Run or Die Read Free

results brought with them the desire to do better. Helped by Maite Hernández, Jordi Canals, and the whole team at the center, as well as by my mother, who drove me everywhere to train in the early morning before going to school, it seemed that I had started on my career and that my most important successes must still lie ahead, even though I had won everything at the junior level.
    But life always places obstacles in our way. December 22, 2006, was the morning after winning what was at that time my goal in life, the Agustí Roca, for the first time. As I was going home from school, I jumped from one road to another as I had done so often before, but this time my feet didn’t coordinate and I crashed to the ground. I felt a searing pain in my left knee and right hand.
    I limped home as best I could and sat on the sofa, waiting for the inflammation to go away and for the pain to lessen. Quite thereverse happened: By the time it was dark, my knee was so swollen that my parents took me to the hospital, albeit reluctantly.
    “You’ve broken your kneecap and the metacarpals of your right hand,” said the doctor. As she uttered these words, my world started to collapse around me. “It would be best, ideally as soon as possible, to operate and insert a metal plate. Hopefully, it will make you as good as new.”
    It was a difficult decision, and at that moment I was unable to think very clearly. I was at a high point in my short sporting career, and as a mere 18-year-old, I couldn’t see any way forward. Was my career at an end? Would I recover from this injury? I could no doubt take up sport again, but would I return to the level I had fought so hard to reach? I wanted answers, and answers now. I couldn’t imagine spending a year not competing and not training. What should I do? These unanswered questions continued to trouble me even as I went into the operating room so that they could put a metal plate around my kneecap.
    I decided I would have to look for other solutions. If I couldn’t compete at the same high level, I would have to find other goals and motivations to fight for. Consequently, in the three months I was in bed in a cast, I tried to find out all I could about mountain skiing. I looked at studies and experiments in technique carried out in the area of cross-country skiing in order to apply them to my sport. I read books on sporting psychology for ways to improve my tactics. I spent nights in front of a computer surfing pages on physiology and sport strategies in order to extend my understanding of my body and avoid sleepless nights with too many unanswered questions.
    I went to the hospital in March to have the cast removed. I was very disappointed when I saw my leg for the first time after so long. No, that wasn’t my leg! It couldn’t be! Mine was muscularand strong. That scrap of hairy flesh couldn’t be mine! Good heavens! Then I got very gloomy. By way of consolation, I reminded myself that at least with the knowledge I’d acquired over the last three months of intensive research, I could continue with some kind of link to the world of sport.
    The first sessions with the physiotherapist were horrible. I was unable to move my leg without electrostimulation; I was unable to stand up straight without the help of a cane. How would I ever run again if I couldn’t stand up straight? However, I gradually improved and my leg began to get stronger. Within a week I could stand up without the cane, and if I could stand up, I could stand up on skis, right? I tried to. I went to the ski slopes and put boots on for the first time in four months. I knew that my doctors wouldn’t be pleased to know I was skiing, but in the end I was simply standing up, with the boots supporting my feet. It was like being at home and doing physical exercise.
    I started to go up slopes, and though I was in terrible shape, I realized that I could do it, that I could do what I used to do, and I felt the adrenaline spreading through my