Spanish StoriesLa carrera de Marta
Marta's Race
A forty-five-year-old woman signs up for her first 10K on impulse, and training with a group of beginner runners teaches her to keep going past the point where she wants to quit.
Topics
- sports
- personal growth
- friendship
- personal challenge
Tap or hover any underlined word for its English meaning.
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Learner-paced · SpanishWhat you'll encounter
- Grammar
- Preterite and imperfect in narration, Reflexive verbs (apuntarse, rendirse, despertarse), Pluperfect (no se había dado cuenta), Comparisons (un poco más lejos que...)
- Vocabulary
- Sports and running vocabulary (carrera, entrenar, meta), Expressions of physical effort (le faltaba el aire, de puro cansancio), Time expressions (a finales de, cada semana)
- Language skills
- Narrating personal growth over several months, Describing physical effort and self-doubt, Expressing a personal decision about the future
Marta tenía cuarenta y cinco años y nunca en su vida había corrido más de diez minutos seguidos. Trabajaba en una oficina, pasaba el día sentada frente al ordenador y, por las noches, se sentía cansada sin haber hecho nada especial. Un domingo de enero, su hermana Irene la llamó por teléfono.
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« a la de la ciudad», le dijo Irene. «Son diez kilómetros, en abril. ¿Te apuntas conmigo?»
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Marta se rió al principio. «Irene, yo .» Pero esa noche, mientras cenaba sola, pensó en su vida: siempre la misma rutina, desde hacía años. Al día siguiente, sin decírselo a nadie más, se apuntó a la carrera.
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Las primeras semanas fueron duras. Marta salía a correr por el parque cerca de su casa, pero apenas diez minutos antes de tener que caminar. Le dolían las rodillas, y, más de una vez, pensó en . «Esto no es para mí», se dijo una tarde de febrero, sentada en un banco, después de un entrenamiento especialmente malo.
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Pero al día siguiente, en el mismo parque, conoció a un grupo de que entrenaban juntos los martes y los jueves. Un hombre mayor, Ramón, que llevaba corriendo desde los sesenta años, la animó a unirse. «Aquí nadie corre rápido», le explicó, sonriendo. «Solo intentamos llegar un poco más lejos que la semana pasada.»
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Con el grupo, entrenar dejó de ser tan solitario. Marta aprendió a respirar mejor, a controlar el ritmo y, sobre todo, a no después de un mal día. Cada semana corría un poco más: primero quince minutos, después veinte, después media hora sin parar. A finales de marzo, ya conseguía correr ocho kilómetros .
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Una mañana de marzo, empezó a llover justo cuando salían a entrenar. Marta pensó que lo lógico era volver a casa, pero el grupo ya estaba corriendo bajo la lluvia, sin darle ninguna importancia. y helada, corrió con ellos los treinta minutos completos. Al terminar, se dio cuenta de que ya no le importaba tanto el tiempo que hacía: solo quería seguir corriendo.
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La mañana de la carrera, Marta se despertó nerviosa. Había miles de personas en la salida, con camisetas de todos los colores, y ella que no estaba preparada. Irene la esperaba con una sonrisa. «Solo tienes que terminar», le dijo. «No importa el tiempo.»
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Los primeros kilómetros pasaron rápido, entre la música y los de la gente en las calles. Pero, alrededor del kilómetro siete, las piernas de Marta empezaron a fallar. Le dolía todo el cuerpo y sentía que no podría dar ni un paso más. Fue entonces cuando escuchó una voz conocida a su lado: era Ramón, que corría cerca de ella. Marta no se había dado cuenta. «Vamos, Marta», le dijo. «Ya solo quedan tres kilómetros. Yo corro contigo.»
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No hablaron mucho más. Simplemente corrieron juntos, paso a paso, mientras Marta se concentraba en respirar y en poner un pie delante del otro. Cuando por fin vio el , sintió que le temblaban las piernas , pero también de alegría. Cruzó la línea sin ninguna prisa por saber su tiempo.
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Esa noche, mientras se tomaba un baño para aliviar el dolor de las piernas, Marta pensó en la mujer que era cinco meses antes: alguien que se reía de la idea de correr diez minutos. Llamó a Irene por teléfono. «¿Sabes qué?», le dijo. «Creo que el año que viene quiero intentar los quince kilómetros.» Irene se rió al otro lado de la línea. «Sabía que dirías eso.»
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Show English translation
Marta was forty-five years old and had never in her life run for more than ten minutes straight. She worked in an office, spent the day sitting in front of the computer, and at night felt tired without having done anything special. One Sunday in January, her sister Irene called her on the phone.
"I've signed up for the city's charity race," Irene told her. "It's ten kilometers, in April. Will you sign up with me?"
Marta laughed at first. "Irene, I don't even run to catch the bus." But that night, eating dinner alone, she thought about her life: always the same routine, no new challenge in years. The next day, without telling anyone else, she signed up for the race.
The first weeks were hard. Marta went running in the park near her house, but she could barely manage ten minutes before having to walk. Her knees hurt, she was out of breath, and more than once she thought about quitting. "This isn't for me," she told herself one February afternoon, sitting on a bench after an especially bad training session.
But the next day, in the same park, she met a group of beginner runners who trained together on Tuesdays and Thursdays. An older man, Ramón, who had been running since he was sixty, encouraged her to join. "Nobody runs fast here," he explained, smiling. "We just try to get a little further than last week."
With the group, training stopped being so lonely. Marta learned to breathe better, to control her pace, and, above all, not to give up after a bad day. Every week she ran a little more: first fifteen minutes, then twenty, then half an hour without stopping. By the end of March, she could already run eight kilometers without feeling like she was dying.
One March morning, it started raining right as they headed out to train. Marta thought the sensible thing was to go back home, but the group was already running in the rain, not bothered by it at all. Soaked and freezing, she ran the full thirty minutes with them. When they finished, she realized she no longer cared so much about the weather: she just wanted to keep running.
On the morning of the race, Marta woke up nervous. There were thousands of people at the starting line, wearing shirts of every color, and she couldn't stop thinking she wasn't ready. Irene was waiting for her with a smile. "You just have to finish," she told her. "The time doesn't matter."
The first kilometers went by quickly, amid the music and the cheers of encouragement from people in the streets. But around kilometer seven, Marta's legs started to fail her. Her whole body ached and she felt like she couldn't take one more step. That's when she heard a familiar voice beside her: it was Ramón, running near her. Marta hadn't noticed. "Come on, Marta," he said. "Only three kilometers left. I'll run with you."
They didn't talk much more. They simply ran together, step by step, while Marta focused on breathing and putting one foot in front of the other. When she finally saw the finish-line sign, she felt her legs shaking from sheer exhaustion, but also from joy. She crossed the line without any rush to check her time.
That night, while taking a bath to soothe her aching legs, Marta thought about the woman she had been five months earlier: someone who laughed at the idea of running ten minutes. She called Irene on the phone. "You know what?" she said. "I think next year I want to try fifteen kilometers." Irene laughed on the other end of the line. "I knew you'd say that."
Vocabulary in this story
- Me he apuntado
- I've signed up
- carrera solidaria
- charity race
- no corro ni para coger el autobús
- I don't even run to catch the bus (i.e., I never run)
- ningún reto nuevo
- no new challenge
- aguantaba
- could manage / keep going
- le faltaba el aire
- she was out of breath
- dejarlo
- quitting
- corredores principiantes
- beginner runners
- rendirse
- give up
- sin sentir que se moría
- without feeling like she was dying
- Empapada
- soaked
- no dejaba de pensar
- couldn't stop thinking
- gritos de ánimo
- cheers of encouragement
- cartel de meta
- finish-line sign
- de puro cansancio
- from sheer exhaustion
Comprensión(check what you understood)
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