The popular athlete Miquel Pucurull, 76, has raised more than 8,000 euros in the marathon to cover the investigation of children's diabetes.

Miquel Pucurull, 76, is one of the veterans of the ‘Runners’ movement in Catalunya.He has been popular athlete for four decades, and his involvement with this world has not limited himself to putting on his shoes and running every day or playing, as he has done and will continue to do it this Sunday, the marathon of Barcelona no less than 31 times.Pucurull was involved in his day in the salvation and reorientation of this test and is the author of a fantastic blog on the Internet where he dissects the main popular races of Catalonia and exercises valuable historical memory of ‘running’.

Pucurull, in addition, has found another meaning to his great passion, and has shown a path that many others are exploring with good results: the extraordinary solidarity awareness of the great mass of citizens who take part in popular races.In a year, from 2014 to this 2015, the Zurich Marathon in Barcelona has gone from seven solidarity projects of micromelezgo to no less than 55, most of them through the website specialized in Crowdfunding Solidarity Migranodarena.org.In it you can find initiatives such as the one that Pucurull premiered last year, with such good feelings that this time has repeated it.

Pucurull helps, through the marathon and this crowfunding, to research on children's diabetes.He does "because the subject touched very close."He has a granddaughter diagnosed with this disease since she was seven years old.Only 200 new cases are discovered in Catalonia every year.Last year, Pucurull contacted the Hospital of Sant Joan de Déu, specializing in children's diseases and who donates the collected, and did so with modest objectives that he quickly had to modify.

“When I started, I looked at the goal of raising 2,000 euros.I was blindly and I didn't know what extent people would answer. ”Pucurull, a very active retiree, put all his efforts, -"even heaviness, I would say" -, in convincing family, friends, friends of friends and runners who are in each test.But the answer was pleasantly surprised."I ended up raising 13,054 euros, and this year I thought that people would take me as heavy ... two years with the same story."

But not.The ‘running’ community has responded again."We have already been collected more than 8,000 euros, and the account - through Migranodarena.org - will remain open until a few days after the marathon."The veteran athlete especially appreciates the collaboration of Zurich Seguros, the main sponsor of the race, which has contributed 2,000 euros to its search for funds to help the inviction of children's diabetes.

Actually, Pucurull says he did nothing but “copy the Americans.This, which we are discovering here now, have been doing it on a large scale for more than 30 years with the ‘Run for Charity’ system in large marathons such as New York and Boston.And in Catalonia there are already more than 300 races linked to solidarity projects. ”

While the anonymous accountant of solidarity corridors goes up, Miquel will get the dorsal again in the maralato this Sunday.They go 31 times in Barcelona, ​​and 45 marathons disputed since the bug of this passion stung.Run, of course, for a great reason.