D E S E R T C O M P A N I O N .V E G A S
at 3:30 a.m. By 4 o’clock, he’s on the road — either running, walking, or biking. When he gets home, he eats breakfast, showers, and goes back to sleep for a few hours before returning to work in the afternoon. On biking days, which are once a week on a day when he’s not working, he rides from his home in Henderson out to Red Rock and back. This schedule applies to every week, all year. Nothing interferes. “He’s very strict about it,” says Rosana Romero, a Station Casinos employee who translated from his native Spanish to English. “He wants to be alone so he can concentrate. He likes to do everything by himself.” Friends and family don’t go with him to races, by his choice. He has no one holding signs or cheering for him at the finish line. He only talks about his event results with coworkers if they ask. When I wonder why, Herrera shrugs, as if it’s irrelevant. His best memories, he says, are of his extraordinary times — a 50-mile bike ride in two hours and seven minutes, for example. “He’s very solitary,” Romero says. “All his life is based on the next race.” ✦
6 Thoughtful Gifts for Troubled Times ❅ Chocolate-covered tariff war ❅ Tickle Me Orwell ❅ Subscription to GQ Kids ❅ Get Out of Laughlin Free card ❅ Cabbage Patch Pelosi ❅ Grand Theft Tax Cut (for PlayStation) ❅ “Heroes of Project Neon” action figures ❅ Tickets to The Lion King at The Smith Center ❅ Gift certificate for one hastily conducted FBI investigation ❅ Trip to Build-A-Bot ❅ Toy polar bear stranded on plush ice floe ❅ Lego Mitch McConnell ❅ Anything with clowns
N OV E M B E R 2 0 1 8
.
D E S E R T C O M PA N I O N
| 21