Marathon record holder to run three races in three weeks for charity
Veteran marathon runner Maria Polyzou, Greece’s record holder, will attempt to run three entire marathons around Greece on three consecutive Sundays to promote the cause of bone marrow bank Orama Elpidas.
Sticking to her motto “Nothing Is Impossible”, the runner who became the first and only woman ever to repeat the Pheidippides feat and run 520 kilometers from Athens to Sparta and back to Marathon in 2010, sets out on March 26 with the marathon at Ancient Olympia, followed by the “Alexander the Great” marathon in Thessaloniki on April 2 and concluding with the Rhodes marathon on April 9.
Polyzou told Kathimerini English Edition she will attempt “to carry the flame of hope” with her run along those 146.6 kilometers in total, having already covered over 280,000 kilometers in her career.
“In every kilometer I run I discover ever more then strength that humans have inside them. I never stop. I was born to run,” says Polyzou, 48, who adds: “Where there is passion, no challenge is insurmountable!”
Orama Elpidas is a non-governmental organization that operates as a register for bone marrow donors. Potential donors will be able to register during the races, as hundreds have already done during previous marathon runs, according to Polyzou.
She and the team she has set up, “Marathon Team Greece by Maria Polyzou”, have adopted the cause of Orama Elpidas, stressing that “the more volunteers for donating bone marrow, the more chances to save human lives”.
