I have been contemplating Tariku Novales, who there on stage, at the ExpoDeporte in Valencia, the marathon runner's fair, has been sharing his story with us.
The hat covers his head and the sweatshirt is baggy, just as a rapper or a keen marathon runner would wear on the eve of their big day.
Tariku Novales is the latter, a keen marathoner on the eve of a marathon, and when he sets foot on the ground he approaches me and says:
–What a nonsense I have let out. Don't you think I've talked a lot?
And I tell him not with my head, no way:
–You have spoken a lot and well, and the audience and journalists thank you.
(And it is strictly true; we pens need athletes with charisma and speech, not square robots that execute and return to their barracks).
(...)
Of course, Tariku Novales has spoken a lot.
Well, in a speech as fast-paced as it was intense, he has shared with us his life and his desires, and he has won our hearts because what he does is not easy, it really is not.
–It feels good to travel to my origins in Ethiopia, to reconnect with my roots –says Tariku Novales, who lives in Guadalajara but grew up in Galicia, and who does not know how old he is, he says that he was born in 1998.
(“They told me I was born in 1999, but I felt closer to the children of 1998, and that's why I asked my family in Galicia to take me to the registry, and that's how they changed my age,” he had told her months ago. to Javier Sánchez for El Mundo).
Now he speaks to us in Valencia.
–I was born in Ethiopia, but in 2004 they adopted me in Galicia, and since then I had no connection with the past until 2021, which is when I decided to travel to Ethiopia again. And I didn't do it to train at altitude (I was injured), but to immerse myself in an emotional journey, in a complete experience.
He says that he had left for a week and stayed a month and a half. And that he discovered that there was life beyond our West, and he met those who had taken care of him as a child (his biological father had died when he was two years old, his mother had disappeared), and he felt “at home.”
–That experience allowed me to think about training at altitude.
And that is what he does now, rallies in Ethiopia as in recent weeks in Addis Ababa, an adventure that allows him to unlock prejudices about mileage and rhythms, eat healthy food, without saturation, from the animal to the plate, and pose a unique challenge:
–In Valencia (this Sunday, starting at 8.15am), I will be the first Spaniard to go under 2h06m.
(His mark is 2h07m18s, from Valencia last year; the Spanish record is held by Ayad Lamdassem, at 2h06m25s).
