Mukhang Guilty’s BLOG

This is one of those days when it’s just PCW (perfect cuddle weather)… your mind is asleep even though you are physically in the office with your face staring seriously into your laptop pretending to be responding to very important emails, but REALLY NOW…. your mind is somewhere else… either in bed, thinking about your next vacation, or re-living the last perfect cuddle moment you had with your special someone. 

It’s 9:30 am, after having scoured the net for my usual sites (facebook, inquirer, planet-f1, my fave blogs.. yada yada yada…), I started to fiddle with my POLAR to check my log totals and see how much running i’ve done ever since i got my watch back in February this year.  

I was pleasantly surprised to see that I have logged in more than 1000 kms already :)  This definitely calls for a reward… A Garmin 405?… or an entry to the Singapore Marathon perhaps?….. NOW ENOUGH SLACKIN OFF…. GOTTA GO BACK TO WORK… bahala na si batman

FOR SOME PEOPLE, Sundays are reserved for rest and relaxation, unwinding, recharging, and maybe detoxifying after nights wanton inebriation.  BUT NOT FOR ME my Sundays are never relaxing… I am an adrenaline junkie, I always have to be doing something….staying idle on Sundays will drive me insane. Such was the case yesterday, I was set to go diving with Hernel but I got an SMS from Joy early Saturday that the Sunday dive will not push through.  That got me scouring through my phonebook smsing people what their running plans were for Sunday.  Mars and Jenny didn’t have any plans.  Bards and Mesh were in Fuego for the Mizuno Fuego Run.  Hubert.. the person that i least expected to ask me to go Sunday running asked me if I wanted to do TRAIL RUNNING somewhere in TIMBERLAND HEIGHTS… apparently he has a secret stash of CYCLING FRIENDS who are also in to running.  

The trail run in Tmberland Heights that my brother was referring to is actually the Men’s Health All Terrain Race.  The MHATR was something that i’ve read about from The Bullrunner’s Race Schedules, or from the adverts in Men’s Health Magazine, and Fitness First.  I never really took a lot of interest to it because Trail Running wasn’t really my “thing”.  But given that it was the only available option on Sunday, I agreed to do it.  

You have three options for the race, 1) Do the Trail Run, 2) Do the Mountain Bike Race, or 3) Do BOTH.  The 12km trail run precedes the 20km Mountain Bike Race.  I did option one, and as a precaution, I checked out the website, and briefly skimmed through it to see if there were any special requirements for the race…..

These following were the things that i remembered reading off the website:

1. BLA BLA BLA
2. COURSE LENGTH OF 12 km
3. ROUTE MIXTURE OF DIRT, GRAVEL ROADS, and CEMENT ROADS.
4. SPECTACULAR VIEWS

The following were the things that CARELESSLY MISSED OUT.. more on these later:

1. SINGLE TRACK TRAIL
2. THE COURSE FEATURES A LOT OF CLIMBING

In my mind, the course was gonna be a piece of cake, 12km is easy, and running on DIRT and GRAVEL roads should not be TOO HARD, i could just do an EASY RUN and enjoy the scenery.. sabi nila spectacular daw yung view eh

Hubert and I met up with Averyl and her husband on race day.  Both Averyl and her husband are hardcore cyclists who decided to cross train that weekend by joining the trail run.  Them being cyclists got me really really interested, I started asking them questions about cycling… like what how often to they train, when they train, where they train, and what’s a good brand of bike etc etc… It seems like I’ve found people who i could go cycling with

The sun was already up when the race started at 6:30… thank God i brought my sunnies and my running cap.  Hubert, and I were somewhere in the middle of the pack when the race started… so being competitive brothers, we started trying to pass everyone. It was when we encountered the first hill after 100 meters, that our gap started to widen.  The first hill was ok, it was like running the hills in Corinthians.  I completed the first hill without much trouble, but with one hill came another… then another… then another… SHIT, i don’t recall reading that there were lots of HILLS!!! (siempre naman the website never said that there were lots of hill, it said.. IT FEATURES A LOT OF CLIMBING… climbing normally is not synonymous with running so OBVIOUSLY I NEVER PAID ATTENTION TO IT.. hehehe).  

The first two kilometers were on paved roads, after the cement road.. followed the dirt road… what wasn’t clear on the website was that DIRT ROAD could also mean MUDDY ROAD with ZERO TRACTION… you’d be crazy to run it coz you’d just slip and prolly break a bone or something.  There was this 10 meter stretch of MUD between kilometer 2 to kilometer 7 that I had to LITERALLY WALK WITH MY ARMS STRETCHED OUT TRYING TO HOLD ON TO SOMETHING IN CASE I SLIPPED!!!… so much for my race time:).  One thing that I liked about the race, was that even though the race was PURELY HILLS, I was able to hydrate myself properly as they had more than enough water in all their hydration stations. 

There were also kilometer markers at the last 5 kilometers of the trail… although sometimes, I wished they’d warn us of what’s up ahead as well.  When I reached the last 5 KM marker, I looked at my time, i was doing 27 minutes… ooh, I could go SUB hr for this run :)…. NOT!!!… It was in the last 5 kilometers that my run went really CRAZY.  From kilometers 8 till 9, dirt road became SINGLE TRACK TRAIL… I never really knew what SINGLE TRACK TRAIL meant till i RAN it.. you literally had to run on a SINGLE NARROW TRACK, the track was so bumpy and partially covered with grass that you spend more time looking at the trail path than enjoying the view.

The HIGHLIGHT of my run occurred at around KM 9.  As i completed my single trail section, I passed one of the manong MH staffers monitoring the race.  He saw me, had this pleasant smile on his face, and said… SIR konti nalang yan… pataas na po yan.  I wasn’t quite sure that I HEARD his second statement correctly, I thought I heard PATAAS instead of PATAPOS but i figured with his smile, he must have said PATAPOS.  So moving along for another couple of meters, as I turned around the corner… lo and behold… I saw the ULTIMATE HILL, the hill length was prolly just 150 to 200 meters, but it was steep… damn steep… I could already see people giving up and walking the hill.  I felt challenged, I didn’t wana stop, so I went ahead, took a couple of deep breaths and went for it… first I ran, then jogged, and then hopped the hill, my heart rate went from  160 to 180 to 204 BPM… it was the first time that i’ve ever gone over 195 for my heart rate…. so I guess manong said PATAAS instead of PATAPOS

What goes up must eventually come down, so the last few kilometers of the race were all downhill, it was hard on my knees but I did manage to complete little to no pain…  I crossed the finish line at 1:02:xx, I’m still waiting for the official results from the MH website. 

BEEN UBER BUSY WITH WORK LATELY, NOW I HAVE A BIT OF FREE TIME SO I’M GONA POST A LONG ONE

I’ve always been an advocate for change.  I believe that change keeps things exciting, challenging.  However, the fear of the unknown that change brings makes us ‘iffy’ to a lot of things.  I’ve fallen victim to the FEAR OF CHANGE quite a few times with work and sometimes, with my previous relationships.  People have this tendency to want to be in control of things, change is like the antithesis to that… to describe it metaphorically, it’s like the feeling you get when you first try out a new roller coaster ride, FEAR OF CHANGE is like the fear you feel before the first big drop… and when it happens, the THRILL and EXHILARATION that follows best describes the aftermath of change… it’s the thrill and exhilaration feeling that makes embracing change worthwhile

Wait a minute… ano ba ang connect nito sa morning runs??!!  Let me explain… sometimes we get too comfortable with our training routine that we forget that it’s time to move forward…. either increase distance, pace, or weights.  CHANGING your routine involves a bit of PAIN, and sometimes, schedule adjustments..

I came to the realization that i needed to change my routine while checking out the TRAP website.  On top of my full marathon goal, I was also contemplating on when I was going to do my first Olympic Distance Triathlon.  OLYMPIC distance Triathlon involves a 1.5k swim, 40k bike, and a 10k run.  The 10k run shouldn’t be a problem, but cycling for 40k?  hmmm…that would be like cycling from my place in CG to HAPPY’s place in AAV and back!  Let’s not even discuss swimming, I’m a diver, and divers are taught NOT TO USE THEIR ARMS UNDERWATER.. I would have to do T.I. (total immersion) or get a swimming coach to relearn swimming. 

SO when will i bike or swim?  I work six day weeks, i do all my runs in the evenings, I lift weights after running.  I finish around 9pm every night, and from 9pm onwards, it’s HAPPY time.  I’ve gotten so comfortable with this arrangement, that I’ve succumbed to procrastinating… to the point that this whole transition to triathlon thingy was starting to look like a philosophical exercise… MENTAL NOTE TO SELF… CHANGE IN TRAINING PROGRAM REQUIRED.. NEED TO START CYCLING, and SWIMMING…. first step yan to achieving IRONMAN

Sacrifices had to be made to make room for cycling and/or swimming.  The only way to do this was to give up an hour of sleep and move my runs to early mornings.  This was hard for me as i always have trouble waking up in the morning.  BUT I NEEDED to embrace change, and I DID, and I’m glad I did:)   I’m now on my second week of doing morning runs and I now have time to do RPM, or SWIM. 

ABANGAN….

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Thanks ELI for the wonderful photo

As mentioned in my previous posts, I want to be able to run a full marathon early next year.  I only started running OUTDOORS this year, I started with 10K, and eventually progressed to 21k.  I think i ran my first 21K two weekends before the Mizuno Run… that would be sometime in March 12.  Ever since then all my long runs were set at 21k.

Two days ago, Doc Mars, my gym buddy who got me into running, invited me to do the Subic O3 relay in August.  O3 means Olympic Triathlon Distance X3, swim for 4.5k, bike for 120k, and top it off with a 30k run.  Doc Mars was supposed to do the swim, Jenny was gonna do the bike leg, and I will run.  Not knowing the swimming and biking times of Mars and Jenny, I said yes.  I soon found out that with their current pace, it was estimated that I will start my run at around 1pm… SUSGINOO!!! thoughts of me crashing my 3pm 21K long run entered my mind.  Reality dawned on me…  I wasn’t ready for the 30K run, especially when it starts at 1pm!!!  To add to that… I realized that my longest run ever was only a 21K, and 30K <> 21K.  i need to increase my long run distance soon if i want to run a full marathon by next year.

Since I was scheduled to do my long run today… I thought… why not extend my run to 25k instead of the regular 21K? :)  Having decided to do a 25k run, I started my run at 6pm, I set my distance to 25K @ 6:15 m/km.  It was a cool 29 degrees so the run should be manageable.  I completed by first 15k with relative ease, I was able to maintain a pace of 6:00 m/km.  From 15k to 21k, i started to struggle, it started to drizzle, my pace dropped to 6:20, my polar started beeping… peste! I should have set the pace to 6:30 instead….

Getting to 21k was a relief, yey! 4 more kms to go… I might have celebrated too early, because what happened after 21k was just PURE PAIN.. towards the end of a long run, you’d always think that your heart rate will shoot up to 170 or 180bpm due to exhaustion, but in this case, it wasn’t my heart that was complaining (it was steady at 160 bpm), they were my Achilles heels, the soles of my feet, my knees, and my hip joints, and my back! No matter how i wanted to push, it just wasn’t physically possible, my pace dropped to 6:45, then 7:00, then at the end of the run it was at 7:15 waah!!!  I felt my muscles stiffening up, but I still pushed on and completed the run.  I finished in 2:35. 

I still have a long way to go… I may have completed the 25k run, but my end goal is 42k, that’s another 17K… pa june pa lang… so i think i still have time

P.S. I think one of my toenails is about to DIE… still not sure, but i think it will…

I once read this article in Rogue Magazine about Fred Uytengsu.  I was amazed at how he was able to transform himself from being an average joe who couldn’t even complete a 5k run to someone who actually finished an Ironman Triathlon…. woohoo IDOL! Someday, I will do the Ironman as well…. then climb EVEREST..  To complete the Ironman, you would have to swim for 4k, bike for 180k, then do a 42k run. 

At this stage, i’m training to run a full marathon, I will run my full marathon next year @ clark or subic.  With regard to biking, i think i may have found a group of road bikers who train four days a week, I could join their bike runs, or maybe start with the stationary bike? To train for swimming, i might do T.I. or just get a personal coach.  But the real challenge here is TIME, when when and when will i swim, or bike?  I run four days a week, I lift weights four days a week, running and weights i do after work. I have saturday work, and sundays are reserved for road races or diving.  To be able to train for swimming and biking, that would mean i should do my swimming and biking in the morning, i would need to get back into the habit of sleeping early.  Given that my goal is to be able to do an olympic distance triathlon, i should start swimming and biking soon!!!

Now i’m gonna tell you why i want to do the IRONMAN

1. ONLY FEW get to do this.  Sure we get a lot of runners, a lot of triathletes, but only a few could complete an IRONMAN, kudos to Fred Uytengsu for completing it
2. Physical fitness is a given, i don’t want to be worrying about hypertension, diabetes, or any other chronic lifestyle diseases when i grow old… I want to be able to live long enough to cherish the company of my wife (whoever she may be) and my children
3. Fit body and ripped abs… chicks dig that =)
4. Telling people that you are a ‘TRIATHLETE’ definitely sounds better than telling people that you play ‘BASKET’ or that you play in the VILLAGE LEAGUE… how common!! =P

… IT’S GONE!!! WAAAH!! SOMEONE ATE IT.. I DON’T KNOW WHO!!!! baka si HUBERT!!!!!

I’m back!  After being down with diarrhea for 4 days, I could say I have completely recovered from it.  Having lost 4 running days (MISSED THE PRINGLES RUN AS WELL), my legs were just itching to GO GO GO!  I resumed my regular 5k tempo on Monday… PACE 4:48.. I was on the road to recovery.  Then came Tuesday, my 21K long run. There are things that i fear about long runs… HUMIDITY, and HEAT, historically speaking, I’ve always crashed when i did my long runs at 34 degree weather, thank God the rainy season started early this year

I check my car’s external temp gauge on my way home from work, it was 31 degrees, I glanced up the sky and it was dark and cloudy, i rolled down my window and felt the air… SHIT the weather IS HUMID.  When i got home, filled up my fuel belt, went up to my room… contemplated whether i was gonna wear “nyort nyorts” or not given that the weather’s uncooperative.  I decided against the nyort nyorts, i’ll save it for race weekends.

Once i got down, i went to the laundry area to wet my polar chest strap.  As i was busy trying to adjust my chest strap, here comes Sputnik who started playing with the footpod attached to my mizunos.  One thing thats bad about my dog is that when he starts playing with me, he becomes really rough, his playful bite could get really painful at times.  I was in no mood to let my dog chew off my foot pod so i shooed him away. 

On my way out of the house, I set my polar.. distance = 21Km, pace 6:20… and then I was off… I was doing about 5:30 in first 2 kms.  I decided to slow down to about 5:50 to 6:00 to manage my run.  When i got to the 3.5km mark, rain clouds started forming, i could feel the temperature dropping, with the cool wind blowing, leaves rustling, and lightning on the horizon.  The cool breeze made me breathe easy, I decided to run between at PACE from 5:30 to 5:45… I was feeling strong

I normally hydrate myself at the 10km mark, but upon passing the 10km mark, i was still steady at 5:45, I thought of pushing it further for another 5km, hydration point moved down to 15km.  On hitting the 13th km mark, the heavens opened, water came down in trickles and I was hoping it would stay that way… slow steady drizzle till i finish my run.

Weather soon turned ugly when i hit 15km, lighting, thunder, strong winds, then heavy as in HEAVY rain… at this point, i did contemplate whether i should continue my run or not… I was far from my house, if i stopped running, that would mean I’d have to walk home, and walking home would still get me wet… POINTLESS… I therefore decided to continue.  Running in HEAVY rain is crazy and fun at the same time… raindrops could be painful at times, especially when the wind is blowing into you and the rain irritates your eyes,  and of course, there’s BAHA!!!! or at least mini BAHA, i was running into these pools of water and i could slowly feel water seep into my Mizunos… and i could start hearing ’squish squish squish’ as i was running.  It also didn’t help when the lights went out in the village, I almost got side swiped by this car turning in from the main road shortly after the lights went out.  I guess the driver must have thought i was crazy for running in the rain

Enough of the crazy stuff.. now the fun part about running in heavy rain is that my PACE dropped from 5:45 to 5:30 to 5:15 on my last 5kms, I actually finished below 2 hours because of the rain.  Here are the stats… Distance= 21km, Time= 1:58:32 Avg HR= 161, Pace= 5:38, Kcal= 1975

Day 2, and my tummy ain’t better.  I’m still at it with the ‘porcelain goddess’. I’m already down to 149 lbs, I’m now officially underweight.  I’m feelin woozy.  I took half day off work.  I don’t think i’ll be doing the pringles run.

My day started quite early, I was up at 3am for a 5am meeting with my Lucena sales team.  We were supposed to take off at 3:30 am from the office, but because of my bathroom emergency, we got slightly delayed.  The trip from Pasig to Lucena was quick, the Star tollway now ends in Batangas, it cut our trip by 15 minutes.  Once we got there, the whole team was up and about… had to excuse myself for another bathroom break.  At this point i think i started to feel symptoms of dehydration, I started feeling dizzy, slightly nauseous, a little cold sweat.  Took a drink of water before i started my presentation, did my presentation, quick Q/A session then i was off.  Oh before we hit the road, had to unload again…

Once we got to the office, i just had a quick meeting and decided to call it the day.  It was around 11 am, next thought… what’s for lunch?  I had zero appetite, if only i could get away with not eating without any weight loss consequences I WOULD.  Before going home, i thought of swinging by SANTIS for some whole wheat crackers, they should be the safest form of nourishment at this stage.

I’ve always loved SANTIS, they have good cheese, barilla pasta. toggi chocolate wafers and san pellegrino.  After browsing around, i got myself a bottle of san pellegrino, wheat crackers and a chocolate bar called THE ROCK.  I told Happy about the chocolate i got and she told me that chocolate is BAD with diarrhea, I asked lady lawyer and she said the same thing… now, i feel like a kid who’s about to fail the marshmallow test… i’ve been staring at it since after lunch.  I hope that i’m gonna feel better tonight, so i could eat some…

this is what lady lawyer had to say after reading my post…

erolyne go: good luck with your ambition regarding the chocolate
erolyne go: it ain’t gonna happen today
erolyne go: not even tonight
erolyne go: eat it sunday na

i got home last night… scouring my fridge for something sweet.  Me, being the health conscious person refused the chocolate bar inside the fridge, instead, i chose the two day old watery pakwan that was left untouched in the fridge.  The color looked so tempting, it was SO RED.  I went ahead and ate it… it was SWEET, but tasted kinda soggy, but what the heck, i did get my sugar fix.

 Three hours after, i felt something was disagreeing with my system.  The watermelons i ate were attempting to exit my system.  I figured that it’s just a mild case of indigestion.   I just let it pass. 

When i woke up the next morning, my whole system felt like Armageddon just happened, with Satan as the victor.  My heart rate was elevated, i was short of breath while walking to the bathroom, my joints were aching… i thought to myself… YIKES, e-COLI!!  That means, no gym, no running.. my program for the week is once again SCREWED, i hope I’ll be good for PRINGLES. It also means no working, i had to postpone two very important meetings, that means a delay for another day or two.   Well on the bright side, HAPPY was on-line and kept me company the whole time

Lessons learned… don’t eat bulok na pakwan!!! It just doesn’t make sense…