A 61-year-old grandmother of 12 held a plank for five straight hours at a Utah senior games event, and she nearly quit until the crowd carried her home.
DonnaJean Wilde of Alberta, Canada, stayed locked in a plank from 3:03 p.m. to 8:03 p.m. Mountain Time on Oct. 6, 2026, at the Huntsman World Senior Games. Judges rotated every hour as she pushed past her own confirmed Guinness mark and put a new women’s longest-plank claim on the table.
ABC News reported that Guinness World Records has received her application and will review the evidence before deciding whether to certify a new title. Her prior women’s plank record, set March 21, 2024, stands at 4 hours, 30 minutes and 11 seconds.
If Guinness signs off, the five-hour hold would become her third Guinness title. She already owns the women’s mark for most push-ups in an hour: 1,575. She has said she wants at least 1,600 next.
Wilde did not treat the attempt like a victory lap. She told ABC News’ Danny New she had long wondered whether she could reach five hours. Midway through the grind, doubt hit hard.
She said she turned to her husband, Randy, and admitted she was finished.
"I told [my husband] Randy, 'I'm done. I'm going down.' And they [the audience] all chanted me to the end. They got me through the last 10 minutes,"
Fans leaned in close with simple, steady encouragement.
"Some of them would come right down to me: 'Go, DonnaJean, go! You're doing great!'"
That is not elite sports theater. That is ordinary people refusing to let a neighbor fold when the clock still had time on it.
Her prep was as plain as it was stubborn. Three-year-old granddaughter Rose lay on Wilde’s back while she planked. No fancy clinic. No corporate sponsor speech. A toddler as added weight and a grandmother who kept showing up.
Wilde put her motive in one clean line.
"I always wondered if I could have gone to five [hours],"
The morning after the five-hour hold, she ran a 3,000-meter race. Recovery culture can wait. She still had a race on the schedule.
Guinness confirmed the older 4:30:11 plank title to ABC News and said the new bid is under review. Until the organization finishes that process, the five-hour effort remains an attempted record, not a sealed one. The attempt itself is not in dispute: start time, end time, rotating judges, and the Senior Games setting are all on the public record of the day.
At 61, with 12 grandchildren and a second Guinness push-up crown already on the shelf, Wilde is not asking anyone for a participation ribbon. She is stacking hard minutes under open judging and sending the tape to the record keepers.
Discipline still beats excuses. A grandmother who holds the line for five hours proves age is not a surrender date, and the rest of us have fewer alibis left.
