June of 2013 is the month where everything changed. My lifestyle, my goals… everything because of running.
I was been running some days a week from 2008, when I signed for my first 10k race, but the true is I was pretty inconsistent. If I ran was because of being healthy, not because running itself was something I liked.
But in June, a friend of mine, decided to sign for an Xterra, a mountain triathlon, where there was the option participate by relays. My friend called me and told me he had a friend doing the bike part, he would swim, and I was the third man to run 10k trail.
That was my first experience with trail running. No previous trail runs and almost no training at all. As I said, I was pretty inconsistent. My longer runs were 1 hour max. and running an average of 3 times per weeks the lucky ones.
I ran and I don’t know why, we did it quite well. I will remember that day because I was destroyed after and that night was Verbena de San Juan, a special holiday we do in Spain 23rd of June, eating and drinking on the beach until the next morning, watching fireworks and the sunrise.
That day, the experience of running in an event like that one, with a special atmosphere of people giving their best… it captivated. And from that day, I knew I would like to train for something similar.
I don’t know why the idea of run a marathon came to my mind. Maybe was some video I watched or something, the thing is I trained for 16 weeks and ran my first marathon outside of my country, in Amsterdam.
Those months, getting ready for such similar effort, taught me a lot, and not just about running! The process to train a marathon from scratch changed my life forever and from that day, I’m addicted to running.