I was born in a little town six hours north of Bogotá, Colombia. According to my parents, I was the first black child to ever been born in the town's hospital, so a great amount of people stopped by to check me out. We moved to the city when I was still little; it was a move for the best since it provided us all with better opportunities to shape our futures. I lived with both of my parents and two younger sisters. While in high school, I started running and found out that I was good at it.
In the fall of '96, I was awarded a track scholarship through the Olympic Solidarity program from the International Olympic Committee, which led me to the LaGrange Training Center in Georgia, USA (it later became known as the Savannah TC when the program moved from LaGrange to Savannah).
After a couple of years in Georgia, I was recruited by to the University of Nebraska - Lincoln, which thanks to a track scholarship I was able to continue my studies on Computer Science and to represent the university at the collegiate level. Athletically I did well; at first, it was a challenge to adjust to a new training/competition routine, but I made it to the conference championships on every year. During my first track season with Nebraska, I ran the Olympic qualifying standard that allowed me to represent Colombia at the Games of the XXVII Olympiad in Sydney, Australia. Academically was even a bigger challenge since as a student-athlete I had to learn to better manage and organize my time in order to perform well on both fields. At the end, I received a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and a minor in Mathematics.
In Nebraska I also met my wife, you can check her art portfolio here. After graduation, I moved to Miami while my wife completed her Master's degree on Education; she joined me in the Sunshine State two years later. Recently we became the proud parents of a baby boy.
And that's the short version of my life; the longer version will require a couple of hours, food and lots of water.