Relentless Romero Blogs

Have you ever had an inanimate friend who helps you through those tough times in life?   Some of us have invisible friends as children.   In the blockbuster movie Castaway , Tom Hanks character befriends a volleyball and names it “Wilson” (pictured above).   This volleyball becomes such a large part of Hank’s life, that extreme anxiety, panic and grieving take place when Wilson become’s lost.   Although this is Hollywood drama, we can all relate to having something that helps to ease our discomfort. Now, what if we flip that concept on it’s head, and partner ourselves with an inanimate object that causes us pain and suffering, ultimately building strength and character?   Well, that is exactly where I have found myself as a blind-runner who could no longer travel with ease to Pikes Peak or the Colorado mountains to do altitude and hill training runs.   I had to figure out a way to substitute a training method to get the same benefits as real moun...

At age 14, I was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP), a degenerative visiual condition that results in deteriorating visual acuity, continued loss of peripheral vision and night blindness.   I’m currently 44 and legally blind with 20/400 eyesight, a 10-degree field of vision and very night blind.   During the day, it seems like I’m looking through straws and everything is really far away.   The image seems fairly sharp, although I don’t have good depth perception.   I use magnifiers to enlarge things, wear sunglasses to reduce the sun’s brightness, and I am constantly “scanning” and turning my head to take in the entire landscape since my eyes only pick up 10 degrees of the image at a time.   I also use technology to help out – the iPhone 6 Plus has been a huge blessing to me with it’s large screen, voice recognition, text to speech, reverse contrast and magnification features.   At night time, it is extremely dark for me although I am able to p...

I am often asked “what goes through your mind?” before a big race.    Because I get the question so often, and I’m curious about what others think, I thought I’d write a little something and see what the community thinks about before a big race. It’s also perfect timing, because I’m heading into a new type of adventure race this weekend.    I’ll be travelling to Puerto Rico in a couple days to attempt a 180 mile run across the island, with 46,000’ of elevation change in a self-supported race.    I will have 60 hours to complete the distance. FUN!    The first thing that I always think about is how fun the adventure is going to be.    To me, there is not much better than being on your feet running.    Sometimes I’m running to something; sometimes I’m running away from something; and sometimes I’m just running aimlessly.    Experiencing the human spirit and body moving through space and across terrain is a...