“I don’t run. Corrinyo ! I mean, I walk fast,” Miquel Pucurull says with a smile. At 87 years old, he still goes out every morning to corrinyar about six kilometers through the streets of Barcelona. His urban route starts on Llança street, where he lives, then continues along Tarragona street, Josep Tarradellas avenue, and up to El Corte Inglés on the Diagonal, and then back. He only rests one day a week.
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Although he played basketball until he was 30, at 40 he started running to lose weight, a habit that gives him life. “I went to the doctor and he said: ‘You have to do sports.’ One day I read an article by Ramon Oliu (considered the father of the Barcelona marathon) that explained that the best way to lose weight and get back in shape was to run. And I ran my first marathon seven months after I started running. I don’t recommend it to anyone,” he says. His legs have allowed him to finish 33 Barcelona marathons, 46 worldwide, including New York. His last marathon was in 2018 at 79 years old.
He has participated in 46 marathons, 33 of them in Barcelona, and last year he finished the Cursa de la Mercè
He advocates extending the time limit to finish sports events so that more elderly people can join. “There are many marathons that allow seven hours to complete them, like in London or Athens,” he points out. If in Barcelona this time limit were extended and conditions allowed, he does not rule out running the Barcelona marathon again. The last race he did was last year’s 10-kilometer Cursa de la Mercè. And he already plans to participate in the next edition, in September.
Professionally, he started working at 12 years old in a laboratory dedicated to shampoo production. “At that time, those of us who were not rich started working very early,” he recalls. At 14 he resumed studies at the Escola Industrial but did not finish. Then he began working as a tailor, as his brother had also been. He retired at 65 after working 38 years in an office automation company, where he became marketing director. After retirement, he did not stop his eagerness to keep learning and enrolled in sociology at UB. “Going to university was unthinkable for many of my generation. It made me very happy. I had and still have great admiration for people who have studied,” he assures.
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Among other projects, he has written the books Mai no és tard and Gambada a gambada, both from Columna Edicions. He was also one of the promoters in organizing the Cantonigròs-Ramon Oliu Memorial race, which is still held today.
Regarding what he will do in the summer, Miquel acknowledges that retirees have “many privileges,” and one of them is that “we have holidays all year round.” He and his wife plan to spend time with their family: their two daughters, four grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. So, in August he will visit the family of his daughter Elisenda, who spends the summer in a village in the Cerdanya. He will also be with the family of his other daughter, Felicitat, in Mataró. In both places, he will not take a break from sports activity.
The little free time he has left, he uses to give talks in casals for elderly people. In June he gave one in Terrassa and has another scheduled for September. “I try to encourage people to be physically and intellectually active. They don’t have to run marathons!” he says. And to finish, one last message: “I don’t look at things with nostalgia. You have to have dreams in life, otherwise you make them up.”
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