At an age when most people struggle to move around without a cane or a crutch, 88-year-old Ploutarchos Pourliakas just completed his 12th consecutive Athens Marathon (42.195km / 26.22 miles)

If you ever need a bit of extra motivation to get up off the couch and go for a jog, remember that an 88-year-old man finished the Athens Marathon, aka the Authentic Marathon, crossing the finish line in 6 hours and 31 minutes. Ploutarchos Pourliakas only took up running at the age of 73, after getting inspired by his son, an ultra-marathon runner, but he quickly became obsessed with it, running four to five kilometers daily and up to 20km on weekends. He has finished the Athens Marathon 12 times, and despite getting older, Pourliakas actually managed to improve on last year’s performance, 42.195km (26.22 miles) eighteen minutes faster.

“I finished and even improved on last year, I feel younger than my 88 years,” Pourliakas said shortly after crossing the finish line to the cheers of his family and friends gathered at the historic Panathenaic Stadium of Athens.

As you can imagine, many struggles to believe that a man in his late 80s can run at all, let alone finish a marathon, but Ploutarchos Pourliakas assures his diubters that anyone can do it, for as long as they want to, if they take proper care of their body and lead a balanced life.

 

“I’ve never smoked. I don’t indulge in excesses, I don’t drink, I don’t stay up late,” the Greek runner said. “I eat in a balanced way, everything but in moderation. However, I do have a little ‘tsipouro’ (a local drink) every day not as a drink, but as a medicine.”

Interestingly, the Athens Marathon follows the same route that Athenian messenger Phiedippides ran to bring the news of victory from the battlefield of Marathon 2,500 years ago, inspiring the original marathon challenge.