Every self-respecting Catalan athlete has passed through the hands of Ricard Serra Grima. Dr. Serra is the cardiologist who takes care of our hearts. It has been like this since the eighties, since those times when the doctor, who was also a marathon runner, ran marathons and, jogging and jogging along that deserted road in Les Aigües, listened to himself.
More than thirty years have passed and Dr. Serra continues to take care of our hearts and our spirits, and that is why, when spring arrives, he sets up his traditional race at the Sant Pau hospital: the morning surprises his pupils jogging between the wards modernists.
I cannot conceive a more surreal setting to host a race.
This year, the starting signal was given by Marta Galimany, an exemplary marathon runner who until four days ago held the Spanish record and will soon be a mother.
And next to me, at the starting line, was Mar Mesa.
(…)
A few years ago, Dr. Serra called me and told me:
–You have to meet Mar Mesa.
I listened to the cardiologist, you always have to listen to the cardiologist, so I called Mar Mesa.
It was 2018 when the woman welcomed me into her house to tell me that, in reality, she should not be alive.
-And then?
-I was lucky. I was 25 years old when my heart started to fail. I had to wait two years until they found a new heart for me. They gave me the name of someone younger than me, it makes me sad, I prefer not to know.
And instead of living scared, or anguished, or however one lives in those conditions (she suffered nine rejections; the body rebels against that organ that it considers foreign), Mar Mesa decided to honor the memory of her donor: imbued with the spirit of Dr. Serra, began to swim, and then began to walk and even jog.
Sometimes, Mar Mesa goes up the mountain with Àlex, her husband, who likes the mountains, and thus connects with her inner being and with the outside world. And she smiles when you ask her how things are going, and she felt proud that day in Sant Pau, when a creature approached her, just as she was leaving, and she said to him:
–You are wearing bib number 1!
–Yes, but I’m going to finish last.
So it was.
In the Cursa de Sant Pau, Mar Mesa finished last. And? Nobody noticed it.
Nobody, except this sports writer whose spirit lives distorted by reality.