Posts Tagged with: "Running"

Hospital duties left me feeling bloated and cranky. I missed days of running, consumed every little thing in sight due to sheer boredom (from Boy Bawang to butong pakwan), and temporarily lost the ability to sweat within the four walls of that tiny air-conditioned room.

The only training I got this week was a measly 30 min run on the treadmill (which I abhor) last Tuesday. So, today I woke up with a mission: to get the most out of my training during the little time I had this morning—the time between dropping the two kids at school until my little girl got out.

There was no time for dilly-dallying; I was not willing to waste even a minute of travel time that could be used for running instead, so I parked my car at a convenient location, Festival Mall. For the first time, I explored new territory crossing the main road towards Palms Country Club.

Woooah, it was like discovering a new track behind my backyard. I know a lot of runners and bikers who frequent the area, but I never felt the need to run here as I was quite satisfied with my regular running route. Now, I know I can try this route once in a while to spice my training up a bit.

This area has wide, clear roads lined with trees to shade you from the sun. Traffic is low with some roads impassable to cars where one can actually run on the middle of the entire street. It isn’t as secure as running inside a village, but there are security guards all over the place. Most roads are flat so you can practice speedwork here or run easy, but if you’re craving for hill training, just run towards Palms Country Club for a long, challenging uphill climb that’ll leave you feeling exhausted.

I ran around this area for a satisfying 10k with a time of 57.40 at an average pace of 5:46 min/km. Then, this runner-on-a-mission dropped by SOS Village to register for the Hope in Motion 10k race this Sunday. I jumped in the car and proceeded to the village pool where I managed to squeeze in a quick 400m swim in 14 mins before showering and picking up the little girl.

Mission accomplished. Now for my next goal: a massage. That should be a whole lot easier to achieve.

Thank God it’s Friday!  I work from home but I still look forward to weekends as bonding time for the family and, of course, for early morning runs with friends or the hubby.

Turns out that this weekend of mine will start out in a Rush.  10 cases of blue Rush, that is.

Vince of Rush was generous enough to surprise me with 240 bottles of Rush.  Yes, 240!  That’s like a full year’s supply of sports drinks for me.  It was enough to fill up the trunk of my car and leave no empty space in my storage room in the garage.  It should keep me fully hydrated in each race I join, every training run, gym workout, or treadmill run at home.  It’s like an everlasting fountain of Rush.  I love it.

Thank you to Vince and his brawny “delivery men”, Coach Rio and Ben, as well as Eric who came in to help. Each case weighed a ton but due to Coach Rio’s 2% body fat, Ben’s strong biceps and core muscles, and Eric’s well-toned physique, they loaded my car with all the goodies in no time.

Have a good weekend everyone!  Good luck to my dear friend Marga and her team mates, Don and Caroline, who are joining the O3 Long Distance Triathlon tomorrow in Subic.  To all those joining Milo, especially the marathoners, have a great time too!  Let’s all wish for a rain-free weekend!

It’s back.  The Virtual Training Run that a few of us crazies so happily took part in last year.  (Search for “Virtual Run” in my archives if you want to read V-Runs 1 through 5).  Now, the headmaster of our V-runs, E-rod, is back from hibernation and is raring to go again.  

This is how it works:

Runners separated by geography do a training run “together” wherever they may be in the world. We set a distance (more or less) and meet at a specific time, so 6:00 am Manila time makes it 6:00pm US East Coast a day before.

DATE: 30 July 2008, Wednesday (Manila time)
TIME: 6:00 A.M. (Manila time)
DISTANCE: 10 km/6 miles (or whatever you wish)

The following are past participants and most of them have already committed to joining us. After the training session, each participant writes a quick recap of the session so that each of us benefits from this collective effort. If you don’t have a blog, fret not, just comment on one of our blogs about your experience.

1. E-rod – Newport Beach, USA/Freeport, Bahamas
2. HitMe – Quezon City, Philippines
3. Banggi – Makati, Philippines/Saigon, Viet Nam
4. Ben – Manila to Makati, Philippines
5. Renz – Metro Manila, Philippines
6. Marga – Parañaque, Philippines
7. Caloy – Davao, Philippines
8. TRF – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
9. Gretchen – Truckee, USA
10. Rick – San Francisco, USA
11. Nora – Kent County, UK
12. Steph – San Diego/New York, USA
13. Runningmom – Philippines
14. Doc Oknoy – Philippines
15. Bartlby – Philippines
16. DATC – Alabang, Philippines
17. Jinoe – Philippines
18. Bobby – Philippines
19. Caloy – Philippines
20. TBR – Paranaque, Philippines

So what are you waiting for? Lace up those shoes and come join us.  Comment on this post with your city/country to let us know you want in.  

*If you have an injury that keeps you from running, participate by cycling, swimming, blading or anything that involves self-propelled constant motion.

For weeks, I was mourning the loss of the opportunity to join The North Face 100.  In fact, as I’ve said, I ran the Robinson’s Buddy Wellness thinking of how much fun all the other runners were having at TNF in Batangas.  Little did I know that I should’ve been glad I didn’t join (only because I’m not a mud-loving, rock climbing type of girl.)

Word is out that it was a tremendously tough course reserved for the more experienced runners.  There were four river crossings, dilapidated bridges and snakes!  They say it was more of an adventure race than a marathon.  For the 100km, of the 90 teams (including relay) that joined, I heard that only 30-40 crossed the finishline.  An HK runner who finished the Gobi Desert Ultra Marathon didn’t finish either.

But, despite the toughness of the course, there were runners that did finish and conquer the trails. All of them deserve a big congratulations and a warm cup of hot chocolate: 

– The first runner for 100km crossed in at 13 hours male and 15 hours female.   

– A Singaporean couple joined for the relay.  The first was the man who arrived late in the afternoon.  The woman should have been next, but it was too dark already and the course was dangerous.  So, the man ran another 50km loop to accompany his partner. 

– Jeremy Go, my unofficial editor in this blog, who I met only a few weeks back and came across as an unassuming guy (who I thought at that time was a newbie runner) finished the 100km beating the 30 hour cut off time by 10mins.  While other runners had quit and gone to sleep, he trekked throughout the night without anyone to accompany him.  

– My friend Annie won the 20km despite it being her 1st trail run.  She split four times and ran through slippery, narrow trails yet came out unscathed.  Congrats again Annie!  I’m so proud of you.

How about you?  What’s your story?  Would you do this again?

I texted Neville Manaois of Pinoy Ultra Runners last night wishing him a great run for tomorrow’s TNF (which I am still moping over since I forbade myself from joining due to the risk of re-injury).  He replied from Batangas with this SMS:

“Raining hard here. River rising daw. Winds picking up.  And temperature dropping.  This will be fun.”

Followed an hour or so after with this update:

“River is rising really fast.  Really cold.  Good luck to us. hehe.”

Neville added that there are 90 runners joining the 100km (that’s a lot eh?), 100+ for 21km, and 210 for 10km.  It sure sounds like these 400+ runners are going to have the time of their lives tomorrow.  Good luck to you if you’re running at TNF…especially my friends Annie, Coach Jo-Ar, Taki, and highschool buddies Bau and Tin.  (Who else is joining?)  Stay safe!

As for me, I’ll be at light, easy and wholesome Robinsons Wellness Buddy run with the hubby with thoughts of TNF on my mind.