Toshiko D'Elia (née Kishimoto) (January 2, 1930 – February 19, 2014) was an American Masters athletics long distance running legend.
For example, when she received a Fulbright Scholarship to study in the United States and asked her father to pay for the trip he said that he would rather spend the money on a new horse than waste it on an education for a female.
After graduating from Tsuda College in Tokyo, she could find no Special Education training available in post World War II Japan and came to Syracuse University in 1951 as a Fulbright Scholar.
[4] Staying in the U.S. she met and married Italian-American pianist Manfred D'Elia, who had a passion for mountain climbing, and settled in Ridgewood, New Jersey.
After that, she began to run a mile a day with her daughter, Erica, who in 1974 was part of the first cross country team at Ridgewood High School.
On a freezing day when she intended to quit at 15 miles (24 km), but her support didn't show up with a change of clothing, so she kept running to the finish.
Her time of 3:25 qualified her to run the Boston Marathon in 1976[6] where at the age of 46, she was the second recorded Masters female runner (after Sylvia Weiner) in the history of the event, finishing in 3:16:56 on a notoriously hot day.
She has been featured in Sports Illustrated, and is part of a permanent exhibit on running legends at the New Balance Armory in Washington Heights, NY.
[10] The North Jersey Masters club holds an annual race on Memorial Day now named for her husband Fred.