First Times

As I have mentioned in prior posts, one of the advantages of this new-found lifestyle is that there's a first time for this and a first time for that. At every turn and with every step, it seems like firsts just keep coming my way.

There was the first time I decided to register for a race. That was some three years ago. The decision was made to participate in the Music City Half Marathon so online I went and register I did. This brought some sense of commitment and purpose to my running.

Then there was the first time I ran past five miles in a single run. I remember that to me this was a huge milestone. Then there were 6 miles, then 7, 8, 9 and then 10! I remember the day I ran those first ten miles in a single run. Can't remember the time, can only remember the feeling. Then, according to my plan, I had to push the envelope to 11 and this was just a week before the half.

The first time I picked up my registration packet was surreal. Couldn't believe that I was actually doing this. Getting the timing chip made me feel, well...like I had arrived. Walking through the fitness expo that day, amongst hundreds of other runners looking like I was lost, was fun and exciting.

Then was the first race itself. Arriving at the site and watching the crowd grow to 30 thousand plus. Amazing. Finding my corral and waiting for the starting gun, unbelievable. The waiting our turn to go through the starting gate, to have the mat read our chip meant that I was at the beginning of my first race.

Two hours and thirty one minutes later I made it to the finish line for the first time. I'm not even sure I can begin to explain how that felt.

Over the following two years I ran my first 5k, my first 10k, my first 10 miles. Bought my first road bike, entered and finished my first triathlon, swam in open water for the first time. I rode my first organized bike ride, all 66 miles of it.

Just recently I made the decision to continue training during the winter months and took keep me honest, I've registered for two half marathons that will be firsts for me; Memphis and Tampa. But training and competing in the winter time will bring a whole new set of challenges, mostly dealing with the weather, the cold weather, the very, very cold weather.

I set out this week to prepare myself for today's long run. The weather lady predicted high 30's for the time I planned to start. Brrrr. Looking through my training gear I realized that cold weather training gear I did not have. Well sort of. I did have gloves, ear covers, a long sleeve running shirt with a running jacket that would do for now. But the legs, oh the legs would be cold and that would be a problem. But that was soon resolved as I purchased a pair of running tights. Never thought I would be wearing, let alone be writing about, wearing tights, but I did and I was glad I did. The first long run in cold weather was very comfortable and as an added bonus, my knees didn't hurt.

I'm looking forward to be able to sit in front of this computer often to report on future firsts. My first sub 2-hour half, my first full marathon, my first Olympic distance triathlon, my first 100 mile bike ride and my ultimate first... 70.3

Just Five Short Weeks!

December 6th will be here in a jiffy, and the Memphis St Jude Children's Research Hospital Half Marathon will be here in no time. Training is going as planned. This week's long run, which I will do tomorrow will be of the 9 mile variety. The weather has changed and man oh man, it's cold in the morning. I think today, I will have to go shopping for some winter running gear.


This fall I added a new element to my training routine; spinning. On Tuesdays and Thursday I do a 45 minute spin class followed immediately with a one mile run. I have done this spin/run thing a few times now and it's pretty cool and not as difficult as I had imagined. My plan is to increase the run, until eventually I complete five miles after the spin.


Several months ago curiosity led me to see what the Facebook buzz was all about. I signed up for a page and added my family, those that were active; my wife Monica and both daughters Juliana and Marcela, as my friends. The page sat idle for several weeks. One day Juliana posted a note on my wall telling me to "get it fixed, dad... it's boring". Wanting to oblige I spent some time making it look acceptable. Added a few more friends, some pictures, a few applications and I was on my way. More family and more friends found their way into my network. This was pretty cool, even some of my daughter's friends sent me requests to be added as my friend! Who would have thought!


As I am one to always be looking for ways to learn and improve on tasks at hand, I began to see what the triathlon/triathlete/running Facebook community had to offer. I quickly found that there are thousands of people involved and sharing their experiences through this medium. Many of which, like myself have created their own blogs. This was interesting to me because I have finally found a purpose for my Facebook page. Mind you friends and family, I love ya'll but I needed more from this in order to stay motivated to stay with it.


Through the USA Triathlon page, the Triathlon Training page, and the Runner's World Magazine page I began to build my network of like minded triathlete and running enthusiasts. I have found people from all over the country and some from right here in Middle Tennessee. It's great to see how much motivation one can get just from reading and watching the progress others have accomplished. This has also been a great vehicle to get this blog promoted within the community using the Blog Networks application. Check it out, it's pretty cool.

My New Challenge

Most everyone following this blog knows of my adventures and misadventures during the past couple of years. You know why I do what I do. You know what brought me to this, and you know why I continue to do this. I appreciate the fact that you have taken an interest in my progress. And now it's time to take it to the next level.

At most every event I have been a part of, I see people from every walk of life supporting their "cause" in their own way. So it wasn't long before I started thinking that it was time to tie my efforts to my very own "cause".

There are so may worthwhile organizations out there, doing some fantastic things. In order to narrow down my choices and to find a renewed reason to continue the hard work, I solicited the help of my family; together we came with the decision that St. Jude Children's Research Hospital would be our "cause". I am running the St Jude/Memphis Marathon on December 6th and I'm using this race to help raise funds for St Jude.

Did you know that over 5400 active patients are seen at St Jude yearly, most of who are treated on a continuing outpatient basis as part of ongoing research programs? The hospital has 78 beds for patients requiring hospitalization during treatment. St Jude has treated children from all 50 states and from all over the world. The daily operating budget for St Jude is over $1.1 million dollars. Most of this money comes from private donations. A small percentage from government grants. No child has ever been refused treatment at St Jude because of the family's inability to pay.

As I go out on my runs I am reminded with each step I take that the challenges I face to get to the finish line is nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to the race these kids and their families are going through. I feel that it is my duty and responsibility to give back in any way I can. I am honored to have been given the chance to become a "St Jude Hero".

So please allow me to ask you to support my efforts. Go to www.stjudeheroes.org/users/msanchez and reach inside your heart.

I thank you in advance!

Mauricio

Logic trumps!

It's been just a couple of three weeks since the Old Hickory Lake Triathlon here in my hometown of Hendersonville, TN. I spent the next five-seven days after recovering and nursing my bad back. Just this week I started, in earnest, to train for the Marathon in Memphis on December 6th!

Today I ran 13.1 miles, purely coincidental that this happens to be the exact distance of a half-marathon. The time, although not important at this point was 2 hours, 20 minutes and change. I was happy with this, although my knees, ankles and lower back were letting me know that this was just enough.

I have been trying to logically decide and to convince myself that it's time to give the full marathon (26.2 miles!) a whirl. It's something I truly want to do, I guess just to be able to say that I have, for there really is no other reason for this.

But, on this beautiful September morning, as I am making my way through the streets of Hendersonville, I am really and truly enjoying the work. I am not really worried about how far or how fast I'm going, I'm just paying attention to my body and what it's trying to tell me. Somewhere about an hour and a half after I started I'm still feeling really good. I know I can last at least another hour, more or less.

I take a small break to refill my water bottle and to take a second shot of GU jell. I make my way down the straight and long Gallatin Rd., on the way back home. At this point I begin to take a mental inventory of each and every joint that would hurt and I realize that each and everyone is beginning to ache. My right knee buckled at one point and I had to slow down to let it recover a bit. As I look at my gps, I see that I'm on mile ten and still have about three to make it to the house. This last stretch I was being very careful not to do anything silly that would compromise the health of my bones. And then I began to think..."if i were running a full marathon, I wouldn't even be halfway through. There's no way I could make it to the end without doing serious damage."

I took this opportunity to analyze why I was doing this, what would happen to my goals and intentions if I pushed it further. I have nothing to prove to anyone, except myself... and the only thing I have to prove to myself is that I should be able to continue to do what I've set out to do from the beginning, and that is to have fun while continuing to improve my physical condition and mental attitude.

I have been running for a couple of years and so far I have enjoyed every single mile. I cant recall at any point ever wondering why I am doing this, in a negative manner. This summer I tackled the world of triathlons and thoroughly enjoyed it because it provided the extra challenge I was looking for.

And so the decision was made. I would, at least for the time being, forego the idea of running a full marathon. I dont think that I would be happy putting myself in a situation where I begin to wonder why I did something like this! I will, however, leave the door open to revisit this idea in the future.

Logic trumps! If I run a full marathon, I could really do something to my back that would at the very least, sideline me for months and the the worst, sideline me forever. Additionally, the idea of putting myself in a situation of ever wishing, even for a step, that I wish I hadn't done this, is not something I want to do. I know what it takes and what I need to complete a half, this I can live with.

So, for now, I will stick to my schedule of half marathons; the Memphis St Jude's Half, the Gasparilla Half in Tampa and the Music City Half in Nashville

Old Hickory Lake Triathlon

Twenty Four hours and change after the conclusion of the Old Hickory Lake Triathlon I'm still replaying the race over and over in my mind. Don't get me wrong, I finished the event, and that was my main goal. I have said over and over again, after each and every event that finishing was the goal of each race, as it was, but for this one it couldn't have been any more true.

On Tuesday morning, just four days prior the the tri, I woke up and could hardly walk! Took me several minutes to get out of bed, took me even longer to be able to stand up straight. The two bad discs on my back were at it again. I could feel the pain shooting all the way down my right leg, through my thigh to the knee. As I struggled to the morning two things kept going through my head; what went wrong and will it get better before Saturday morning?

On Wednesday I woke up feeling even more in pain. Nothing I did on Tuesday seemed to help. I just knew that the race in Saturday would have to be bypassed. This was a bummer. I was so looking forward to this one event. It is to be held at home, in front for family and friends, but I knew that feeling how I felt at that point it would be irresponsible to follow through and try to compete.

I continued stretching and concentrated on doing more sets of the back exercises. I pulled out the inversion table and borrowed a massage pad from my sister-in-law. I was not about to accept the fact that I couldn't race without a fight. I postponed the decision to a "game time" decision.

On Thursday morning the pain was a bit more bearable, it seemed that whatever I was doing was working, I was encouraged. By Friday morning, just hours prior to the swim start, I still felt pain and my walking was still affected.

So here it was. Woke up Saturday morning and my decision was to try to do at least ten back press ups as soon as I got out of bed. Assess the pain and make a decision. I was able to do full presses and the pain was almost non-existent. I was ready to go! Got ready and off I went.

The pre-race jitters were huge! Never this intense. There were several issues that contributed to this . How would my back perform and react? How would the swim leg be? This would be the first time I ever compete in open water and how would it go? How about the run? Would my back take the pounding? How would splitting the run in two stages be?

I was number 252 out of 454. My turn came quick and like it or not, off I went. As soon as I got in the water, anything and everything I had learned and practiced at the pool, was gone and forgotten. You cant see with your head in the water so your first reaction is to lift up your head to see where you're going. This alone, seemed to take more energy than anything else I did. When I tried to swim with the right technique, I found myself way off course, again dispensing more energy trying to get back in line. The buoys seemed to be miles away. Boy am I glad I had practiced the backstroke at length. This saved my swim.

Off the water came the first run leg. It started very gingerly as I was trying to assess how my back was feeling. It felt good, not great just good. Got through this stage and made it to the transition area to mount the bike.

The bike stage felt awesome. I feel this is where I made up time lost in the last two faces. All went well until about mile nine when my calves starting cramping up. Found out real quick that you cant climb well when your calves cramped up. Actually, it is very difficult to climb with your calves in pain. But I worked through it and made it back to transition area.

The last stage of the triathlon was the second half of the run. As soon as I started running the left calf started tightening up again, so I stopped immediately, stretched it to prevent further development. This worked somewhat but I still felt the remnants of pain through the remaining of the run.

I'm not sure what my total time was, let alone the splits. Today I was truly not interested in this, I was just happy I was able to finish. Half way through the event I realized that my mid to late week focus on the back pain distracted me from focusing on proper diet and hydration. I felt the effects during the race; I even forgot to take my pre-race Gu Gel as I have done prior to each event and each long session in the past.

Now this triathlon season is over for me. I will concentrate in the next few months in marathon racing. Yes, I did say "marathon" racing. My desire is to run the full Marathon in Memphis on December 6th! We'll just have to wait and see what develops!

Today's the day!

Well, it's a little after 5am, I woke up some 45 minutes ago, did my stretches and my back feels like it's going to make it. Somewhat sore, but not in terrible pain. I decided last night that it I could do 10 press ups this morning without pain, that I would give the tri a try! And it actually felt pretty good... so, off I go.

What went wrong?

Just three days before the Old Hickory Lake Triathlon and I CAN HARDLY WALK!

My recurring back problem has returned, and this time with a vengeance! I can't stand straight, I can't walk straight... it hurts like the dickens. I am doing everything in my power to get the discs back in place in time for Saturday. Stretches, press ups, leg ups, etc. Everything I need to do, I am doing. Now it's just wait and see.

Participation in the event will be a last moment decision. It will be irresponsible and dangerous to try to swim, bike and run feeling like I do... but giving up, I will not!