Baby Steps towards the first Giant Leap

Though I only realised this a lot later, my new life began on April 4, 2016 at 40 years and a week or so. I mentioned my first training sessions in the previous blog post, so I am not going to get into that again. From that day, I very stubbornly stuck to a routine of 2 guided functional training sessions per week and 2 unguided “homework” walk-run routines - come what may, rain or shine. I gave my training session appointments in my agenda the same value and importance as any work or family related ones. They were of the “required” category, not optional nice-to-haves. If need be, I would wake up earlier or go to be later. And when travelling, I would take my running kit with me to get the workout done in the vicinity of my hotel.

I also got myself a sports watch to record and track my progress which turned out to be a huge motivator. It provided lots of useful information for Gorka to personalise the training sessions and make them more effective.

The functional training sessions where meant mostly to prevent injuries and prepare my joints for the impact of running, but we also worked on building core strength and posture. In hindsight, seeing how easy it is to “overdo” it, I am convinced that this was one of the smartest decisions I made back then.

3 weeks in, a first mile stone was reached. Until then, my “homework” exercises consisted basically in walking fast for about 30 minutes. Depending on the terrain and routine, I was able to cover between 2,5 and 3,5kms that way. So the first milestone was to incorporate actual jogging into the intervals. Like for intervals of 30 seconds or so. With this change, the distance I was able to cover in the 30-ish minute routine started increasing and - whoohoo - another 3 weeks later, on May 17 and while on a business trip to Amsterdam, I walk-jogged my first 5k!

I still remember how psyched I was and that I coincided with a member of the senior management team on the elevator, all sweaty, and blurted out to him that I just managed to walk-jog for 5km. He must have thought I was a bit odd… but anyway, I was extremely happy and super energised for the whole day!

From here on, Gorka made me increase the time jogging and decrease the walking recovery and we started increasing overall distances and the duration of my homework exercises. On June 12, I was able to jog for 1km intervals and with some walking recovery, completed a total of almost 11km in 1,5 hours this way.

Finally, on July 16, after over 20 sessions with Gorka and almost 30 “homework” exercises of walking, walk-jogging and jogging, together with 2 friends, I “sealed” the achievement of my initial goal by finishing my first 5km race: the TomTom Night Running Series event in Terrassa.

By this time, I already knew that this was not the end and, actually, had already signed up with these two wonderful ladies for an olympic triathlon relay, to take place in October. Esther and Gogui joined me for this race to, quite literally, “hold my hands” and we will always remember this first race together.

I would also say that this race was the founding event of our multisports team, Santi’s Angels (Los Angeles de Santi) - even if Santi was not personally present during the first races. Santi was key in me getting to this point and beyond and joined joined us 3 ladies in the Barcelona Triathlon. More on that in later posts…