In Uberlândia, the word “marathon” lost its common meaning of “strenuous event for those who participate in it”, as defined in the Michaelis dictionary.
In this Minas Gerais city with many viaducts and few natural attractions, at least two sons of the soil have a hobby of running the mythical 42.2 km race many, many times, which, as we know, is the first and strictest meaning of the word.
The duo runs so many marathons, one after the other, that it is difficult, in their case, to understand the term as an epic, a battle — a grueling event.
All relativization here is permitted: the proverbial “I’ll be right back, I went out to buy cigarettes” for these two is something like “I just went for a marathon”. Between the two counts, both have already completed 618 marathons and ultras, the latter races being even longer, sometimes twice the distance of the marathon, such as the South African Comrades, of 89 km..
It often happens that they run them weekly, almost without fail throughout the year, but, to take advantage of special trips and competitions, it is not uncommon for them to do so on consecutive days.
Nilson Lima, 73, has already completed 427 races of 42 km or more – he competed 11 times in Comrades alone. No wonder, the Uberlândia race, until this 2026 the only official marathon in Minas, is called the Nilson Lima marathon, a tribute never seen elsewhere.
But this column has already taken care of Nilsão, unlike her fellow countrywoman Anamélia Tannus, 66 years old, who at the end of January, in Ribeirão Preto, a place, as if that were possible, even hotter than Uberlândia, completed her 191st marathon. She intends to run at least eight more before Nilson Lima, in her hometown, in May 17th, celebrate the two hundredth.
These eight remaining until then will be on US soil: six in six different states throughout March; and then, on April 20, a Monday, the desired Boston mara, the fetish of the marathon runner’s fetish, which she must run having completed another 42 km the Sunday before. In 2025, Anamélia completed 35 maras.
What leads someone to go through such a routine in their years of, come on, joy is an idle question here, as there is apparently nothing that makes them more satisfied. “It has become a lifestyle, something that gives me a lot of pleasure, especially when I run in new places and with friends. I think this is an activity that is increasingly sought after”, said the administrator and coffee producer to the column.
From 2003, when she started, until 2021, Anamélia ran with João, her husband, but a degenerative disease prevented him from following the trail and made him stop in the hundredth place. And running a marathon, and completing it alongside her husband, not only gave the couple pleasure – it was an “ecstasy” experienced together, as Anamélia once said on a podcast.
Anamélia today sometimes runs and travels alone, but prefers to be close to friends, both on trips and on gravel. From Nilson, “great inspiration”, she also shares affection for the United States, having, like him, run in the 50 states of the country and, as a result, deserved a distinction.
About having a marathon named after her in the same Uberlândia as hers and Nilson, perhaps in a month other than May, she is skeptical – at least for now. “I didn’t know of any conversations along those lines.”
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