A third ultra runner has joined two others in a bid to run 100 miles across Grand Cayman.
Recent law school graduate Gerry Martinez, 25, will hit the road with James Murray and Lisa Smith-Batchen in the November run, which Murray has dubbed “A Crazy Idea”.
The trio of fleet-footed athletes is running to raise awareness and money for the Cayman Islands Diabetes Association.
Martinez, who three years ago was nearly double the size he is now, was motivated to join Murray and Smith-Batchen because of the diabetes link – his aunt’s death from complications due to diabetes was what inspired him to first start running and shedding weight.
“I was very overweight. I was 340 pounds and I’m 5 foot, 4 inches tall. I was not diabetic, but diabetes prompted me to lose weight,” said Martinez.
His diabetic aunt Maggie, who had been on dialysis for six years, received a kidney transplant, but her body rejected it. “She went into hospital and never came out. Her situation got worse and worse and she passed away,” said Martinez, from San Antonio, Texas.
“I was very close to my aunt. That is pretty much what helped spur me to get out there and get moving. There was an elliptical track near my house and I’d do two miles a day.
“I would walk and walk. It got to the point where I thought maybe I can run… I wondered if I could go around the track without stopping and gasping for breath. It became like a mental game with myself, could I go further and then a little further?
“The first time I could run around the 300-metre track without stopping, it was my big “Rocky” moment,” he recalled.
Since those first days on the track three years ago, he has lost 180 pounds.
Although he started running to lose weight, he soon discovered that he loved it. “I didn’t expect to,” he admitted.
Diabetes has also afflicted his father whose leg was recently amputated due to the disease.
A Crazy Idea
Martinez, Murray and Smith-Batchen plan to begin their run on 26 November at Camana Bay as part of the three-mile Cayman Islands Diabetes Association Fun Run on 26 November and then keep on running across all the districts on Grand Cayman until they complete 100 miles that day.
Smith-Batchen was Martinez’s coach when he first started ultra running and she advised him on his first 50-mile run. They have since become good friends.
Ultra-running champion Smith-Batchen also coaches Murray in his long-distance running efforts.
“She told me about the [Cayman] run,” said Martinez. “She said it would benefit diabetes and I was really interested. That’s how I got involved.”
After running got in his blood, there was no stopping Martinez. He ran his first marathon and then, a week after, took on his first 50-mile run.
“I had no idea what I was doing when I signed up to do that. After I finished the marathon, my legs were in such pain. I wondered how I was going to run double that a week from now. I got online and started researching ultra marathons and how to run them. Lisa’s name came up, she’s Miss Ultra Marathon Woman,” he said.
“I did a marathon, then a 50-mile run and then some other long distance training runs. I finished my first 100-mile run in February at the Rocky Raccoon run in Huntsville, Texas,” he added.
He has also attempted two other 100 miles runs but didn’t finish.
“I love to run and A Crazy Idea sounds like a great cause… Diabetes runs in my family. It speaks to me personally,” he said.
He’ll be in good company on his Cayman run – Murray has been training hard to prepare for the run and is working to inspire others to take part in the Cayman Islands Intertrust Marathon on 4 December. Smith-Batchen is the only American to have won the Marathon des Sables in the Sahara, a gruelling five-stage race over seven days in the Sahara desert and has also completed the 135-mile Badwater Ultra-marathon in Death Valley nine times. Last year, she ran 50 miles in 50 US states, a total of 2,250 – more than half of which she ran with a broken foot.
Martinez said he was looking forward to running in Cayman, where he has not visited before. He is currently training in Grand Tetons, a range in the Rocky Mountains – terrain that is considerably rockier than he is going to find in Cayman.
For others who are thinking about losing weight and considering running as an option for weight loss, he advises them to go at their own pace and not to feel pressured by others.
“The fact that you are out there just trying to do it making all the difference in the world. It doesn’t matter if you run or not. I started with walking. Just get out there and do something. That’s key.
“Eventually you will progress and get better if you want it enough. It is something you have to stick with and do it out of a place of love. I didn’t start running or losing weight because I was pressured into it. I wanted to do it for myself.
“It is something you have to do on your own. Have a positive frame of mind and stick with it even when you have a setback. Just love yourself. When you love yourself, you eat good healthy food and exercise and do things that are good for your body,” said Martinez.
When it comes to food, he has a simple, yet effective way of avoiding overly processed food – “If I can’t pronounce what’s on the label of ingredients, I don’t buy it.”
During his weight loss efforts, Martinez became vegan.
The veganism came about almost for practical reasons because he did not have a car when he was at law school in Lubbock, Texas and so would walk five miles to the nearest grocery store. “I didn’t want to be buying meat and fish and perishable food and then bringing them all the way home,” said Martinez. He said veganism also suits his philosophy of eating good, wholesome, healthy food and he said he gets plenty of protein from the lentils and beans in his diet.
His transformation from a chubby kid to a runner was also scary, he explained.
“I’d always been bigger and I had done diets before and they would work for a while and then I would gain the weight back. This time when I started losing weight, it felt different. I thought I’m really losing a lot of weight. I’m really onto something here.
“It was scary because I thought to myself I have lost so much weight, the most weight I’ve ever lost in my life, and if I blow it, if I go back to my old ways and do the yo-you diet again, this is my last chance. This is the hardest I have worked. If I blow it, there is no way I am ever going to do this again. It is now or never,” he said.
Murray welcomed the newest member of the Crazy Idea team. “Gerry is going to run all 100 miles with us… His story is one of hope and truly inspiring,” he said.
Since those first days on the track three years ago, he has lost 180 pounds.
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