Juan Rivera
by Amy Duquette
Some of us travel the world on our bellies, sampling a variety of the local cuisines. We walk among the
natives of a place to experience their culture and learn about their history. PPTC member Juan Rivera
travels the world on his Asics. He has set out to run marathons all over "the universe" as he says, in
order to experience a number of cultures and be an actual part of their history. Juan has run 24 marathons,
only five in the US, with no locations repeated. He is not interested in PR’s or times in general. For each
race, he wants to "...just finish and get the medal...then take care of myself." His main focus is in on the big
picture, completing as many of these international marathons as he can. He projects to be completed in five
years, fifteen years after the project began, once he has run at least one marathon in every continent and
in as many cultures as he can reach.
This whole ball started rolling in 1998 when Juan ran the NYC marathon, the first race he entered at age 44.
"New York opened the door for me to cross the universe". Juan is most enthusiastic about being a part of
monumental or historic marathons. He ran London, Moscow, Madrid and Mexico City when they were each celebrating
their 25th anniversaries. He ran the 26.2 in Melbourne, Australia in ’06 during the 50th anniversary of the
Olympics. Juan felt a rush of history when he ran the Rome marathon, but remembers that he had to stay very
focused as the hills on this course crept up on him. Other marathons he holds medals from include Berlin, St.
Petersburg, Athens, Paris, Helsinki, Sweden, Amsterdam, two in Australia and three in Canada. His US marathons
have been in Boston, Philadelphia, Atlanta and Chicago. He has been running three or four marathons a year ever
since 1998 and says that at this point in his training he can at any moment "...get up and run a marathon.”"
Juan was not always a runner. He was born and raised in Delgado, Salvador to a family of musical talent. He
has a memory from his mid-teens of watching the 1970 Delgado Half Marathon where he played the trumpet and
his family played other instruments to entertain the runners. Juan would later attempt some sports in school
but it was not until 1980, when he moved to Los Angeles, did he begin some light running for the first time
at age 26. He watched the 1984 Olympics there and recalls that the experience "...moved something in me." Juan
ran with some friends who were training for a marathon at that point, but he still was not considering doing
one himself.
In the early 1990’s, Juan moved again to Chicago, because "I don’t like to stay in one place for too long".
It was here while in a flea market that Juan saw a book on the Olympics. The seller was asking a dollar, but
Juan haggled her down to fifty cents. This book provided such a sense of athletic inspiration and left him
feeling "...the need to do something," and he knew, "I can do this. I can run marathons." The combination of
the history of the sport of running combined with his interest in other cultures gave birth to Juan’s goal of
"traveling the universe" to run marathons.
It was after his third move within the US to Brooklyn, when he put his goal into motion. Juan decided to "...leave
everything so I could start running marathons. I stopped my music and began running everyday." Juan began racking
up about 300 miles a week, running from Central Park to Coney Island. He did this for the six months leading up to
the 1998 NYC marathon that he completed in 3:23:36. He realized that if he did not "forget to drink water" during
this race, he would have been able to cross the line much closer to 3 hours flat. He continues to volunteer at
the NYC marathon every year as a way to give back to the marathon community. Juan joined PPTC that same year and
states "The club helped me grow. No one is selfish in this club. People help and explain things to each other. I
feel lucky to be with them and stronger because of the club." He will leave every one of his marathon medals with
the PPTC club.
Juan plans to take off time in 2008 to travel to Asia and run the marathons offered at various locations there.
He thinks big and does what he sets out to do. By completing his goal, Juan wishes to "...leave a legacy to the next
generation of runners and young people as a whole. I want them to know it is never too late to do anything and that
everything is possible, even if it is not easy. You have to stay dedicated and concentrate." He does not have any
financial support for his travels and only finds difficulty in adjusting to all the time differences. It was along
these lines of inspiration that Juan shared as he spoke as an invited guest at the Australia marathon expo. He
intends to more officially leave his story in writing in a biography on his experiences. "People think I’m crazy,
but I’m not going to stop until this is done."