Almost 19 years ago when I decided to be a teacher I knew that I wasn’t going to be a millionaire. I was OK with that. I always figured, though, that I would always have enough to simply live comfortably. For a long time it seemed that way, until very recently… when our fourth child was born… and gas prices went up, and the prices of everything else went up with it… and the economy fell apart… and the salaries for public school teachers came to an almost complete standstill meaning my wife’s salary has barely changed now for a few years… and home insurance premiums went up with my taxes, even while the value of my house went down. Suddenly this teaching gig didn’t looked so good. Continue reading →
The day came and went again. It seems that it’s always gone in a blink of an eye. It really is overrated you know, but it doesn’t stop me from looking forward to it every year. After Christmas it is probably the day that I most anticipate in the year. And really, for what? To remind me that I am a year older? To reinforce that I am getting closer and closer to eventually stop counting? (Trying hard not to say “death”… doh! I failed!) And yet I look forward to that day. Continue reading →
5 more days… that’s all that’s left. This Sunday at 6:10 am I will be running my third marathon. It’s going to be my first marathon here in Miami after two in Disney (two and a half actually since I did the Goofy Challenge last year). I am looking forward to running here in my own backyard. I am also looking forward to trying to improve on my time on last year’s marathon: 4 hours and 25 minutes. I’ve trained well. I worked hard. All my runs lately have been strong, consistently staying in the sub 9 min/mile range, something I was not doing the last two years. And yesterday I watched “The Spirit of the Marathon” to psyche myself up for the race. I should be ready… Continue reading →
TWENTY-EIGHTH LEG: Wency Ortega – 4.9 miles*
9:18 am – My run started simply enough. I had decided to not push myself too hard. I could have tried to go sub 8:30 for the almost 5 miles, but with a cough and no sleep, I chose otherwise. I would try to stay sub-9. I started running and after about a quarter mile I looked at my watch and noticed I was running at a 7:15 pace. Was I crazy? I would die trying to maintain that pace. It’s amazing what adrenaline will do. I forced myself to slow down and find a comfortable pace. I eventually settled at about 8:45 a mile. That felt good. Now, the sun was still really hot (it was 72 degrees, which to one who is not running sounds perfect, but when you’re body is warm, and mine never fully cooled off from my almost 12 miler the night before, it feels 15 to 20 degrees hotter. I was sweating profusely before reaching mile 1), and I was way too aware of it. I took water with me in case I got thirsty, but I didn’t think I’d need it. I didn’t remember the last time I had water in a 5 mile run. But one mile in my throat was desert dry. This was not going to be fun. I looked up. There was nobody in front of me to be seen. I would have no “kills” on this leg unless I sped up quite a bit. I didn’t look behind me. Continue reading →
TWENTY-FIFTH LEG: Javier Cuevas – 9.6 miles*
6:25am – OK so maybe I shouldn’t include the asterisk. I’ve always wanted to put one in something I wrote so that I could put a little footnote at the bottom. Truth is Javier may NOT have done 9.6 miles on this leg (others who ran it with a GPS measured it to be 9.2 miles, and still others will argue that Javi started about a half a mile to a mile in because Alex had overrun his leg), but he definitely earned the right to say that he did, since after all, he ran 2.5 miles extra the day before. So for all practical purposes, he ran 9.6 miles. Continue reading →
OK this excerpt’s even longer than the last one… But I think it’s good. Read on!
SIXTEENTH LEG: Wency Ortega – 11.7 miles
7:44 pm – The tough part about writing about the relay from your own perspective is that you have NO idea what’s going on in the van while you are running, no idea what your teammates are doing and saying. I’m a bit jealous at this point because I was so enjoying my van time, particularly the last few hours. Our conversations spanned all areas of life, from serious to funny, deep to trivial. I was enjoying being part of these conversations. For the next two hours though all the conversations would have to be without me. I would not be able to participate in this portion of the journey with my comrades. It was my turn to go on and run. My run would be particularly lonely, though, because unlike everyone else before me, I wasn’t going to be running into my teammates every 10 to 20 minutes. I was going off on my own. I was jealous of my teammates. Continue reading →
I take a moment now, to invite in a guest blogger. Javi wrote this to me and teammates after the race was over, and I found it to be an incredible account of an incredible moment for him. I asked if I could share this on my site, and he gave me his blessing.
Here we can see how a simple race can teach one so much about anything and everything, and how at the same time it can totally mirror life. We went in as a team of 6 in our van, working together, but it was the resolve of EACH INDIVIDUAL that made this whole thing happen. And it was Javi’s resolve that defined our race and our success. So with that I give you Javi’s thoughts, in tact. Please excuse the harsh language meant for the eyes of 5 teammates (totally PG-13, borderline R, but I didn’t change it so as to not diminish the integrity of his thoughts. Changing just a word would change the true feelings he was dealing with (though he did ask me to edit a bit… sorry Jav!) This is along account, even by my standards, but so worth the read. Without further ado, I give you Javi… Continue reading →
WARNING: This is a LONG account, for much happened here…
THIRTEENTH LEG: Javier Cuevas – 9.3 miles
2:50 pm – Javier left the speedway and we knew we had plenty of time before he got to the next exchange. So we all headed to the car and (belatedly) started decorating the van. Javier’s kids worked on his behalf and definitely gave it a youthful flavor. Roly made sure to get a Cuban flag on the back window along with a Cuban stick figure (it was probably a self portrait) running “El Corre Corre”. Everyone else pitched in a bit and when we were done, we were no longer the lamest van on the circuit. Possibly still in the top 10, but definitely not the lamest!! Continue reading →
FOURTH LEG: Wency Ortega – 4.2 miles
9:38 am – So here came Roly down to slap my wrist with his bracelet. He had by now distanced himself from the guy he’d been on pace with. He had learned that this guy was a full 18 years younger than he, which made it that much sweeter when he left the poor little Florida Gator in the dust… That’s what Hurricanes do, blow right by Gators, HAHAHAHA!!!! That’s why smart Gators eventually graduate and go to school at UM (I’m not directing this at anyone in particular, ahem…). Did I go off on a tangent again? Sorry! Oh yeah! I got a slap on the wrist by someone other than a nun for the first time in my life, and this time it meant it was my turn to run. I was off! And as mentioned before, I had no GPS. Lately I had been using the device to make sure I wouldn’t shoot out like a cannon and waste all my energy well before I made my push at the end. I didn’t have that luxury today. I just took off and prayed that the GPS would find me. Continue reading →
After a long time waiting to be able to experience a Ragnar Relay, the day had finally come. Today I was going to be starting on a 191 mile trek from Key Biscayne, FL to Key West, FL with 10 teammates whom we’ve had to scrounge up to make sure they were still running with us. Van #1 included Javier Cuevas, Javi Mariscal, Roly Diaz, Chicky Rodriguez, Nicole Rodriguez, and me. Van #2 comprised of Oscar Ortiz, Rose Ortiz, Robert Gomez, Suzi Sena-Gomez, and Alex Ortiz. Those of us in Van #1 needed to be at Crandon Park at 6:30am, while Van #2 didn’t need to reach their start point, exchange #6, until we finished our first set of legs sometime around 10:30 am. In other words, they would get to sleep in. Nice!
I woke up around 4:30 in the morning and began to get ready. I made sure that I had everything ready and then made sure that Roly was ready . It was my job to pick up half our van members and get them to Javi’s house. Roly was my first stop. I needed to be at his place by 5:15. After I picked Roly up, I headed to Chicky and Nicole’s. Chicky asked me to be there by 5:35 (he wanted those extra 5 minutes), but I got there at 5:30. I was afraid of getting to Crandon late. I picked up the family tandem and headed over to Javi’s house. Javi was ready and we loaded up his car with all of our stuff. We headed off to Crandon park to meet Javier and his family who were going straight over there.
6:45 am: We arrive at Crandon and meet up with Javier. We check in and go to our safety seminar. This is where we began to meet our competition. Actually I only met people from one other team, and this was it. The Crazy Beeches: a group of 9 women who were embarking on this journey just as we were. They were from Texas, which meant they must be tough (oh I’m going to stereotype here, all right? It’s my blog). At first sight they didn’t look like they were very impressive, but upon talking with them for five minutes, this is what I found: one of the ladies had run 5 marathons in the last 6 months; another had recently completed a full Ironman (2.4 mile swim, 112 miles on bike, full 26.2 mile marathon), and had the tattoo to accompany her feat. This was who we were going to be running with. It’s a good thing I don’t intimidate easy… and that I had dark shorts (I’m kidding, I thought this was all really cool!) Continue reading →
