Team Endure to Cure member Andres Sauma from Santiago, Chile will be racing the Ironman World Championship tomorrow, October 13th, 2012.  While his qualifying for this race was an outstanding accomplishment on its own merit, his journey to getting there was an even more inspiring one to hear.  So without further ado…

ENTER ANDRES: 

I don’t consider myself talented. Ok, I’m a good swimmer, but apart from that I wasn’t born with great skills for cycling or running. Probably what makes me different from anybody else is my will and stuberness towards achieving a goal. I began on Triathlon on 2008 and as everyone who got into this sport, watching the videos of the Worldchampionship in Kona, Hawaii was the ultimate dream to achieve. “Maybe one day I would be at the start line in Kona…”

Thanks to my consistent training, I began to get good results in local races. I started to do a few races internationally with mixed results. After a while, I realized that doing the training wasn’t enough to reach all my goals. When things got ugly during races, I couldn’t find enough strength to pull it off. No matter how much time I dedicated to improve my swimming, running or cycling, I just couldn’t seem to go beyond my own physical and mental limits. Shortly after doing a race where I was left with my confidence crushed, I was introduced to Endure to Cure. Similar to it not taking long to discover the demands of triathlon, it did not take me long to realize that by finding a noble reason for doing the sport, that it gave me a greater inner strength that I needed to overcome the tough moments in racing.

For example, on my last Ironman in Switzerland I had to race with an injured foot. How to deal with the pain on a marathon portion of the run? The answer was simple, I just forgot about it and remembered that many kids who suffer from cancer can take a lot more pain than me with a injured foot. The result was outstanding. I finished the race with my personal record on the Ironman distance, ran my fastest marathon ever. Believe it or not, I even qualified for the Ironman World Championship in Kona, HI which I will be racing tomorrow! All of the sudden I was reaching goals I never thought were possible by me…

I got back home to Chile and felt very excited. For 2 weeks I was flying of joy and happiness. Unfortunately, the worst part was not over. After doing some MRI to my foot I was diagnosed with a stress fracture. In normal conditions a stress fracture needs from 6 to 8 weeks to heal properly. I had less than 8 to race in Hawaii… I got really depressed. How can I pulled this off without running? How can I race in the World Championship with an injured foot? After a few days I realized that this was going to be the ultimate test of will and perseverance. My training was pretty much the same for swimming and biking. For running, I had to replace all the runs on an elliptical machine. In two words: Terribly Boring!

After all these long weeks of preparation, I haven’t been able to run yet. My foot still hurts a when I walk. Many times I wanted to quit and throw everything over the window… This feeling really sucks!! But giving up isn’t my way of doing things. Now my purpose is more clear to me. I need to prove to myself and the people who follow me that you can do it. Assuming the pain will not cause long-term damage, I believe that it’s all in the mind. I will finish the race running. No matter how hard the pain is. Tomorrow, I will cross the line even if I have to crawl for a week after that… I cannot let down my family, friends and the children who battle cancer everyday. And there’s always the memory of my loving mother and her sister who lost their fight to this terrible desease. For all of them I will do it.

Andres Sauma
Santiago, Chile