Jr Striders Breakfast Party

A year has passed and looking back brings a lot of memories. We have seen the many benefits of running. And perhaps the most important benefit is that it has been the avenue to build friendships. This Christmas, I thank God for allowing me to make plenty of PRs... or Personal Relationships.

One morning, with my Fort Striders family, we spend the time bonding at Josh' place were we ate Glen Pogi's ultimate longanisa. We also had a taste of protein packed Australian cereals care of Kuya Melvin. It was a time of stories not just about running but pretty much anything under the sun such as Regie's lovelife and Glen's future business plans.

We finished the day with our stomach and hearts filled with longanisa and laughter. :)

Antipolo Run

What a great way to end year 2008 but with a great run of course. Not a race, but a run with running buddies. It was also our so called farewell run for Wilbert who would be leaving for the US this 1st of January. It was my first time to be doing a run to Antipolo.

I was with Mikey, Vimz, Wilbert, Bobby and Tanya as we started off from Brookside Ville and then after 2KM of running we did our warmup. From that point onward there were so many steep ascent all the way to our destination - the Antipolo church. The whole jorney, although challenging was fun especially when you get to talk with a group of runners. We had plenty of photo ops at our destination and Vimz and I got to buy some Antipolo suman!

Heading back home was also a different experience. We passed by a different route and encountered the steepest downhill road. According to Mikey, he had ran on the steep road in which he couldn't stop because of the momentum. So we just slowly walked downhill, and had some photo ops.

We got back tired and happy. We had to part ways with Bobby and Tanya after. I rode with Mikey together with Vimz and Wilbert and we ended the day by having a brunch at Tiendecitas

To Wilbert, God Bless on your LA Marathon training. Hanap ka na ng training route sa Seattles.

I'm looking forward for another long run next year. :) Btw, thanks for Vimz for the photos.. :)

Night Runs

For most runners many already hit the road around 5am doing their morning runs. This is to avoid the heat of the sun and the only time where they can fit a run in their schedule. For this week though most of my runs are during the evening. I end work at 6pm, reach home at around 630pm and run going to Bonifacio Highstreet and head back home.

Evening runs has its own unique impact to your running experience. Its more quiet since there aren't that many runners who run in the evening. Its only when I get to Bonifacio Highstreet where I would see few people running around the area. I also feel so peaceful while running at night.

So again for tonight, I will hit the road. Care to join me?

Yakult 10 Miler and Dream Match

2 major events happened this weekend. First is the Yakult 10 mile run which most non-runners doesn't really care about and second is the Dream Match between Manny Pacquiao and Oscar De La-Hoya and every Filipino knows about this.

Let me give a brief recap on my 16K run during the Yakult 10 mile race. I arrived on the scene of the race 15 minutes before the start of the race. It took me some time though to enter the chute and the reason is really a long story so I won't be mentioning about that. When the gun sounded, I wasn't actually inside the chute yet. I hurried to have my bib checked and ran. Along the way I saw Josh and Regie pacing each other. Regie my pacing partner was suppose to pace Josh for the whole course, but Josh insisted that if Regie wants to pace with me he could do so. So to Josh, thanks for letting Regie join me during the race. This was also the race where I'll be able to test my new Garmin 305 for its longest run within a week. Unfortunately, I got disoriented when the gun sounded that I forgot to press the start button, not until around kilometer 2 of the race. Anyway I had fun running this course and I'm grateful to Regie for not leaving me during the whole race. I finished with an unofficial time of 1:13 and 34 seconds. This was my first 16K race so theres a PR for 16K. After the race though, we were in a hurry to leave and have breakfast at Rockwell so that we can get to Makati Sports on time for the Manny Pacquiao bout. We weren't even able to attend the awarding. I saw the takbo.ph gathering area early before the race but its unfortunate that we didn't had enough time to drop by.

About the Manny Pacquiao bout, well, I'm sure most if not all have seen the fight so I don't have to give a recap about that. But I'd like to mention that Maywheather Sr. was not totally wrong about what he mentioned about Dream Match being a circus. He was right in saying it was a mismatch. His mistake was he voted in the wrong guy.

Congratulations to all who ran the Yakult 10 miler and of course to the pride of our country Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao.

P.S. I got the photo from Vimz. Thanks Vimz!

Sad on Missing the Nike Training this Week

Last Tuesday, I had all my things prepared for the Nike training at Ultra but I wasn't prepared with what was about to happen during the day. Early at work I experienced intense pain at my left molar. It was the tooth where a piece had been chip off long time ago and I didn't bother to had it checked by a dentist. Not until last Tuesday when the pain began to be unbearable. After miraculously enduring the pain at work, I decided to had it checked. A simple visit with the dentist turned out to be a long painful root canal procedure. We finished around 9pm therefore missing the Nike training. My next available appointment though would be on Friday (apparently that was the next available schedule for the doctor) and it will also be after work. I might be able to miss the Nike training this Friday as well, unless the next procedure is quick.

But.. I'll be joining the Yakult run this weekend so for my running friends, see you all there.