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Focus on ... Ray Sales
Jack of All Trades — and Master of Most
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was born in 1970 in Manila, Philippines. My father actually delivered me at home. My sister Mary Anne, is one year older, my sister Monette, is one year younger, while my brother, Ben, is nine years younger. It turns out that none of them developed the love of running and other sports that I did, although they’re all in good shape and love the out-of-doors.
My parents moved to NY when I was 2 years old, so I grew up in Brooklyn and mostly Howard Beach, Queens. I was always quite active growing up. The first sport I recall playing was baseball and stickball. We used to take over my block playing whatever sports my friends and I were into from
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I used to go through so many pairs of school pants back in grammar school falling on school grounds playing tag. I loved bowling season and my favorite gym class game was dodge ball. Amongst my friends, I was one of the faster runners when we used to race one another over short distance sprints, but as we got to high school they were catching up and passing me.
I actually hated running around my high school during gym class, since we had a pretty steep hill to climb, not to mention those track and field guys who were lapping us. The only time I trained for running a particular distance was during my senior year in high school for the football team.
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When the day came, one of the coaches mistakenly shouted out "one more lap", and I'll never forget the exasperation I felt when I finished —
only to find out there was still another one to go. After walking a bit, I was able to somehow finish that last lap on time, but I can still feel how
badly my lungs were searing!
Off to College
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originally was set to go to Pace University to study Computer Science, but after all the troubleshooting I went through trying to configure my father’s laptop, I decided the field wasn’t for me and I went to Hofstra instead. As I didn’t know what to major in, I was asked what I was good at. Since I mentioned I liked math and science, It was was recommended that I register for Electrical Engineering courses. After a few semesters I transferred to SUNY Stony Brook.
I wound up disliking the EE major and leaving my options open for possibly going to med school by specializing in biomedical EE. I figured that since I’d prefer to jump into management as quickly as possible if I ever got into the Engineering field, I may as well get my MBA out of the way. So I wound up choosing SUNY Stony Brook once again for grad school. I found this field to be way easier and more enjoyable and knew at that point that I no longer wanted to pursue the Engineering field.
During school, I got into various racket sports such as tennis, badminton, squash, and racquetball, as well as basketball and volleyball. I didn’t really run much, except when my roommate was trying to lose weight and he would run around the campus. I didn’t particularly enjoy it, especially compared to the other sports.
However, sometime in grad school, I remember watching the NYC marathon on TV and told myself that one day that would be quite an accomplishment, particularly since I don’t recall ever having run double digit mileage or even a 10k.
My Career gets going and my Horizons Open Up
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pon graduating with my MBA in 1996, I wound up ironically in the computer programming field. I started my career at Earnst & Young, and then moved to MetLife where I am still working — although I left them for a couple of years during the dot-com bubble for a start up.
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Oh, so many sights and adventures to recount, but to this day traveling is still my biggest passion — although I do have others that rival it. I was on a tight budget but tried to see and do as many things as possible. This usually meant lots and lots of walking. I had one of the biggest external frame packs out of all the backpackers I met on a daily basis on the trains, hostels, or out and about.
One of the highlights was sneaking into the Colosseum at night by scaling the walls and the fence with backpackers from the hostel I was staying in. We were hanging out, and while some were playing drinking games, a few us ventured down onto the grounds and into the tunnels. It was spooky since we had no lighting, but tried imagining what it was like during those days of the gladiators.
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As an example of the craziness at work (or my craziness 
), for my first ultra (The 2009 TNF Bear Mountain 50k), I
went straight from the office some time after 4:30 AM to just make it to the starting line on time. The next week I did the same thing by leaving
the office at some ungodly hour to drive myself to the Poconos for the Run for the Red marathon.
Settling Down in New York City — But not Too Settled
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| Sam and Me |
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live in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, with my girlfriend, Zuzana and our puppy, Sam. We met at the local Y playing volleyball, which is a sport I loved playing since college — until I injured my rotator cuff and never fully recovered from it. There would be only a couple of scenarios I would consider for moving out of New York City.
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The other scenario would be to relocate here in the US, provided that the place would have to be near a mountain where snowboarding was possible and/or a beach or nice lakes for swimming and water sports.
Running and the Flyers
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’ve always been very active in sports but not specifically running, until my friend, Lisa, registered for the Chicago marathon in 2000 and was sponsored by her company which paid for her expenses. She asked me if I wanted to run it and I said "sure", recalling my earlier promise to myself while I was in grad school — but just as importantly, I had never been to Chicago and wanted to visit it. I didn’t
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After Chicago, my goal was to do New York the next year and to break 4 hours for the New York course. My 2001 travel plans took me to San Francisco in September — 9/11 happened the day I was driving down the Pacific Coast Highway to LA — and thence to Munich during the Oktoberfest. That was followed by South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and then back to South Africa, so I could make it back in time for the 2001 New York City Marathon on November 3rd.
My New York time was 3:56:51, so, based on thousands of travel miles, but not all that many training miles, I did it! Once I met that goal, I was satisfied with running in general and didn't feel the need to run as a hobby or for specific training. That was my last marathon for 4 years, when the bug hit me again.
It was in 2005 that I had the motivation to enter the marathon lottery, and once I got in, trained for it, and completed it in a humbling 4:26 — I had way overestimated my level of fitness or forgotten how much fitter and lighter I was in 2001 (due, in part, to not sitting in an office all day). Anyhow, running the Munich Marathon is still on my bucket list, but more likely I will target Prague or Bratislava next spring if there are no work conflicts.
I had heard about the Flyers the year before I joined in January 2008 from a friend who recommended some of the long training runs for the marathon. Another friend contacted Toby about their Tuesday night speedwork and joined. He recommended it to me and I joined shortly after. I had done the
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It was a bit strange having a lot less runners in the group (although it was the dead of winter), and many of the regulars were pretty darn fast. I would bring up the rear on many nights, but I knew I could only get faster and stronger if I came regularly. I eventually attended some of the Flyers' long training runs in the summer and fall, and became good friends with other Flyers who recently joined from TFK. During one of the long runs at the Croton Reservoir, I noticed that Ken Hill had a ski rack on his car, which started a nice conversation about snowboarding. We wound up doing lots of weekend trips over the next couple of seasons. Ken also happened to be the first of our group of Flyer friends to step into the multi-sport discipline, with myself and a few more to eventually follow.
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Multi-sports and Beyond — Way Beyond!
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raveling is still my biggest passion. That and snowboarding trump training. I go on lots of snowboarding trips and organize many, but what’s better is when I can combine them as I go out West, including Canada, or to the European Alps at least once a year and recently twice a year.
But about 3 or 4 years ago my running was leading to injuries. I had just met someone who introduced me to a Chirunning instructor, Dave Stretanski.
I had read the book but was slow to “get” it. So I had one session with him right before I left for a central European vacation which was sandwiched
around the Berlin Marathon. He went over some basics with me and made some corrections to my form, but we knew that I had quite a bit more work ahead
of me but had no time left before my flight. Berlin was pretty much a wash with ITB problems. But I was able to finish it up (although I never did
catch up to Haile Gebrselassie ).
When I got back, I kept up the Chirunning practice as the New York City Marathon was j ust five weeks away. I wound up running that a good 25 minutes faster than Berlin. I've since also taken some group sessions with Joel Matalon and I'm happy to say I haven’t gotten injured again and, just as important, recover very quickly.
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I tend to use races as my quality training events, since my busy work and travel schedule precludes a normal training regimen. I just finished a five
week stretch of two half Iron Mans, a tough century ride, followed by an ultra the next day, then another half Iron Man, and capped it off with the
Ottawa marathon. With this kind of schedule, who has time to train?
So many things to see and do and so little time! I can go long stretches where I can survive on very little sleep. Sleep is one of my main sacrifices in order to fit in so much in a day. Some people have the impression I either don’t work or don’t do anything but train or race. But I do have a less intense schedule in the winter, so I throw in a few long distance events (like trail runs and ultras) to try and maintain some of the fitness I gained in a grueling race season.
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But the top of my wish list is not either tris or trails — it would be an adventure race that involves snowboarding, skydiving, and maybe throw in scuba diving, preferably on the other side of the world!
Are We Having Fun Yet?
Yes!