Someone who finishes a marathon is capable of achieving anything in life
Eliud Kipchoge
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Thirteen years have passed, and I still remember that day. That training on the synthetic carpet at the INEF in Madrid.
Noon on a Saturday, spring. I have arrived jogging to the place and Antonio Serrano, Chema Martínez's coach, approaches me and asks me:
-What do you have today?
–Ten sets of 500m –I answer.
-So perfect. Look: Chema has a 10K jog. He will go 2m55s per kilometer. How about you get with him and shoot him every 500m, and wait for him to recover?
That will be the plan, then.
I will do sets of 500m at 1m28s and rest for 1m27s while Chema Martínez continues turning the synthetic until it connects behind me.
And so it comes out. Chema Martínez jogs a 10,000m in 29m fast. I do ten sets of 500m at 1m28s.
(With a hug in the last one).
And at the end of the session, I think:
–How envious this phenomenon makes me.
Yes, I remember it well.
(...)
Thirteen years have passed since then and now we are in Barcelona, at a Polar event: the stellar Polar Vantage V3 watch is presented. The event consists of a 10K jog through Collserola, and jogging up the mountain I met Chema Martínez (52) again.
Chema Martínez was a professional distance runner, with two European podiums in the 10,000m (including gold in Munich 2002) and another in the marathon. In those days he had a fierce appearance: when he jogged without a shirt, his ribs stood out. And he had a shaved head, it could be aerodynamics or an intimidation strategy.
Today is a different one.
He sports enviable hair and is a sports influencer: he gives conferences, writes in magazines and teaches sports marketing classes at ESIC.
But, when he can, he trains and explores himself.
Chema Martínez trains and explores himself as much as in those years: he attests to this on social networks. We can see him on YouTube or Instagram, pushing himself with his son Nico, Spanish U20 400m hurdles champion, or with his brother Javier, a former golfer who has discovered a late vocation in athletics and today, at 50 years old, Run a half marathon in 1h05m.
At the end of the session with Polar, we share a coffee while occupying a room at the Gran Hotel La Florida, a luxury setting next to Tibidabo, and I ask Chema Martínez how he feels, now that he has entered his fifties and his body does not perform the same. , now that those delusions of youth and greatness have been taken away by time.
And then, he answers me:
-I miss!
–Do you envy those young athletes who live the present splendor as we had lived it?
-Of course. That was one of my best times, when I lived without fear of anything, not even failure.
–And at night, do you relive those days?
–Buuufff, what that feeling was like at the championships. The stress of the call room, making decisions and modifying strategies. He would live it again. I'm envious, of course. And that's why I push myself every day, as if those 18 years I spent in the elite had not been enough.
–So it's true: are you still squeezing yourself every day?
–Well, I have learned to listen to the body. A while ago, I told my friend Capapé (Dr. David López Capapé, former athlete and doctor, assists Chema Martínez) that I was feeling tired. He asked me: 'Do you train a lot?' 'Between ten and twelve sessions a week,' I answered. So he told me: 'How can you not be tired!' Anyway, since then I have decided to reduce the sessions to one daily.
–For you, is training an obligation or a necessity?
-It's a lifestyle. Although, when I started out as a kid, I didn't expect to achieve everything I did. I tried everything. Baseball, basketball with trash cans, hockey with sticks, soccer with punctured balls. When I was eleven years old I won my first race and then I saw that my talent was in running. And when I joined INEF, in 1990, that seduced me more than anything. I became a sports junkie.
–There would be something in your family, right?
–Don't believe it! There were no runners in my family, no uncles or grandparents. My parents smoked. And when it rained, my father would go out to look for me and send me home. It's curious: there was no genetics.
–And without genetics, he became an essential marathon runner. I have always thought that competing in a professional marathon is the worst job in the world. Do you share it?
-The other way around. If I am who I am, it is thanks to the marathon. When you compete at your maximum potential you learn a lot. Seeing how your body responds, flipping a coin... It's wonderful!
