Every morning, Adolfo Lopez tightens his running shoes and sets out. He has anywhere between three and five miles of road ahead of him. While his body is running, his mind is being set free.
“One of the things I like about running and training for long distance is the fact that in the morning it’s time for me to run, and it’s also time for me to reflect on my life and meditate while I run, just be thankful to God that I have a new day that allows me to do what I like.”
For the last 30 years, Lopez has been running. He began while playing soccer in Peru, where he was studying to be a PE teacher and was encouraged to compete in distance running. At the time, he was an avid soccer player, competing in the country’s division three.
He met a track runner who encouraged him to try running.
“At one point, I had to decide either to just run to compete in races or to play soccer because my coach gave me an ultimatum: ‘You are either a track runner or a soccer player; otherwise I cannot coach you,’” he said.
Lopez’s coach was concerned about the high level of competition and the possibility of Lopez being injured in a soccer game. Lopez gave up soccer for running, and the move opened up many doors for him. In 1985, he left Peru to come to Santa Maria and run for Allan Hancock College on an athletic scholarship. His goal was to improve his time so he could run for his home country in the Olympics. In ’92, he competed in the Olympic trials, running a 2h24m40s sixth-place finish in the Long Beach marathon. Despite not making the Olympic team, Lopez has continued to run. At 53, he hopes he’ll continue to run his whole life, even if not competitively as before.
“This is the time in my life where I really enjoy my running, because I am not setting very, very high expectations like I used to,” Lopez said. “I realize I want to continue running injury free.”
Though Lopez has always enjoyed running, his newer mindset has helped him enjoy it more.
That isn’t to say the competitive fire is gone. When asked if he missed the competition, Lopez responded, ”Yeah … I try to do one race a month. Short distance, one marathon a year. … I still want to be competitive for my age division.”
Lopez said the most difficult part of running for him is making sure he has the right pace. Though there have been times he took a race too fast, he’s never not finished. While running a marathon in San Diego, he neared the end of the race and realized he hadn’t trained hard enough to prepare for it. He had to slow down, but he was able to finish.
Lopez said that there are several different reasons to run: to win, to accomplish a goal you set for yourself, or to raise support for causes.
Sunday, Nov. 6, marked the New York Marathon, and Lopez was there in the thick of it for the first time. He was one of approximately 47,000 runners, and he wasn’t just running for himself. He was running for Team World Vision, an organization that helps provide clean water to poor communities in places like Africa and Haiti.
“[The organization is] an extra motivation, an extra reason to pull my shoes on and go out and run,” he said.
As the city of Santa Maria shakes off the chill of night, a lone figure chews up a mile of pavement and then another. He’s got a goal to reach, he’s got a vision, and he’s not stopping until he gets there.
This article appears in Nov 10-17, 2011.
