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Two more weeks to TBR ULAH Dream Marathon 2014!  What awaits our Dreamers at the finish line?  Take a peek…

TBR ULAH DREAM MARATHON FINISHERS’ MEDAL 2014

*This item may be claimed only by participants who finish the marathon.  Item may only be claimed during the event.

TBR ULAH DREAM MARATHON FINISHERS’ SHIRT 2014

*This item may be claimed only by participants who finish the marathon.  Item may only be claimed during the event.

TBR ULAH DREAM MARATHON DUFFEL BAG 2014

*This item may be claimed by all registered participants of the race.  Item may only be claimed during the event.

TBR ULAH DREAM MARATHON MEMORABILIA – FOR PURCHASE (Pre-orders are currently being accepted)

Photo Ops, the official photographer of TBR ULAH Dream Marathon, is offering special TBR ULAH Dream Marathon Memorabilia which showcases one action shot of the runner taken during the event and chosen by Photo Ops.  The photo will be framed and signed by myself.  The first 100 orders will have FREE medals included in the frame.  The memorabilia costs P1,200.

This offer is managed completely by Photo Ops.  All orders and payments shall be coordinated directly with Photo Ops or on its website.

Please click HERE to place an order.  Photo Ops will also be accepting orders and payments at the Send Off Party on Feb. 6, Thursday.

TBR Clean & Mean Routine is a series of nutrition and wellness tips from for people who wish to start the year right by living cleaner, healthier lives. New tips are posted every Monday from Jan. 13 to Feb. 24.

Tip 4: ANYTHING IN MODERATION

As mentioned, our TBR Clean & Mean Routine is about eating clean food. It’s also about being MEAN. M in Mean is for meals of three and snacks of two. E is for exercise at least 4x a week. A is for ANYTHING IN MODERATION.

We’re on our 4th week of eating clean and exercising regularly. How’re you feeling so far? This week will be short and simple. It’s all about MODERATION.

DIET? WHAT DIET?

Often times you hear people say “Diet? What diet?!!” when they’re about to devour an entire lechon. It’s almost as if they’re saying: “Screw that sad diet I’ve been on for weeks. Today, I will enjoy myself to the hilt and eat all I want!” Then they proceed to consume triple the amount they usually eat because they’re finally free.

That’s what happens when you go on a DIET. You restrict your intake of particular foods (or worse, entire food groups!) and shun all your favorites because you’re trying to be “good.” The thing is, if or when you do fall into temptation, your diet may backfire on you. You may overeat because you’ve been depriving yourself for weeks or months.

LIVE A LITTLE

Like I said, on the TBR Clean & Mean Routine, we’re not going on a diet. We’re aiming for a lifestyle change. We want a life where, in time, we naturally veer towards healthy food and exercise as opposed to artificial food and sedentary living. We do this s-l-o-w-l-y by making small changes every week as we go about our daily activities.

It’s unnatural for anyone to live within a super strict set of regimented rules especially when it comes to food. Don’t eat this. Don’t eat that. Don’t do this. Don’t do that. It’s also very sad!

So, for us, we will allow for ANYTHING IN MODERATION and, please note, ONCE IN A WHILE. If you must have a cookie, then allow yourself to take a bite and quickly give it to someone else. If you must have a soda, then take a few sips and leave it. If you’ve been invited to a big dinner buffet, then make sure that you have a light snack before the meal, make good choices by filling your plate with healthier fare, then stop before you get too full.

I will have to ask you to practice common sense with this tip.  Please don’t come back to me saying that I allowed you to have tons of sugar when you’re a diabetic or you loaded up on spicy food before a marathon and eventually messed up your race.  At the end of the day, you know what you can and cannot have and when. You know what is good and what is bad for your health.  Only you are responsible for what you put in your body.

The point is this: Do not over think things.  Do not make food your enemy.  Just eat when you want to and stop when you’re satisfied.  Good food and healthy active living must be fun and convenient for you if you want it to be forever.

If you want to join me and others on our TBR Clean and Mean Routine for 2014, just do this:

Post a comment on TBR FACEBOOK PAGE that you commit to practicing the tip for the next 7 days. If you don’t have FB, you can post your comment on this blogpost.

Watch out for our weekly TBR Clean & Mean Routine tip every Monday. I will ask you to post a comment on each of those weekly tips until February 24.

Throughout the week, feel free to chat and converse with others in the TBR FACEBOOK PAGE who are trying to apply the weekly tips in their lives.

By the first week of March, I will ask you to submit a story on how this plan worked for you and what changes you saw in your life. The most compelling and interesting submission will win a pair of running shoes from me.

Let me know how this week goes for you! See you next Monday!

Read:
TBR Clean & Mean Routine – Part 1 & Part 2
Tip 1: Eat Clean
Tip 2: Mealtime: Listen to Your Body
Tip 3: Exercise: 4x a Week

How cool is this?!  The website, The 100 Day Marathon Training Plan, recently released an article featuring the top 100 Best, Most Interesting Running Blogs for 2014 written by Marius Bakken, M.D.

In the article, Dr. Bakken enlists his Top 100 blogs which includes some of my favourites as well, Jeff Galloway’s blog, Chris McDougall’s blog, DC Rainmaker, and more.

If you scroll down to No. 84, guess who’s in there?!

Cool eh?!! Fine, fine, Dr. Bakken insinuated that I’m slow, but he did call me charming and included me on the list so I can forgive him. tsk tsk.

Check out the complete list of 100 Best, Most Interesting Running Blogs on this LINK.

Thanks to Roz for sharing the info!

In the early part of December, I posted about writing a series of posts on my training for Tokyo Marathon. I had good intentions and I truly thought I would be able to follow through.  This post would be the first and apparently last one…until now. Whooops!

First Christmas happened, then New Year.  Then, there were a lot of Bull Circles and Bull Sessions sprinkled somewhere in between that took a lot of my time.  And, I only realized now that, while I first thought that scheduling my own marathon just a week after TBR ULAH Dream Marathon was one of my more brilliant ideas (I could train together with my own runners!) it turned out to be quite the opposite.  The combination of organizing a race along with serious training for a marathon is no joke (although I did catch myself laughing out loud while neck deep in work sometimes!  Yes, it kinda drove me nuts!)

Now that I’m done with all the excuses about my failure to update you, allow me to say that I still  managed to train for Tokyo despite all the work.  So here I am, three weeks away from Tokyo Marathon and I feel ready, baby!

– Tokyo Marathon Info Kit was sent by mail. I received it a few days ago –

EXPERIMENTAL PROGRAM

My friends, Ton, Lit and I chose to follow Lit’s experimental program which he modified and adapted from the Brooks Hansen Program for us to use for Tokyo Marathon.  (Aaah, the benefits of having a running coach for a friend!)  The program focuses on quality runs instead of pure distance.  Instead of running a maximum of 35km (which I usually do in my previous marathons), we instead run a maximum of 28km and three back-to-back runs: 16-16, 21-21, and 18-18.  The back to back runs allow us to run at a target pace even on tired legs.

I thought this was the perfect program for perennially injured me.  The “shorter” long run could keep injury at bay for me.  And, quite honestly, I was aching to try something new to help me break my PR at London Marathon.

We used this program from December until now hitting all the major runs required.  Just yesterday and this morning, we ran our last back-to-back runs: the two 18ks.  We ran this at a pace much stronger than what we’re used to for our LSDs and I loved every single minute!

– Last Saturday after our first 18k run for the weekend –

Will it work?  I really don’t know.  I will admit that I used to find comfort in heading out for a marathon knowing that I got that 35k under my belt.  Now, I feel a bit queasy about having a measly 28k.  But, I will tell you that I’m a little bit more confident now about my speed which we developed more running the back to back training runs.  I think the main benefit of those runs was that we learned to push hard even on tired legs, which is essentially what you experience in the last 10k of the marathon.

TAPER TIME

So, this morning, after our run, we all ended the run with high-fives ecstatic that it’s finally taper time.  The work is over.  The goal for the next three weeks is to continue running strong runs but at a shorter distance, to eat well, and to not get injured (bawal madapa at mag crash sa bike!)  Oh, and also to give our runners the best first marathon of their lives at TBR ULAH Dream Marathon.

Aaah, the marathon.  Whether it’s your first or your tenth, it still commands the same amount of commitment from an individual and gives back a hundredfold upon crossing the finish line.

It’s going to be our 5th year for TBR ULAH Dream Marathon this coming Feb. 16, 2014!  That’s pretty big for us!

To commemorate our 5th year anniversary, we have produced limited quantities of our favorite Forty Freakin Two shirts which we sold (quite briskly!) last year.  For 2014, we’ve got the black/yellow again, but now with a new color, white/orange too.

These FFT commemorative shirts will have the special 5-year TBR seal on its arm sleeve.

Shirts will sell for P600 on the TBR ULAH Dream Send Off Party on Feb. 6, Thursday at Unilab Bayanihan Compound.  They will be sold beginning 6:00 PM. They come in Women’s and Men’s sizes. No reservations will be accepted.

Non-participants of the marathon may purchase the shirts during the Send Off Party but will not be allowed to enter the event. Sale of shirts is open to everyone. One need not be an alumni or a registered participant of the event.

After the Send Off Party, the shirts will be sold at the Dream Village on race day.