Delfí Vilaseca, 56, After 34 Marathons: ‘You Can Start Anything at Any Age’

Delfí Vilaseca did not run his first marathon at 20, when the body may seem able to absorb any excess. He started at 46, after years of amateur football, while working full time and raising children.

The Berga native began with five kilometres, then moved through eight, 10 and 15 before entering the Barcelona Marathon in March 2016. Ten years later, he has completed the distance 34 times and says he is still improving his times.

For Vilaseca, finishing time is less important than what the races have taught him. “I don’t care whether it takes me three hours or four. I wanted to draw a parallel between life and a long-distance race, the therapeutic feeling of sport and how it teaches you that you can always endure a little more,” he told La Vanguardia.

He has collected that experience in the book Fin: tú corres, todos corremos, but the book does not mark the end of his marathons. All proceeds will go to pancreatic cancer research at the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute, known as IDIBELL. The decision grew from his closeness to several people affected by the disease, which the article describes as one of the deadliest cancers, with five-year survival at about 11 percent according to the Spanish Society of Medical Oncology.

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I don’t care whether it takes me three hours or four. I wanted to draw a parallel between life and a long-distance race, the therapeutic feeling of sport and how it teaches you that you can always endure a little more.