The monastic life of Mario García Romo in the United States: "I only went to a bar one day"
In 'The waning spoon', the author Sam Kean, reviews the elements of the periodic table through curiosities such as, for example, Mahatma Gandhi's hatred of iodine. In 'The Laws of Human Nature,' Robert Greene tries to figure out why people do what they do with philosophy, history and psychology as tools.. A book, another book, another book, and so on every afternoon. With some reading in his hands, resting, always resting, Mario García Romo, the new star of the Spanish midfielder, bronze in the 1,500 meters of the last European Championship and fourth in the last World Cup, occupies his spare time, after training and before other. It is his new life, a 100% professional life, a monastic life in the town of Boulder, in Colorado, in the center of the United States, with the sole objective of being an Olympic and world champion.
Five years ago, when he left Villar de Gallimazo, a Castilian town of a hundred inhabitants, to study Biotechnology at the University of Mississippi, imagining him in the elite was daring.. Last year, when he graduated and had not yet made his debut with the absolute Spanish team, placing him among the best was daring. But now everything is possible. After having fought with Jakob Ingebrigtsen, his compatriot Mo Katir and the rest of the stars of the world midfielder, no one can deny him his dreams. For this reason, towards the World Cup in Budapest this August, a party is not allowed.
“No one forbids me”
“To tell you the truth, since I got here in October I've only been in a bar for one day.. Some teammates got married [Olympian Joe Klecker and fellow runner Sage Hurta] and the party was at a bar. We train first thing in the morning and I have to arrive rested, that's why I don't go out. Nobody forbids me, I do what I want, but I am very focused on preparing for this summer. This is the life of an athlete, I suppose,” says García Romo, in conversation with EL MUNDO through Zoom, in full discovery.
Until this year I was a university student 'playing' athletics. Not now. Last summer, the summer of his hatching, he had to decide between returning to Spain to train at the High Performance Center in Madrid or staying in the United States with the group that offered him his brand, On Running.. “I wanted to return home, but it was clear that the opportunity here was better.. Right now on my team there are three world-class athletes in the 1,500m and that helps you improve a lot every day”, explains the middle-distance runner who, under Dathan Ritzenheim, shares training sessions in Boulder with Yared Nuguse, the new Yankee record holder. ' of the 1,500 and 3,000 indoor meters, Olli Hoare, gold in the last Commonwealth Games, and others like Morgan McDonald, George Beamish, Klecker….
In fact, with some, like Nuguse, he shares more than just training: they have moved into the same house together and García Romo is showing him Spanish dishes.. The other day was a big day: he made a paella for the whole group.
The battle against Ingebrigtsen
“It's a bit of a lonely life, away from family and friends, but I'm fine living with my mates.. We share the same schedules, the same routines. For weeks we have been deciding to go to Denver one day, which is very close, an hour away and there is a lot of leisure, but the truth is that we did not find the time”, admits the runner who this winter broke the mythical record of Spain indoor of the mile owned by José Manuel Abascal since 1983. Then surprisingly he gave up the European indoor and returned to Boulder to his retirement, to his routine of training and rest, training and rest: “I did not want to overload myself and miss the summer. The goal this season is clearly the World Cup in Budapest.”
To get to that appointment in shape, he plans to play a couple of Diamond League appointments and meet there with the always favorite, the dominator of the world midfielder, the Norwegian Jakob Ingebrigtsen. “In recent years he has revolutionized athletics, everyone is copying him, but he is not invincible. I'm going to Diamond to know how to do it, to learn to measure myself against him”, the Spaniard concluded, with a personal goal: to reach 10 hours of sleep a day. Right now it's barely over nine and it seems to him that it's just right. Glory demands that: mornings and mornings of effort, afternoons and afternoons of rest, in general, a rather boring life.