Remembering Nelson

9.53 miles in 1:45:00 @ 11:01 pace and 159/176 bpm for 1,419 calories

I had two sources of inspiration for tonight’s run.  First, I watched the Ironman Triathlon World Championships on NBC before my run, and I got fired up seeing Craig Alexander run down his competition to win.  Running is my worst of the three sports and I have no chance or intention of actually winning anything in triathlon, but it’s still awesome to see the top athletes perform.

Second and far more importantly, I found out last week that Nelson Montalvo, a friend and colleague from Sapient and Bright Corner, died in a traffic accident at the age of 33.  He was a talented and passionate technologist and a kind-hearted guy, and I personally know at least a dozen people that will miss him like I will.  God taking him from us so early has me convinced that there are some hard-core coding challenges to work out up in Heaven. Seriously though, I’m trying to stay as light-hearted as possible about it because that’s what Nelson would have wanted, but it’s really hard to understand how it could have been his time to go.  Nelson and I were the closest when we were working together, and I know it’s selfish of me but I really wanted to work with him at least one more time.  So today I ran without music and spent my 1:45:00 remembering Nelson and pushing myself just a little harder.