Breaking news in the Martinez home:
Patrick and wife Tiffany welcomed baby girl, Aurelia Rose Martinez, who arrived September 22nd. She joins other new arrivals this past year including Rachel Joyce’s son, Tim O’donnell & Rinny Carfrae’s daughter, Tyler & Nikki Butterfield’s son and Mary Beth Ellis’ baby girl.
Congratulations to all!!
My first triathlon was my freshman year in college. I didn’t have enough money to enter so I asked people around me to sponsor me and I had to borrow gear from roommates and friends. I also did another sprint my senior year in college. My roommate and I had a bet from a professor of ours that we couldn’t beat him. We were cocky varsity track athletes that just came off of good season of track and field. We were 400m trained though but we didn’t think about that. Our professor was…round and didn’t look like he worked out much. He destroyed both of us in the swim and we never saw him again. Very humbling but very inspiring at the same time.
I’ve seen the Ironman triathlon on tv since I was very little. I remember watching it with my mother throughout the years and every year we keep saying, “these people are crazy”. A couple years of watching the “crazies”, we wanted to be one of those crazies. My mom started doing marathons and I took up running also. I always thought how cool it would be to make it to Kona. Twelve years after college, I finally bought myself a new bike, got a wetsuit, and joined a triathlon team. I did a 70.3 that year and I was instantly hooked. The dream of becoming an Ironman came alive once again. Not that anything like that ever really goes away. Summer of 2017 I finally was able to complete the Boulder Ironman, finally making me an IRONMAN!
I have NEVER been to Kona! I am actually able to go to Kona this year because I won a bid spot by signing up for Boulder. I am very honored to take part in Kona though. I also know that I will/am making a lot of people angry about it. I have some friends who have been doing Ironman for 10+ years and still have not made it to Kona and I get in before I even became an Ironman for the first time.
This did come with some good timing and some bad timing. I found out I am going to Kona a week after Christmas 2016. My wife and I booked our flights, our hotel, and we were set to go for a second “honeymoon”. A week later my wife pulls me aside and says, “Patrick, I cannot go to Kona with you this year.” Horrified, I have 2 million reasons why she couldn’t go to Kona, none of them really good, so my face must have dropped. Then she followed it with, “We’re having a baby!”. I cried. I cried because it was good news and cried because I was so glad it was none of the things I was thinking. Our baby is due September 27th, 2017. So I will be skyping her at the finish line while she is taking care of our baby. Some people may look down on that, that I am I going leaving my wife and new born baby. My wife and I have a great relationship. I told her that I didn’t need to do this also. Her response was, “yes you do!” Again, followed by, “but you won’t be doing this for a long time.” We both support each other and we both realized how big of deal Kona actually is. This is why I’m so proud and honored that I get to go. My mother will also be going with me to Kona and I hope to make her proud as well. I’m so glad I get to share this with my family. My baby will not know what happened that day but I hope that I will be able to show my love of life and sport with baby. So even after the Kona ironman, you’ll see baby and I running with the jogging stroller around our neighborhood.
If you asked me in college I would have said anything more than 2 laps around the track is stupid. Here I am today with a dozen or so marathons, Pikes Peak Ascent race, bike rides that have taken me 500+ miles, and one Boulder ironman. So to answer the question, my favorite race depends on the year. I try to push my boundaries of what I thought possible. I have found a love of doing things that scare me and Ironman scares the crap out of me. So right now, Ironman is my goal and my distance that I have fun doing. It’s hard to do something like this and not have fun. you have to put in too much effort and time to not have fun. I do know that training for an Ironman comes with sacrifice though. Mostly with time. So with a baby on the way I realize that my time will be used elsewhere. Not because I have to, but because I want to. i want to be a good father, a good husband, a good brother, and a good son. Family is my next big priority in life. I’m sure I will get back into track and field though since I’m 3 years away from being 40 so I can enter the masters field.
I have been training with D3 Multipart coaching out of Colorado. I have very little time to meet up as a team or to do group functions so I’m mostly training by myself. My wife tells me all of the time that she thinks I need friends to ride with or run with. I’m a cranky old man when it comes to training. I really enjoy going by myself and not having to sync up with somebody elses schedule, or pace, or drama. Don’t get me wrong, I love running and being active with people but I guess I’m very picky with who. Especially this year. My wife and I bought a house last year so we are constantly doing fixer upper projects. I decided last year that I missed coaching track so I got hired on to be a track coach as well. And my work pulls me away a lot during the summer since we are such a small town and we are required to wear a lot of hats. Sometimes I wear my cranky old man hat though a lot if I have to work too much and miss a training session. With coaching track, it almost became impossible to have a free minute. I would have to get one workout in before work, meaning 4:30am-6am. Get to work at 7am to work an 8 hour day to coach track by 3:30pm. I coach track from 3:30pm-5:30pm, then only to come home to get a second workout in, finishing around 8:30pm-9pm. This was a rough time in the Martinez household. My wife and I hardly got to see each other during this period, not to mention I was exhausted most days out of the week. Again, bring out the cranky old man hat for me. I always told my wife that she comes first and I don’t want to do this if it interferes with us. After that time my wife and I made sure we went on dates more and spent time with each other. I had to miss a few workouts to do this but my wife is the one who is going to be with me for life and I want to make sure of that.
So how is training going? I would say as best as it could be with making sure my family feels like I’m not ignoring them. I am proud of everything I go through to try to get my workouts in. I may not be able to get every workout but I make sure I try my best to work around the schedule. I also know that the regular type A personality types are cringing at me saying that but I am proud of what I am doing. I feel like I am putting in a lot of extra effort to make this happen and I also don’t like to do things to just finish. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but when I finish, I want to make sure I can say to myself, “I trained my best, and I did my best in this race ”. Sure after years and years of training I could probably do better, but I do not have that kind of time, which why this trip to Kona makes it even that much more special.
Originally my mother, father, sister, wife, father-in-law, and mother-in-law were all going to travel to Hawaii with me. Now that we are having a baby, it will just be my mother, father, and sister going with me while my wife’s family will be staying with her to watch over her and take care of her while I’m gone.
It means the most to my mother and me though. We are cut from the same clothe and think the same way and dream the same way. I’m so glad she can come along to see this. it will be very special to have her there at the finish. Pretty sure my dad and sister just want a vacation but I’m really glad they will be there also. It was very special to have them cheer me on in Boulder.
What I am looking forward to the most in Kona is going down the same road and streets of the greats that I used to watch on TV with my mother. I’m looking forward to the crowd and looking forward being able to say hi to my baby at the finish. Even if it is over Skype. Mostly I’m looking forward to taking part and being able to take my mother with me.
Thank you all so much for this opportunity. I will be telling my baby daughter this story until she’s sick of it. Then when she’s sick of it, I’ll sit her future dates down to tell the story to. If they can ac semi-interested, they will be in good with me. Curfew will still be before 6pm but I’ll like them a little more.
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