On the Heels of a Dream: One Run at a Time (Week 16)

On The Heels of a Dream is a weekly column by guest writer Obbie Suguitan who is currently training for his first marathon, The Bull Runner Dream Marathon, on February 16, 2014.

Depleted. This is what I felt at the end of my 80 minute long weekend run. I never meant to be hard on myself but with so many of my batchmates joining 21K runs in a few weeks, I guess I’m entitled so some envy and a smidgen of doubt. I am, after all, human.

Even as I was busy deciding where to do my longest run yet, again my friend Joanne suddenly invited me to do the LSD with her in BGC. With no better plan, I said yes. A finisher of the previous Dream and a few 21Ks herself, she one of a handful of people I can expect realistic advise from and not doubt. If some time in the future, I am asked for advice, I would tell runners-to-be to have a running guardian angel.

By the way, earlier in the week, I did my two maintenance runs and one extra with a friend from work named Jino. Training is hard but I’ve developed a liking for it. Now I want my friend, who’s a Muay Thai fighter, to be in TBR Dream 2015. Online, I saw that numerous batchmates took advantage of the long holidays to go on vacays. Even away from home, quite a few still trained at the destination of choice. Among them was new friend Resty who still did his LSD up north, and Jah who ran from Lukban to Lucena. There’s also batchmate Catherine who ran in Nice, France! Im sure there were others in different places – Nothing stops a Dreamer!

– Batchmate Resty in Vigan! –


– Batchmate Jah ran from Lukban to Lucena –

Back to my weekender, I really wasn’t looking forward to finding out how hard an eighty minute run is – even partly walked. This is hard work. I know I was properly warned but still… Anyway, we were here for a reason and there wasn’t anything else to do but go run. So we did. I suppose it was a good thing we started a shade past 7 am because it would at least simulate the time of day of the real run. Again, the sun took its severely unwanted toll. For me, heat is a big enemy. But it was one to be conquered. We went left, right, straight – pretty much through most of the roads of BGC. My bud and I agreed to do 2:1 and at certain points she pushed, cajoled, clapped, and urged me on while I ran, jogged, walked, trudged, and zombied forward. She had the wisdom to set small destinations to push me, “Hanggang kanto, kaya mo yan”, “fast run hanggang kanto!” and various other methods.

Finally, after countless street corner turns, stretches of what seemed to me like a scorching sun, and thousands of heavy-legged steps, we were notified via watch that our 80 minutes was done. Taking a few cool down steps, to be perfectly honest, I was trying to recall WHY I WAS DOING THIS. What’s an out of shape, middle-aged Dad doing trying to run this? Right now, because my mind’s too tired to be rational, the answer seems simple: Because I still can. Quite frankly, I still can’t imagine being on my feet for 7 hours ( it’s not a sin to be optimistic). But, I’m willing to do it one run at a time. On to the next!

– I did it! –