Joy Johnson, the oldest woman to run in Sunday’s New York City Marathon,died Monday at 86.

Joy Johnson, 86, the oldest woman to complete the New York City Marathon on Sunday, often said she wanted to die running.

She lived only one day past the race.

Johnson, of San Jose, Calif., had stumbled and hit her head on the road around the 20th mile, said her sister, Faith Anderson, 83, who accompanied Johnson to New York.

PHOTOS: NEW YORK CITY MARATHON 2013

Medics wanted to take Johnson to the hospital, but she insisted on continuing the race, Anderson said.

Johnson finished in about eight hours, compared with less than five hours in the early 1990s, when she was at the peak of her marathon running.

On Monday morning, after the two sisters returned from their annual post-marathon visit to the “Today” show crowd at Rockefeller Center, Johnson said she was tired and lay down on her bed at the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan. She didn't wake up. She was declared dead at Bellevue Hospital, Anderson said.

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