The Donna Marathon will be held this Sunday in Jacksonville Beach. Among the thousands of runners expected to compete in the race will be a senior from the Orlando area.
Not only did she want to reach a personal racing milestone, but she also ran for a special cause.
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Gloria Vasquez, 74, of Osceola County, will make the nearly three-hour journey to Jacksonville on Sunday to run her 97th marathon.
Before she turned 60, she had run marathons in all 50 states and was working toward reaching 100 marathons in total.
She has competed in the Boston and New York City Marathons multiple times. Vazquez even served as an Olympic torch bearer in 2002, an honor for her community service work. So what brought her to Jacksonville for Donna’s show?
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“I’m doing this for my sister, my very dear sister, who passed away from breast cancer,” Vasquez said. “I love seeing how these women survive…I admire how they are able to get treatment, stay the course, and continue the marathon here. They don’t give up. They just keep going.”
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Vasquez’s sister, Isabel Smith, was 62 when she died.
For Vazquez, life is a marathon. Vasquez fled domestic violence, immigrated to the United States from Colombia as a single mother and opened her own spa.
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“When I came here with four kids, that was my goal, to work hard and try to raise these four kids. Thank God, God helped me,” she said.
What’s her secret to still running marathons at age 74? Eating healthy, Vasquez said, “I run 10 to 15 miles every weekend, which is enough to stay in marathon shape.”
Vasquez said she hopes to keep running as long as possible and run her 100th marathon.
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