Miguel Ríos, at 67 years old: a 1,500 on Saturday afternoon and on Sunday the Seville Marathon with his daughter

“On Saturday afternoon I’m running a 1,500 in the Andalusian Indoor Championships in Antequera and on Sunday I’m going to run the Zurich Seville Marathon with my daughter María, who in ’92 when I won was in my wife’s belly,” explains a legend like Miguel Ríos, 67, who won the Seville Marathon in 1992, the unforgettable year of the EXPO.

“Now, with my daughter, our only goal is to finish. She wants to feel what it’s like to run a marathon,” he adds. “So we’ll aim for an easy pace where her sensations will call the shots.”

Because at 67, Miguel Ríos is still in top shape. “I’m running 1 hour and 25 minutes in the half. But don’t give it more credit,” he counters. “I’ve been running for 50 years and my body asks for it. I have five hundred thousand kilometers in my legs, eleven thousand per year, and my joints respect me. On Sundays I hit 30 kilometers and during the week I do about 15 a day, five days a week.”

Naturally, it’s no longer like in ’92. “I’m not 33 anymore. But now I have more wisdom. Running has helped me see life differently and has filled me with unforgettable experiences. I ran the New York Marathon for nine years, I was an international athlete in Brazil in the Ibero-American Championships. I even went to England for the World Cross Country Championships. I was also the first European in the White Nights Marathon in Saint Petersburg.”

Miguel Ríos recalls that the Seville Marathon published a book for its 25th anniversary in which they put his photo on the front and back cover remembering his victory in ’92. “It was a movie-like race, as the author wrote. I wasn’t the favorite. I had one of the worst times. Ethiopians came, Brazilians… But I caused an upset by beating the favorites running solo from kilometer 30 with an Olympic qualifying time, which then was 2 hours 15 minutes for the marathon at the Barcelona ’92 Games.”

“I worked at the company Panrico between eight and ten hours. I was just another factory worker and they gave me two hours to train which I then had to make up. I started at five in the morning and finished at eight in the evening. But it was a life I liked. My heart enjoyed it. To me it wasn’t sacrifice. It was satisfaction. In July I stopped and started again in mid-August to prepare for New York.”

“I used to run two marathons a year. Seville and another one in the fall. But I loved it so much...,” he longs. “I always say I’m alive thanks to running. That’s why I still keep running against the wind. Running has given me a way to think and see life that has helped me get through tough times. One always has problems in life. That’s why I say running against the wind is like running against adversity.”

“I remember when I was in the elite and Dr. Conde from ‘Pathological Anatomy’ said he didn’t know how I could have 27 beats per minute at rest and reach 180 in a race as if nothing,” says Miguel Ríos, who retired two years ago and lives in Puente Génil, where they named a square after him, agreed upon by all 35,000 inhabitants. “And all thanks to sport,” he recalls today.