Theo Delacas loves to run.

He runs six days a week, rain or shine, cold or hot, summer, winter, spring and fall.

He takes one day off a week, Saturday.

And he covers an average distance of 200 to 250 kilometres a week; I say an average because some days he’ll run 30 to 45K and other days even longer.

And did I mention Delacas will turn 71 in mid-October?

He’s something else.

“I love it so much,” the exuberant and outgoing Ville St-Laurent resident said. “My feet just have to go, and I love the people I see everyday on the streets, they make me so, so happy, just like the running.”

Delacas was born in 1944 in Kefalonia, Greece.

He grew up in Athens, learning the carpentry trade at the young age of 12.

His parents eventually moved to Toronto in 1966 and the family ended up in Montreal in 1980.

He worked as a carpenter, interspersed with forays into the restaurant business.

Delacas married and had four children, three boys and a girl. When his marriage ended in 1983, he had sole custody of his children and raised them on his own.

“I still exercised and ran, but not like I do now,” he said with a laugh. “I would run 5, 7, then 10 kilometres and then it became 15 and 20 kilometres; my feet were happy!”

Delacas took up long-distance running 25 years ago, at the age of 45.

These days he leaves his home at 5 a.m. and runs all over the island. His usual route takes him from St-Laurent, through T.M.R., down Côte des Neiges, over the mountain, where he does a loop around the chalet, down the 256 stairs and exits at Parc Ave. He then heads along Mont Royal Ave. and Rachel St. to the Olympic Stadium. After a quick loop around the Botanical Garden, he takes Pie IX to Ste-Catherine St. and heads west to Old Montreal and then north to Atwater, up to Côte des Neiges and back through T.M.R. and St-Laurent and home.

Other days he’ll head to Laval. Depends on how he feels.

It usually takes him three to four hours, but speed has nothing to do it, he says.

“I don’t care about the numbers or the time, I run because I love to run.”

And he likes to run alone. “I listen to my music and I go — I don’t want to get into a competition with people. I do my thing, my way.”

It wasn’t always that way, though: “I used to live for numbers and times and to go fast. Now I just live to run.”

Delacas coached soccer players and other runners for 35 years at various organizations around the city.

“These boys are grown men now and sometimes I run into them and still they remember me — it’s nice.”

Delacas travels to Greece every summer to spend time with family. And when he’s there, he runs. Over the years he has done several races and is proud of the medals — 4 gold, 1 silver and 1 cup — that he has won.

“I look at them and they make me smile.”