Ten years ago I had barely taken a single step. Now they call him Kilian Jornet de Tàrrega. But Raül Arenas, about to turn 46, does not compete in competitions. The fight against the clock and his teammates brings him nothing, he says. He runs, and runs, and runs. He runs tirelessly like Jornet, or like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man, and is nourished by the energy of solidarity. The athlete, a bricklayer by trade, is preparing his eighth charity challenge: a macro-marathon between the mythical Canfranc railway station, in the Aragonese Pyrenees, and Tàrrega. 300 kilometers without pause for the benefit of Aina Godoy, an 8-year-old girl with Paddas syndrome.
With his previous challenges, which began in 2016 with the acquisition of sports equipment for an association of people with disabilities, Arenas has managed to raise 21,500 euros for different causes. He now hopes to raise money for Aina to have a special wheelchair. “She started having scoliosis (deviation of the spine) a year and a half ago and she can't hold herself in a normal chair,” explains her mother, Espe Priego. Paddas syndrome is characterized, among others, by developmental delay, intellectual disability or ataxia. No more than three cases are usually detected per year in the world.
Arenas hopes that his feat will help Aina and, in the process, learn about this rare pathology. To do this, he will sell t-shirts and collect objects, products or invitations donated by commercial establishments in Tàrrega and surrounding areas, which will be raffled at the finish line: “My reward is to see the happy face that the family has, it is the best trophy I can get. to receive. I stopped participating in races because it didn't motivate me. What motivates me is this. If I set a challenge for myself, it motivates me to train and take responsibility. It's something that I had inside and I didn't know it, and I will do it as long as I can. Then we'll see."
The athlete will leave Canfranc at ten at night on November 9 and calculates to arrive in Tàrrega on Sunday the 12th at noon. Mecagonsena! (an exclamation he uses frequently). For most mortals this is crazy. For him... it will be hard too. But he looks prepared. Two Saturdays ago he left Tàrrega at nine at night and ran to Coll d' Ares: 84 km with 1,700 meters of positive elevation gain. "Sometimes I get up at half past three in the morning, go running for two hours and go back to sleep," he says.
It all started with knee pain that bothered him when doing masonry work. “The doctor told me to try walking or running to strengthen my knees. I started running with 5 kilometers, and it motivated me so much that every day I wanted to do one more kilometer. I set goals until I ran my first mountain race, 12 kilometers.” It was in 2014. And from here, to the ultratrail, to long distances. “One day, at a summit, I thought about how lucky I was and about the people who couldn't get there. I thought I had to do something for disabled people or people who need it,” he recalls.
There arose the first solidarity challenge: sports equipment for the Alba association, in Tàrrega. Arenas ran 473 kilometers in five intermittent stages starting and ending in Montserrat. “I saw that everyone was turning. When I first arrived in Tàrrega there were so many people that I got excited and thought, wow, 'this doesn't end here.'” He raised 3,200 euros.
In the different initiatives, all under the motto “Always forward”, he has overcome everything. From a bicycle to clothing from former international soccer player Joan Capdevila, through Christmas baskets, hairdressing packages or restaurant invitations. In his talks – he would like to do more in educational centers – he holds out a banner with the six values that he, he says, intends to transmit with his challenges: solidarity, will, sacrifice, responsibility, altruism, effort.
Father of a boy and a girl, in the May municipal elections he joined the Tàrrega City Council. His candidacy, Junts, won the elections, but with an insufficient result to govern and become a sports councilor, a position from which he intended to organize a large and original sports fair in the capital of Urgell. The challenge remains in his mind.
