Track & Me

If you told my younger self from five years ago that he would be a national runner-up, he probably wouldn’t believe it. He’d take you as a joker and tell you, “And I’m freaking Aquaman, dumbass.” But if you had told him he’d be a national runner-up in track—not soccer, his beloved sport—he would probably shit himself, and his head would explode into millions of unfixable pieces.

As a kid, I tried nearly every sport known to humankind, from boxing to swimming to basketball, to the least-known ones like diving. I was a very athletic kid who liked to try it all, but the sport that stuck with me had to be soccer.

I used to love everything about soccer: the teams, the players, the crazy things they did, and all the stats surrounding the soccer world. I was obsessed with stats. I kept a little notebook in my room where I’d jot down all the season stats to predict champions or other outcomes.

I was a nerd.

Now, if you’re thinking, “Oh, you were a soccer player who ran a lot, so naturally, you transitioned to track,” you’re wrong. Dead wrong. I used to be the player who ran the least—the one who stood in place waiting for the ball to come to him.

You guessed it, I was the goalkeeper—and I was actually pretty good. Many of my teammates always told me that with me, the score was always at 0 and that I flew through the air like Superman, stopping every goal. I had this picture in my mind of myself stopping goals for Tigres or some other Liga MX team.

Then came the injury. Honestly, I didn’t really know what it was—some kind of pain in the groin that could’ve been a muscle tear, a sprain, or maybe just fatigue. The point was, it hurt. A lot. I was out for around three months and had to go to rehabilitation therapy twice a week. It was frustrating.

During a doctor’s checkup, he told me something that stuck in my head. It felt like my life changed right there in that exam room.

“You’re wasting your talent in soccer,” he said, direct and clear. “You’re a goalkeeper, right? I think you’re a sprinter. You’ve got that complexion.”

My mind was blown. It was the first time someone told me I wasn’t a goalkeeper, that I wouldn’t have a future if I decided to be one. The dream I’d been holding onto shattered into pieces, and I felt useless . . . I couldn’t picture myself as a goalkeeper again.

After some convincing and a lot of talking, I made up my mind. I wanted to go to a tryout to see if the doctor was right about my “wasted talent” or if he was just messing with me because he enjoyed playing with people’s feelings.

The next day, I went to CARE—and for those who don’t know, it’s practically a high-performance center for athletes (Centro de Alto Rendimiento for its acronym in Spanish). A Cuban coach received me, and in that strange accent of his, he said:

“You warm up and then run 60 meters.”

That’s what I did, not knowing what to expect, not even knowing where the 60 meters were or how track worked. I positioned myself at the starting line and ran as fast as my body could go, clenching my jaw and feeling my heart beating against my chest.

I only heard four words coming my way:

“Welcome to the team, ingeniero.”

Well, five words if you count the last one. But it was a word he always included in his sentences. Maybe it’s something Cubans are accustomed to saying? I don’t know. Cuban people are strange, but my coach was one of those strange people in a good way. He taught me everything about how to start running. I’ll never forget that.

After months and months of hard work came the real test. But not just any competition—the state championship. I qualified for regionals and eventually nationals.

So, I traveled 800 kilometers to run a hundred-meter dash and ended up coming in second place. Sounds easy enough, right? Wrong. It wasn’t easy.

Standing at the starting line is one of the hardest things I do in a day. All kinds of emotions swirl through my head. My stomach churns, and I suddenly feel like I need to go to the restroom—even if I haven’t had any liquids.

I feel the eyes of everyone watching me from the crowd, analyzing my every movement, cameras out recording everything I’m doing. I’m not exaggerating. Every time I glance at the crowd, I see family and friends expecting me to run as fast as I can and win the competition.

That just makes me more nervous.

But once, I heard that nerves are a part of life—you can’t live without them because they’re instinctual, something natural. I focus on that thought and try to calm down, taking long, deep breaths.

I’m on my knees, hands on the starting line, and my mind is thinking about how I’m going to win and break every record imaginable. How I’m going to beat ALL of my competitors and grab that gold medal.

Another thought pops into my head: What if I don’t run? I could just decide to run slower or pretend I’m injured and avoid the embarrassment of coming in last place.

Too late. The gun has already been fired, and all the runners speed past me.

I run and try to catch up. I don’t know what was on my mind, but I know one thing now: I’m going to win this. All distractions leave my head. I can no longer hear anything but the movement of my legs and arms, doing exactly what I trained for.

I see everyone around me running as fast as they can. My sore legs start to feel heavy, and my breathing becomes erratic. I try to run faster, but then my head starts to hurt—a sudden headache pounding in my brain.

What if I give up?

There it is again, that thought. That weak thought that kept me from having my best start. My mind feels like giving in again. The finish line is just meters away, and my body feels like hell.

But I keep going. I give everything my body can handle. I push through the pain, breathe as hard as I can, and just run. My eyes focus only on the finish line, my mind fixated on ending this, on winning.

I come in second place.

I know I’ve done it.

I know it was all worth it.

Because in the end, hard work pays off.