Pila Cadena

3 cancers, 202 marathons

When Pila Cadena crosses the finish line on Sunday, she’ll have completed her 202nd marathon and her fourth in New York City. Impressive enough for anyone, but the 61-year-old Florida resident has also beaten cancer — three kinds, three times.

“Running has been the only thing that’s been a constant in my life,” Cadena tells The Post. The selfdescribed tomboy started running long distances at 21. It was around this time that she was diagnosed with breast cancer, undergoing surgery to remove a small tumor. A few years later, she noticed a lump in her throat and was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, which required her to have another surgery and radiation treatment. Then, in 2005, the mother of two underwent a hysterectomy after she was diagnosed with uterine cancer — followed by more radiation treatments. And yet this series of harrowing health ordeals merely slowed, but never stopped, her voracious appetite for running. She continued to put in miles, she says, “even if I was just walking, jogging or shuffling. That’s where I found my strength.” The power of movement also motivated the former bookkeeper to become a running coach — and she spreads the gospel of jogging to everyone from high schoolers to senior citizens. She is running the marathon as part of New York Road Runners’ Team #MovedMe, a group of 26 participants (one for every mile) who are especially inspiring, selected by race organizers. Cadena — who gets tested every six months but has been cancerfree for more than a decade — definitely fits that bill. “In my mind, [doing a marathon] wasn’t about running. It was about me moving forward,” she says. “I figured the moment you stop, you die. I’m not ready for that.”