“Music is what really, really guides me,” he adds, noting that he’s especially fond of songs from musicals. “You just have to go into a different mindset,” he says of the rigors of getting through a marathon.
It’s become as much of a mental exercise as a physical one. There’s a huge learning curve.”Īs part of his near-daily training regimen, Romero now runs an average of 100 miles per month.
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“You think you know how to run, but you don’t. “I went into the running world knowing nothing: ‘Oh, you just go outside and run,’ ” he says. He tackled the hilly terrain of Seattle, the dizzying heat of Arizona, the high altitudes of Denver.
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“I don’t think the body is designed to run 10 full marathons in a year.” “I ran 10 full (marathons), six halfs, like 20 5Ks, sometimes a 10K,” says Romero, who now weighs around 155 pounds. It was chaotic.”īy the end of 2019, he’d racked up some impressive numbers. It was pretty much a race a month, sometimes every other week. “I literally did every single one in the country. That’s Romero’s fastest marathon, turned in on a snowy, rainy March day in Washington, D.C.Īfter completing his first marathon in 2018, Romero went on a tear the following year, running in more than a dozen Rock ’n’ Roll Marathon events. His best time came during the worst conditions. “She’s like, ‘If you do 15 races with Rock ’n’ Roll Marathon in one year, you get this giant Hall of Fame medal.’ And that’s what I decided to do.” Upon finishing the race and receiving his medal, Romero noticed a fellow racer with an even bigger medal. “It was, ‘I know I put my body through a huge change - let’s try this out, see if I can make it.’ I barely made it.” “It wasn’t something I really trained for,” Romero adds. “So, literally the day before I was going to run a half-marathon, I decided, ‘What’s another 13.1 miles?’ “I was like, ‘Sure, let’s go,’ ” Romero says. Jude’s representatives told him that if he raised another $100, he could enter to run the full marathon. When Romero registered for the Las Vegas half-marathon, St. Jude Heroes program, where race participants raise money for the children’s hospital and, in turn, their entry fees are waived. Go, he did, using training apps to work toward running a half-marathon as part of the Las Vegas Rock ’n’ Roll Marathon later in the year.īefore the event, Romero joined the St. “Also, I did not know what to do in the gym, so I was like, ‘Well, with running, you can literally just go outside and go.’ ” “Probably the fact that I did not like it at all. “I decided, ‘Maybe I should just go running,’ ” he says. It’s a long way from four years ago, when Romero was 70 pounds heavier.Īfter his HIV diagnosis, he began to add weight, most likely because of a combination of the medication he was prescribed and the stress of completing his senior year at UNLV, Romero believes.Īfter a visit to the doctor in which his health issues came into stark relief, Romero knew he had to do something about it. “I’ll probably retire these this month or the next month,” Romero notes. Typically, you put 300 to 500 miles on a shoe.” “If I get through all three pairs in a year, that’s my goal. “Those are my shoes for the year,” Romero explains. He buys three pairs of identical shoes every holiday season. Then in April 2018, when he weighed about 220 pounds, Romero decided to do something about it. He gained weight and struggled with high blood pressure. In 2016, while an undergrad at UNLV majoring in hospitality, Romero was diagnosed with HIV. A year later, one marathon would begat 10, as Romero crisscrossed North America in races from here to Montreal, changing his body, his life. The Rock ’n’ Roll Marathon wasn’t just a race, it was the beginning of a major physical transformation for the 26-year-old who turned his health around in remarkable fashion a mile at a time.
Romero called his parents during his slowdown. But I just knew that I was going to get there.” “The last 6 miles were rough,” Romero recalls, practically shuddering from the memory. Three-quarters of the way through came the wall. He had just started running that April and had never attempted such a long distance before that chilly fall day.
Ryan Romero hit it the hardest about two years ago.įlashback to November 2018: Romero is taking part in his first Las Vegas Rock ’n’ Roll Marathon. Cannon/Las Vegas Review-Journal) mile 20.Įvery marathon runner knows it, that moment in a race when the body wants to quit and the mind has to tell it otherwise. He reduced his weight and blood pressure. Romero turned his life around thanks to running. Las Vegan Ryan Romero, 26, on the Strip near Tropicana Avenue in Las Vegas Friday, Aug.
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