Personal interests

• Los Cabos

  Ironman 70.3 · 6:59:03 · the hardest

  The worst conditions I have raced in: swimming against the current in hot water, a hot fast headwind on the bike, no clouds, a heat wave, and a course with real climbing that was burning me alive. I vomited twice while riding and did not stop. I got dizzy and had to put everything into my breathing, and did not stop. By the end of the bike leg my mind was hunting for a way out — I thought about faking a fall, because I would rather have taken the crash than keep going. I never stopped. I reached transition and completed the half marathon one step at a time. It is the hardest physical thing I have ever done.

  

• Boulder, Colorado

  Ironman 70.3 · 5:09:33 · no gels

  My best race and the one I would point to. I was at my highest physical level and my head had already been trained by Indian Wells, so I went all in: five hours and nine minutes, without a single energy gel. I fainted the moment I crossed the line. I had given up my entire social life for it, gladly, because I had one objective and I did not want anything pulling me off course. Remembering it still gives me chills.

  

• Indian Wells

  Ironman 70.3 · my first

  My first one, and the one that showed me what this sport actually demands. The mentality it forces on you is simple and brutal: one stroke, one pedal, one step at a time. What I took away is that dedication is what makes greatness — I learned it on that course, not in a book.

  PENDING Finish time missing — your name is not on the board in this photo, and Boulder and Los Cabos both came off theirs.

  

PENDING You listed the marathon but did not send the race, the year or the time. Send them and this block fills itself in.

• National team

  2018 — 2022

  • Called up to Mexico’s national ice hockey team at 17, the youngest player in its history.
  • Played the first Latam Cup, where we finished second to Colombia — a squad that has since sent two players to the NHL.
  • Offered a contract in the AHL, one league below the NHL. I turned it down.

  

• Titles

  • Two national championships, one of them as captain.
  • Five Santa Fe league titles. The league runs twice a year; the national title is the champion-of-champions weekend played between the league winners.

  

• Twelve courses

  ≈500 hours

  Twelve courses, around five hundred hours in total. It is a class about living a happier life: understanding other people, and not judging them. It gave me a language for things I had felt without being able to name, and it is where I found a version of myself that holds together. It is the centre of how I think about emotional intelligence — but it is not the whole of it. The rest is what I read, what I practise, and who I keep close.

• The maintenance

  Around ten books on emotional intelligence and spirituality, Joe Dispenza among them. I meditate often. Neither of those is a project with an end date — they are the upkeep, and they are what keeps the coursework from being something I once did.

• A book and a half a month

  What moves me is not the reading itself — it is wanting to know how things actually work. It is the same instinct that makes me take a financial model apart until I can see where every number comes from, and it is why picking up a new tool has never felt like extra work.

• Prevention, not repair

  I pay attention to what I eat and I treat health as something to protect rather than fix later. The reason is not vanity: I think more clearly and I last longer when the basics are handled, and the work I do rewards being able to concentrate for a long time.

• A small circle, held a long time

  What my friends tell me is that they come to me when they need a straight answer, and that they read me as objective. That is the compliment I would have chosen. I also choose deliberately who I spend time with: I want to be around people I would like to resemble — people with values, with real commitment, good at what they do, humble, and willing to lead.

• The part of the week I do not move

  I am close to my parents, to my siblings and to the wider family — cousins, uncles and aunts. My grandparents I see every weekend, and usually more than that. It is not an obligation I keep up; it is the one thing in the calendar that everything else moves around.