Since my childhood in Caracas, Venezuela, I have always been an athlete. Team sports like soccer, roller hockey, speed skating, and especially baseball were all a big part of my early life. I always assumed that I would be involved in sports my entire life and, so far, that hasn’t changed. What has changed, is the type of sport I’m involved in.
I moved to the US when I was 19 to attend college at the University of Tampa. I stayed active during college and while building my career in the medical imaging equipment field, but it wasn’t until I was 28 that something changed in me. Team sports fell by the wayside as I shifted my focus to running, cycling and, eventually, triathlon.
Six years later, in 2015, after dozens of triathlon races, 14 of which were at the 70.3 mile, half-Ironman distance ( 1.2 mile swim; 56 mile bike; 13.1 mile run), I felt I was ready for a new challenge. I submitted an application to vie for the Guinness World Record for most half-Ironman triathlons completed in a single year. The current record is 23. I would need to complete, in one year, nearly twice as many half-Ironman’s as I had in the past six years combined. The goal was lofty, but after three months of waiting, Guinness accepted my application, and I made plans to begin my pursuit of the record in 2016.
Just one week later, I was at an Ironman event in Louisville, KY. During the race, I began to experience unbearable pain in my left calf. The pain became so intense that I was forced to stop before I could cross the finish line. Back home, my doctors confirmed that the pain was coming from severe damage to my meniscus and that I would need to undergo a full repair surgery to relieve the pain and to be able to race again. The surgery, which required nearly 12 weeks of recovery and physical therapy, was scheduled for the middle of January. Even if I recovered ahead of schedule, the year would be 25% over before I could get even one half-Ironman under my belt.
This news was discouraging, to say the least. I had just gotten everything in place to pursue my goal, only to have a huge obstacle, one that I had no choice in, set in front of me. Through introspection leading up to my surgery though, I considered the circumstances that many others fight through.
A lot of the races I had been a part of over the years had ties to non-profit organizations. Some of the people I had seen and the stories I had heard came back into my mind. Most notably, stories from the Challenged Athlete Foundation (CAF), a group that helps provide athletic-grade prosthetics and appliances for athletes who have been physically challenged by severe injuries or congenital conditions, and also stories of the patients at St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital; kids, some not even out of pre-school, already facing circumstances that could take literally everything away from them.
Knowing that there are people fighting much harder and with much more at stake, I doubled-down on my commitment to breaking the record, regardless of the time I would lose to my recovery. Now, after a full recovery, with lots of help from my doctors and physical therapists, I’m nine races into my goal with more scheduled every weekend for the next 16 weekends. In between working my regular job Monday through Friday, I’m travelling all over the US, racing in a dozen states, and even racing in the US Virgin Islands and Canada.
In addition to setting a new record, I’ve decided to widen the scope of my goal and use any attention this pursuit might draw to raise awareness for the organizations that helped inspire me. I encourage anyone reading this story to look into the courageous battles being fought by children and athletes with the help of CAF and St. Jude’s.
Ultimately, this experience has taught me that there is no excuse for making excuses. Very few things in life can actually stop us from achieving our goals if we only have the commitment and the discipline to overcome them. The Guinness Book is filled with regular, working-class people who set excuses aside, embraced commitment and discipline, and became their very best. I hope to be one of them very soon.
To follow my journey and help me support both organizations please go to http://aracing.net/
I have been given the amazing opportunity to be on the executive board for the 2015- 2016 Relay For Life at Virginia Tech. I was not given just a board of fellow peers and students to work with to plan the event this year…I was given a family.
Throughout the fall semester we grew from just a group of single individuals meeting each other for the first time into something so cohesive and wonderful. We all complement each other and help each other grow and flourish so that we can put on the best Relay For Life event that we can.
When you are apart of such a big event like Relay For Life especially at Virginia Tech where we are the largest collegiate Relay For Life in the world you always get the question so why are you involved in an event like this. Whenever I am asked this question I could talk your ear off for hours about the many different reasons as to why I want and love to be apart of Relay For Life.
Yes, the majority of people that participate have been affected somehow by cancer in their life whether it be the grandmother had cancer, their dad had cancer, their neighbor had cancer, etc., but you also see the people that come out and participate just because they want to support the cause and that is one of my favorite parts about Relay For Life.
Relay For Life is about everyone coming together to support one cause and that is the fight against cancer.
One of the main reasons why I relay takes me back to when I was 10 years old. My parents sat me and my older brother down and told us that Grampy had lung cancer. Now, as a 10 year old I had a hard time wrapping my brain around what exactly cancer was and how it was going to affect my Grampy. My parents did their best to explain what was going on to a 10 and 13 year old, but they could only tell us so much.
Those words coming out of a little child’s mouth should never have to be said, but my parents knew they had to answer.
My mom was gone a lot the next couple of months traveling to and from home to be with Grampy. We would visit him a few times a month, but each time we went we could see the progression of him getting worse and worse and the visits would get harder.
One day, my brother and me came home from school and our stepfather picked us up from the bus stop. He brought us inside and sat us on the couch and gave us the news that Grampy had passed peacefully in his sleep. The cancer had become too much for his body and he couldn’t hold on any longer.
Tears immediately burst from both of our eyes as we realized that we were never going to see Grampy again. That night we drove to Maryland to be with our mom and the rest of the family to get ready for the funeral.
I relay so that no one has to say good-bye to a loved one because of cancer. I relay because no one should have to grow up without a mom or a dad or a sibling because of cancer. I relay because cancer has taken too many lives.
Virginia Tech Relay For Life has given me an amazing opportunity to make a difference in so many lives. I am proud of what we have accomplished so far this year and I look forward to what the spring semester has in store. We won’t stop fighting until cancer is no more. For more infromation visit vtrelay.org.