I cannot say the past ten years have flown by.
(okay, eleven. But keep going, it’ll make sense later)
I have felt every single one of them.
And I want to be clear about why, because people tend to assume they know. They assume the weight comes from the struggle. From the wheelchair, the pain, the things that got taken.
The struggle was there. All of it. I’m not going to pretend otherwise.
But that’s not why I remember every year.
I remember every year because of the challenges I chose. Every single one of those. The triathlon within a year. The doing of the IRONMAN 70.3 (IM70.3 = half IRONMAN distance) I had been training for when I suffered the spinal cord injury. The wild idea of competing in the IRONMAN World Championships. Racing in the Boston Marathon.
The time didn’t fly. Not because of the struggles. Because of the chosen challenges.
ten years, one at a time
| Year 1 | A triathlon. Didn’t matter what it looked like. I did three. |
| Year 2 | Discovered the power of the pressure sore. |
| Year 3 | Finished IM70.3 Oceanside. Then said “IRONMAN World Championships” out loud, to people. That’s how it starts. Then I failed my first qualifying attempt. |
| Year 4 | 2nd qualifying attempt = Qualified for IM70.3 World Championships in Nice, France! |
| Year 5 | Raced in France and DNF’d (Did Not Finish). Then COVID struck and all races were canceled. |
| Year 6 | Qualified again — Kona this time. Then the world stopped again (COVID Omicron). |
| Year 7 | Kona postponed. Pivoted to IRONMAN California. A bomb cyclone canceled it. |
| Year 8 | Kona. Finally. Four chain derailments and a shoulder that had opinions. DNF. |
| Year 9 | IRONMAN California revenge tour. Finally: “Rob Balucas, you are an IRONMAN.” |
| Year 10 | 70.3 World Championships in Taupō. Fourth place. Fastest American. Second from last overall. I’ll take it. Qualified for Boston Marathon at both Napa Valley and Chicago marathons. |
| Year 11(Bonus) | Diagnosed full-thickness supraspinatus tendon (rotator cuff) tear. Still crossed the line at the Boston Marathon! |
Ten years. Not one of them wasted.
Those ten years were about proving to myself and to “the world” I could still pursue big hairy audacious goals from a wheelchair; and by extension, so can you.
That was the whole project. Every year had a version of it.
And I finished it. Not perfectly — there are DNFs in that list and they still sting — but I finished the project. I proved the thing I set out to prove.
There were valuable lessons — especially in the DNFs.
I found my edge.
It’s been a monumental decade … in a wheelchair.
hello god, it’s me robby
And then I started getting signals that the next ten years have to be about something else.
It started as early as training for Kona. The volume of solitary hours started to wear on my extrovert propensities. I was scraping the bottom of the streaming barrel to find shows that could hold my attention for a 2.5-hour interval session.
That was 2022. Today, it’s only worse.
The shoulder
Ten years of swimming [poorly], handcycling, and pushing a race chair adds up. Mine has been sending invoices for a while now and I’ve been very good at not opening them.
Last year I opened them. Full-thickness supraspinatus tear with SLAP II extension and Type III acromion impingement.
What’s that mean? It means I should have major surgery. But the doctor said the risk of re-injury for a wheelchair user in the first year is very high, so high that it isn’t worth the cost and effort.
That’s the nail in the coffin, but with an asterisk of course.
Swimming is out. That’s the primary motion that aggravates the problem. That closes the chapter on a Kona ‘finishing’ comeback.
what comes next
A couple of things are emerging for the next 10 years.
The coaching hat is going on.
Some of that is already happening — I consistently coach race chair, swim, and occasionally handcycle with Angel City Sports. Check the website for our regular track clinics! I’ve coached paratriathlon camps with Dare2tri. And there are the frequent conversations with parathletes about the many technical aspects of training, traveling, and competing.
Adaptive sport consulting.
I’m working with race directors on the actual mechanics — how to add a wheelchair division, where the course needs a real accessibility audit, what an accommodations plan looks like when it’s not an afterthought. And with brands on adaptive equipment design — right now that’s a hard travel case for handcycles, race chairs, and the rest of the gear that airlines love to destroy.
Because movement is medicine. Community is key.
Back to business
I’ve been lucky enough to have great clients like LiveChannel sustain me financially through these last few IRONMAN campaign years. But now I am taking my little website/online marketing agency, babaLucas Creative, to the next level in the age and face of AI. It’s ominous and exciting at the same time.
I’m “just” doing marathons
The asterisk mentioned before is that I’m still doing a few bucket list things while baby-ing my shoulder. I pushed the Boston Marathon this past April and came in last in my division. I did a 2:08, which is good enough to qualify for next year … but first place came in a full 50 (read: FIVE ZERO!!!) minutes ahead of me.
And, I’m working on one more that could possibly be the send-off race for a bit. Nov 1 I am racing the New York Marathon with my long-time friend and confidant Aaron Jasper to support the Challenged Athletes Foundation. Check the post-script on that.
the whole point
The thing was never the training plan or showing off the finisher medal.
It’s the framework. The way you look at an obstacle you did not choose and retain your personal sovereignty to decide what happens next. That transfers. It works on a race course and it works at the office.
Tragedy is guaranteed. Struggle is guaranteed.
Though we love us some stability, we have far less control than we want to believe.
Loss, failure, the thing you didn’t see coming — all of it is coming for every one of us. I’m not being dark. I’m being accurate.
What is not guaranteed is that you suffer.
Suffering is optional.
I don’t mean that in the toxic-positivity, everything-happens-for-a-reason kinda way. It’s okay to feel disappointment and all the other feels and work through them. If you’re reading this and feeling thankful that things are okay right now – drink it in; by all means.
I’m referring to the moment(s) when things don’t go right. I mean it in the way I’ve demonstrated with average athletic talent and average Joe lack of exceptionalism.
A spinal cord injury. 2 DNFs out of 3 IRONMAN World Championship starts. Multiple torrential rains [on my parade] during races. A bomb cyclone canceling another. Coming in last at the Boston Marathon.
None of that was my call.
What I did next was always my call. Every time.
That’s the difference between a hard decade and a full one. Suffering makes time heavy. Challenge makes it full.
Ten years, and I felt every one of them. And I’d do it all over again. No regrets.
#youcreateyourlife
PS: Bucket list race New York Marathon to support CAF
On November 1, Jasper and I are racing the New York City Marathon.
Aaron Jasper and I met in college. Life has run us on strangely parallel tracks ever since — LA to the Bay Area and back to LA again.
He was there for my first triathlon after I got hurt. On the ground, as my handler. And most every year since, we’ve relay raced the Zuma Beach Triathlon together. Same ritual, recruiting a third, no discussion required.
He’s just always had my back.
So it’s fitting that we’re doing this one together, for the organization that helped get me back on a start line in the first place.
Here’s what your contribution actually buys.
My race chair cost north of $10,000. It’s the third race chair I’ve owned, because the first two didn’t fit right. When this one finally did, my Boston qualifying pace became my training pace overnight.
Same athlete. Same engine. Different chair.
Imagine your running shoes requiring welding with a starting cost of $4,000 and minimal ability to know your size and add having 10+ measurements instead 1.
That’s the whole story of adaptive sport. Gear that fits is bespoke, brutally expensive, and it’s the difference between a potential superstar having one bad experience and walking away — versus having a fun and fast experience, staying hungry, and finding out what they’re capable of.
I’m giving the next generation my time and what I know, through coaching.
What I’m asking you for is the part I can’t cover. The money that puts the next athlete in equipment that actually fits.
Movement is medicine. Community is key.