Just Another Runner

My son recently joined me in my morning run. Later that day, he commented that I now run differently. He used to join me every weekend when I began running late last year. I asked, "In what way?" He answered, "You're streamlined now." I thought, "Wow, that sounded good. I'll take that as a compliment." I then asked, "Why? How did I run before?" He then made the action that looked like a gorilla walking and swaying side to side. "How about now?" And he made the actions similar to an airport tarmac personnel guiding an airplane to go straight. Definitely a compliment. "So, do I look like I'm running now?" ... pause ... thinking ... "Uhmmm, I guess, sort of." Wow! These are major improvements in the comments I get from my son! I'm on my way baby!

Last week, I registered for my first half-marathon of the Condura Skyway Marathon that will be held on Feb. 6, 2011. I went to Greenbelt 3 with my children. When one of my sons saw that the race kit said "21K", he exclaimed, "You're already going to run a half-marathon?!" I said "Yes." and waited for his next question, which was the question he asked when I told him that I was planning to join a 5K race, "Do you want to die?!" But no. He asked instead, "Can I have the 'dri-fit' shirt?" I then realized that this boy has also been benefiting from my running. He has been getting my race singlets and shirts (because they don't fit me). His favorite is the Mizuno Infinity Run finisher's shirt which he always uses when he runs. He also got my Nike Free Everyday 2 and Asics GT2130 running shoes. On the way out of Greenbelt 3, he asked for the free Hershey's chocolate bar. He's not getting the Coors Light. Tha

My race report on the Quezon City International Marathon (QCIM) 2 held on Dec. 5, 2010 at the Quezon City Memorial Circle/Commonwealth Avenue. The report has a similar format as my Perfect Race blog post. My goal was just to finish this because my right calf has been painful since the past week and I didn't want to get it seriously injured. My strategy was to do a run/walk/run with a 4:1 ratio and run the run portions at around 8:30 min/km. I felt the pain in my right calf all throughout the race. I stayed with my planned pace and run/walk ratio until the half-way point and turnaround. After the turn-around, I still felt ok and still had a lot of gas left. My wife, who was with me up to that point, told me to go ahead, and I decided to increase my run pace to around 7:15. At around 8 km, I didn't take walk breaks anymore and ran all the way to the finish. As it was mostly downhill for the last 2 kms, this allowed me to increase my pace some more and have a strong fini

Wow! It has been a year since I started running. And it has been a year since my first blog post. The Just Another Runner blog is still up and I am still running. In the beginning, I set the following short-term goals (within 12 months) run for 30 minutes straight finish a 5K race finish a 10K race I actually achieved all these goals by February! Of all the health and fitness activities that I tried after college, running has been the only one that I was able to do regularly and for a very long period. I have tried diets, lifting weights, tennis and the "old running" which is badminton. None lasted very long. What has happened in my first year of running: My wife and I finally found a fitness activity that we can do together. Except for one (KOTR), my wife also joined the running events I joined. Except for a handful of times, my wife and I went to UP Diliman together (98% of the time) to run. Except for the few weeks I stopped running in January and February because o