Walk the Talk

My weekday run last week was good, slow and steady as I was trying to catch up with my training plan. Good thing I was able to finish all my distances without feeling any pain on my right knee. So I figured, my knees are well so I decided to do my LSD run yesterday with my friends. The route was the same, Paseo - Nuvali – Lasalle - Westgrove - Paseo. We assembled at 4:45am (supposedly 4:30 am) in front of Jollibee at Paseo de Sta Rosa. At the same time, we met the Takbo.ph runners who were about to do their LSD run at the cardiac hill-upac trail. Neil (Crashnburn) was there and introduced me to some of the members. I’m sure they had fun exploring the trail.

My scheduled run yesterday was 21km. The first 4km (turn-around point at Nuvali) was good, conscious about my knee I slowed down my pace and was hoping that I could last the whole distance. However, I got frustrated reaching 8km (back to paseo) as pain started to show up in my right knee. I slowed down on my way back from Nuvali, then at 9km (in front of Technopark), pain was unbearable so I decided to walk and proceeded to Lasalle route and back to Paseo to finish 15k distance. I knew I did proper stretching before the start of the run. Thinking that my weekday run was pain-free, it made me believe that I am ready for my long run. However, I didn’t event finish a straight 10k. Then I ask myself, what’s wrong? Was it the way I run? Was it my shoes? My posture? My weight?, or simply I needed more time to rest to recuperate?

Why am I even writing this? I have noticed that since I mentioned my injury after the Mizuno run in June, I have never really recovered. I guess I never learned, and I actually feel embarrassed posting this. But I figured, this is my journal and I would someday look back and see how I progressed, and at the same time this experience would become useful to new runners like me and hopefully don’t make the same mistake I did.

Being persistent is good, but being patient is better. I have heard friends and runners told me that I might be doing it “too fast and too soon”. This is one of the common pitfalls of athletes, regardless of what fitness regimen they are in. They tend to push themselves to the limit to achieve their goal fast. Losing weight, or being able to run a long distance, or to run faster will not happen soon because you simply believe that you can. I am an optimist and somehow I realized that though attracting positive thoughts are good, it has certain limitations as it does not guarantee that you can achieve your goal by simply believing. You have to listen to your body and put discipline really on how you balance your training.

My body may have given me signs to slow down, and this injury might be one of it, and I refused to listen. Prior to my commitment to pursue running, I was very active in mountain biking (until now). I have my weekday ride in the morning before going to work at least 2 times a week plus a long ride every Saturday. I have even experienced “hitting the wall” due to lack of preparation in one of my ride (lacks sleep, bad stomach, lacks energy). After a week of rest, I went on again with my bike routine. I am very active and always busy, enough to realize that I am overdoing it. By pushing yourself, you are not honing your body, but instead destroying it. I often tell some of my friends to stop smoking as it will destroy your body eventually, but I realized that I have become the cigarette of my body as I refused to listen to slow down and rest. I thought I was doing it right, but instead I was overdoing it.

As I was talking to my friend Mike (The Transformer) earlier today, he reminded me of the question, why do you run? I have just recently asked my co-members in “Gone Running Club” this question so that each one can define for themselves the reason why they do it. I remember answering this question before that “Aside from being fit and healthy, it gives me a moment to think clearly, it is freedom when you run. Likewise, the joy of running simply allows you to take control and brings out the best in you.” Apparently, it has given me a different perspective, the competitive side of me began to overshadow the main reason why I run. It took me out of focus, and the pressure of achieving a specific distance over a period of time has been the motivation on why I run, and I realized that I am not enjoying it anymore. The injury simply prevents me from enjoying it as it keeps me sad, frustrated, and sometimes hopeless.

All these things I knew from the start, I even advise my friends not to push themselves hard, not to start “too fast , too soon”, get enough sleep, focus, and I can go on. However, I realized that I am not doing it myself. I maybe a good adviser and motivator, but then again, I realized that I was not walking the talk. Sometimes people are reminded to slow down or stop when they feel pain or when they are too exhausted to enjoy what they are doing. Too much excitement and motivation sometimes gets in the way especially If you don’t listen to your body. In a way, it is better to experience a fall in order to better understand what you are trying to share with others.

The Knight will rest and will recuperate. He is humbled and will go back stronger and wiser.

Run for Home - A Worthy Cause

It was indeed a good day to run last Sunday. Good weather, good friends, new acquaintances, new PR, new experience, and a chance to support a worthy cause. It's always good to be part of something that will help other people. This time we ran to help reconstruct 800 houses in Calauan Laguna, which was a project of Globe and Ayala land Inc. I trust that all funds generated from this event will all go to the project and that the houses are built as promised. Good job to Globe, ALI, and Finishline for a successful event.

It was a good race, I believe overall it was well planned and organized except with one incident where I felt bad prior to the start of the race. A friend of mine (Marvin) was not able to claim his race kit on the scheduled dates given, it was a bad weather during those days, and for one reason or another, He was not able to get the chance to claim it on the said dates. This was his first race and he was pretty much excited to participate in this prestigious event. Come race day, he went to the organizers booth and tried to claim his kit since there were a number of race kits available at that time. Unfortunately, to his surprise he was told by this lady staff that.. ”deadline is deadline, we don’t have available kits for you”. So he went back to the car and told me that he was not able to get it. So we went back to the booth and politely asked this other girl to give us a race kit since they have available stock anyway. But then, the first staff saw us talking to her colleague and immediately rushed to us and said, what is it? I told you already, you can’t get race kits anymore because deadline was set already. As politely as I can, I tried to rationalize and ask her to be considerate so that we can all enjoy the event, but to no avail she was very firm but arrogant, and I must say rude. But I don’t see the logic, another guy came in and request for a race kit and said, “naubusan kami kahapon” (we ran out of stock yesterday) and the girl immediately said, “oh yes, you can claim” and she immediately get one race kit without really validating that they were not able to claim the previous day. Huh? Wait a minute, something’s wrong here. I can argue all day, but it’s not worth the stress and waste of energy, I just felt that whatever their decision was, it doesn’t make sense. Anyway, to cut the story short, we ended up getting the race kits by having another friend get the race kit and said, “naubusan ako kahapon”, and just like that she gave the race kit. Funny huh? Anyways, enough of that and off we go to enjoy the day.

It was supposed to be my first 21k run, but I had to downgrade since I was just recovering from my knee injury, and instead opt for the 10k. It was a good decision, otherwise I would end up walking at the finish line if I did the 21km. I had a pretty good run in my first 5k, I felt strong and breathing was good, I was tempted to get a PR for this run but when I started to increase my pace, I felt the pain so I had to slowdown and maintain a comfortable pace. Surprisingly, my garmin logged in my best time so far at 1:05, but will have to wait for the official time.

My friends and I all wore our Gone Running singlet, distances ran with unofficial time were:

21Km – Jay (2:10:58), Val (2:09), Allan (2:17), and Gerry (2:40)

10Km – Me (1:05), Cherry (1:08), Marvin (1:20), and Jojo (1:34)

5km – Noemi (37 min) and Vince (32 min)

PRs at this point were not important to the group as we are all newbies. But each one vowed to improve in every run. The important part is that we are running. But worth to mention the improvement in PR for Jay and Val who have maintained a good pace running the 21k, Cherry who was strong in her run, obviously she will hit sub 60 in the next event. To marvin who has recorded his first official race at 1:20 (unofficial time) for the 10k, I’ll definitely monitor his progress moving forward. Jojo has been steady finishing 10k, great achievement so far for him is losing weight by 11.5 lbs ( from 285 lbs down to 273.5 lbs) for a period of 2 months! Great Job Jojo! Noemi has a new PR for the 5k which was at 37 min, we expect her to join the 10k runs soon, and to Vince, (Val’s son), who also finishes strong for his first official race. Good job guys!

We all ran to to help build houses and we also ran against corruption. Total run against corruption for this event – 134 km.

Some photos after the race.

This photo was featured in Globe's race day photos



Somebody has to take our picture.. hehe..

With globe representative, forgot her name..

With Daniel and partner, he noticed our group and our shirt.
Group picture

Gone Running Again

Last week was supposed to be a good week for me as I was able to get back to running. I even had to wait for the rain to stop last wednesday so that i can run. Last July 5, i was able to run 10km after a long break from running. However, (i felt bad writing this) my knees did not cooperate again. I was supposed to join the 21k group, but ended up at 16km only. I guess the ride (51km) last saturday aggravated it (we went up to tagaytay via reverse palace route).

Yesterday was the scheduled LSD run of the Gone Running Club, we were all preparing for the Run for Home event on July 19. Distances ran were as follows:

21km - Jay, Val, Allan, and Kuya Erning
16km - Ronald, Marvin, Jojo, Cherry and Me
10km - Noemi, Vince, and Egay

It was good to see Vince (Val's son) to join the run as well as Egay and Cherry who were not present in the first LSD run two weeks ago. Likewise it was good to see the improvement from Ronald, Marvin, Jojo, Noemi, who have improved their distance from the last run. Ronald and Marvin paced each other from start to finish (Paseo-Nuvali-Westgrove-Paseo). Jojo on the other hand took a different route together with Cherry (Paseo-Nuvali-Lasalle-Paseo), but Cherry was unbelievably strong as she was miles away from Jojo (who was on his comfortable pace).

Noemi, Egay, and Vince, took the Paseo-Nuvali-Paseo route but apparently went inside the village and ran there in circles before going to the main route. Good for them as they were able to surpass the 8km distance.

I paced myself with Jay, together with Allan, Val, and Kuya Erning (Paseo-Nuvali-Lasalle-Westgrove-Paseo). Allan and Kuya Erning were simply strong as they pulled away from the pack, I slowed down already because of my knee and let Val and Jay go ahead to maintain their pace. They started pulling away in front of Technopark and I was trailing since then. On the way back from Lasalle I saw Cherry on her way and km behind was Jojo who was enjoying his slow pace. On my way to Westgrove route, that is when i decided to stop, i waited for Marvin and Ronald who were on their way down from westgrove and joined them back to Paseo.

As usual, we prepared for our hydration stations, we had one at the Nuvali Guard house, Paseo, SRV2 guard house, and Egay providing hydration support in Lasalle (of course, that is when Cherry was there, hehehe.)

Running has definitely kept our group closer together and it improved the bond among each other. I hope in the next LSD run, more friends will join.

Some mobile photos c/o Jay:

Noemi, Jojo, Cherry, Me, and Vince


Noemi, Cherry, Jojo (vowed to lose weight), and Me


Everyone: Kuya Erning, Jay, Marvin, Vince, Val, Cherry, Noemi, Ronald, Jojo, Egay, and Allan


On our way back from Nuvali

Right on Track

In the past week, I have been riding my bike to cross train for the lost time of not being able to run because of my injury (I had an ITB Syndrome, thougth it was a knee injury). During my ride, i felt improvement in my uphill training. Each day i cut down a minute of my time. I felt stronger and better. Good thing that I can cross train as it helps build my stamina, improves leg power, and of course it compensate for my weight loss program.

Feeling better and no more pain in the knee, i took my running shoes, geared up and took a run in the village last night. I was very conscious while running thinking that i will feel the pain in my knee area again. My breathing was perfect, felt strong and thought of finishing a 10k run. But, learning from my past mistake, I did not push myself and instead finished a 5k. I am back to zero for my running, but that's ok 'cause I will catch up with it. Good thing, when i was down from running, I was improving with my biking.

An injury should not stop us from achieving our objective. In fitness, there are a lot of ways to recover lost time in your major fitness program. If you can't do running, you can do biking, if you dont have a bike, you can go swimming, if you are not into swimming, you can do walking.. If you can't do any of these due to the nature of your injury or illness, you simply just have to rest and get better. Sometimes its better to take 2 steps backward, so that you can move one step forward until you achieve your goal. Stay healthy and keep on training.

Transformation

It's always nice to see an individual who have set a goal for himself and able to achieve it. In the world of sports, there are a lot of success stories and a lot of frustrations. Let me share with you the transformation of my friend (Mike Dauden, his before and after photo on the left) and how he was able to reach a certain level of his goal. He has become an inspiration to his fellow athlete and has simply showed that anything is possible. I have sort of interviewed him with the intention of sharing with all how he managed to transform.

1. What made you decide to enter into fitness?

I unintentionally saw a reflection of myself in the mirror with my shirt off while on a drinking spree in Puerto Galera in the summer of 2008. I thought to myself at first, the nerve of that guy drinking with his shirt off when he is so out of shape. Who does he think he is? Turns out it was me. I promised to come back next summer with a vengeance which I did and of course – with my shirt off.

2. What fitness regimen are you into?

I box every morning and work out in the gym every night. On weekends, I join the 2-hr public aerobics at Harbor Square in CCP Complex.

3. What is your typical daily routine?

Wake up 5:30am, watch Enjoy Everyday Life by Joyce Meyer on NBN, read my bible by 6am, Elorde by 6:30am, 10 rounds of mits, 12 rounds of other boxing drills, abdominal work at the end. I am at the office at around 9am and work till 6PM. Then I proceed to Gold’s Alabang and start at 7PM till 9PM. I train one body part per day so I can go all out. I normally do 10 reps for 5 sets for each exercise so roughly 35 to 40 sets per workout.

4. You obviously have your diet plan, care to share?

I only eat what’s in my lunch box and all my 7 to 8 meals are in there. Oatmeal, whole boiled eggs, canned tuna, broccoli, green peas, protein shakes, bananas are my main staples. I supplement with Tribulus Terrestris for Testosterone, Muscle Juice Gainer for my protein and muscle growth, Creatine for strength and lots of energy boosters mainly containing caffeine such as JetFuel, C4, Cobra and others.

5. What motivates you to achieve your goal?

The impact I make on others. The more I improve, the more I inspire so in the end, I do not do it for myself but also for others. That makes it a win-win.

6. How do you cope up with pain or struggles during your training? Was there a point that you wanted to give up?

I happen to enjoy my training so I never got to a point where I considered giving up. On the contrary, I ask myself if I am doing enough.

7. How do you balance your work in the office and work in the gym?

I do my workouts before and after office so there is never a conflict. If I have an early meeting, at least I have an evening workout. If I have a dinner appointment, at least I have already worked out in the morning. There is never an excuse not to pursue your passion.

8. Anything you want to share to everyone who wants to get fit?

Transformation begins from within. We have to want it bad enough and to want it bad enough, we need a compelling reason to do so. If you don’t know what that reason is yet, ask God. He will enlighten you and give purpose to your life. You will get clarity and all of a sudden things fall into place unlike before. God is my Transformer and because of Him, I can transform myself and transform others as well. If you notice the logo of the gym starts with a cross. That’s because without God, there can be no real transformation.

Regardless of what sports you are into, it only tells us that if we put our mind into what we do and set a goal, we will be able to achieve it. Discipline and positive attitude is important if we want to reach the next level of our fitness. Stay Healthy!