He takes pictures, holds water and clothes and keeps the stats for me. I’m the envy of all the racers who wish their loved ones would do the same.”

Kaplan was a full Colonel before she retired in 1996 and she had progressed from sporadic races, including Air Force Cross Country teams for Strategic Air Command and USAF Europe, and was placing in individual competitions. In true military style, she expanded her goals.

“About 2001, I decided to run at least a 5K in every state and place in top three of my age group,” she said. “I completed that goal in 2005 in Hawaii.

“I decided to up it to first place in my age group in every state. I had about eight states to repeat.”

Many of Kaplan’s races – 279 of them since 1996– have been part of National Senior Games Association (NSGA), non-profit member of the United States Olympic Committee dedicated to motivating senior men and women to lead a healthy lifestyle through the senior games movement.

NSGA competition takes place in a whole array of Olympic individual events, including a triathlon, and team sports. Kaplan runs the 5K, about three miles and the 10K, about five miles. She competes in track, running in 400, 500, 800, 1500 meter track events, and she swims in freestyle contests.

She has competed in Texas district and state competition and races in other states. Eight of her awards are nationals and she competed in World Senior Games three times for a total of eight awards.

Swimming was her late sister’s favorite sport.

“I’d swim with her and she’d run with me,” she said. “My brother in Dallas even ran for a while.”

“Hal takes a folding bike when we travel, and he cycles around Sunrise Beach,” she said, looking from the deck of their home far down to the Lake LBJ shoreline and agreeing the terrain in Sunrise Beach is a workout.

She competes every weekend – about 60 races a year for the last seven years -- but she trains during the week.

“Everybody says, ‘That crazy woman is out there again,’” she laughed.

Kaplans stats have been adding up. Of her 573 races, 550 provided awards and she has taken home 532 – a roomful. The 5K events made up 486 of the contests and 10Ks, 52 of them. Thirty-four runs have ranged from three to five miles and she completed a half marathon.

“Overall, in 82 percent of those, I have received first in my age group, Masters/Grand Masters,” she calculated. “This year, 2008, 88 percent were first place by May 20.”

Her next goal will be getting a first place in 5K runs in the states where she took first in 10Ks (Nebraska and Wyoming) and in the five mile in Georgia.

“I also want to get it in a 5K in states where I took first in the State Senior Games (Wyoming and South Dakota),” she said. “Then we’ll have some of those races I competed in around the country that I just like and would like to do it again.

“When we travel there is usually a race at each end and an elder hostel in the middle.”