Mukhang Guilty’s BLOG

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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…

I was recently brought to this really awesome dive site about an hour and a half away from Anilao.  The site’s called San Agapito, and it’s located under the waters of the Verde Island Passage.

The trip to Verde Island was a trip of coincidence.  I was really planning on diving with Hernel but Hernel http://www.divenet.com/ won’t be available for the dive, so that left me with diving with people from work.  Diving with work people is something i hesitate on doing… i see them six days a week, and seeing them on sunday would just be too much.  To further add to my hesitation, i found out that we head out at 6am.  This means OVERNIGHT at the resort which normally makes me miserable as i don’t usually sleep well the first night when i travel.  

The drive to anilao on saturday night was an adventure in itself.  I had an early morning long run on Saturday with T2, I started the day with only three hours of sleep, the long run was a struggle but i completed 15K, and i thought to myself, this should help me sleep well when i get to anilao   I was hoping that i would feel just the right amount of ‘tiredness’ but i think i got TOO TIRED that i was actually falling asleep while driving to anilao.  It was hell driving to anilao, even coffee didn’t work, but we finally made it.. and I slept like a log.. SUCCESS!

My alarm went off at 5 am, i still felt tired, but the thought of having coffee was a motivator to get my lazy ass out of bed.  The gentrade boys arrived promptly at 6, quick setup and we’re off at 6:30.  The boat ride was very calm, we had a big boat, we even saw dolphins.. i said to myself… this is turning out to be OK after all.   Upon reaching San Agapito, our boat was tied to bamboo poles protruding from the water.   We did two sites, a coral garden on one side, and a reef wall on the other side.

Angie, Tony, Hubert, ME (still feeling grouchy early morning)

Our first dive at the coral garden in San Agapito was OK, I saw lots of anthias, nudies, a frogfish, HUGE groupers swimming by, fusiliers, etc etc!  Max depth was at 92ft, water was a cool 81 degrees fahrenheit.  Current was mild to moderate, as we reached the inteserction where the coral garden meets the reef wall, current started becoming strong,  We decided to turn around, and move up to 30 to 19 ft so the guys could do their safety stop… Dive time was 49 minutes, still had 1200 PSI left.

Kick ass photo of me amidst anthias.  THanks to YAH-MAN.. our dive guide whose name i can’t remember.. i shall call him YAH-MAN because of his dreadlocks

Fascinating shot of a frog fish, couldn’t understand why YAH MAN kept on taking pictures that green thing, turned out frog fish nga…

Our second dive would prolly be my BEST DIVE in the philippines ever, we started on the other side of the reef wall and drifted towards the corner where the wall meets the coral garden, we saw a LOT more pelagics, schools of FUSILIERS, JACKS, GROUPERS.  As we got to the corner, YAH MAN brought us to the edge… lo and behold… a mini siaes corner with lots of HUGE PELAGICS, i wished i brought my reef hook with me, anyway like all good things, the dive had to end… MAX DEPTH 80ft, Dive time 55 mins, temp, 81 degrees Fahrenheit.  I had 1000 PSI left after… Someday, I will go back

Me and Hubert

Life is a gift… it comes with many beautiful things, and one of the reasons why life is beautiful is because of the existence of FRIENDS. 

Friends bear witness to your personal experiences in life, and it’s by talking about these experiences with friends that pleasant moments are relived, whereas painful moments serve as bitter/sweet reminders that life, even with difficult moments have become bearable because of them…

I’ve never really had childhood friends, i used to live in Sanville, Project 6, along a street called ’Prudent Lane’.  Back in the late 70s, our house was pretty much surrounded with empty lots, and cows feeding off the ‘free’ grass that grew on the empty lots.  I would clearly remember the cow owner bringing one of his cows to our front gate and ask if we would like some milk, if we wanted some, he’d milk it right off the cow and put it in Sarsi bottles and charge us a small fee.  Given that I didn’t have much neighbors, i kinda had no playmates, so all the playing i did was with myself (.. NO, NOT in that sense…. you and your dirty little mind =p) we had ATARI back then, or I’d play with my brother and sister.  Moving on to school.. I wasn’t really able to keep in touch with my school friends as I would move schools a lot (st jude, maple lane, richmond christian, st michael’s univ school, brent, admu).  That would mean that most of my friends that i am currently in touch are the ones I’ve met through work.

What is it that determines closeness between friends?  Why is it that there are people who have known each other for years and yet, remain as acquaintances, whereas there are others who become really close friends in a short span of time?  I think it’s due to a complex mixture of factors such as matching personalities, common interests and shared experiences. 

Take dona for example, we both hold PHD degrees in the art of ‘LAIT’, this is a common interest that we did over coffee while people watching.  It is also over coffee that we share experiences, love interests, work, career issues.  She was also the one who helped me up on my two feet when i was broken hearted (she gave me the rule… mope, sulk, cry, smoke, go crazy for one week, after that.. SUCK IT UP and move on… hehe ).  I kinda miss her, she’s been busy lately with work… and other things.  i hope to see her soon.

Then there’s pam, my KL buddy, it was the shared experience of doing things together like watching discovery, window shopping in one utama, or bitching about people who wouldn’t love us back that brought us close together   It’s also the strength of the experiences shared that keeps our bond strong over a long period of time,  This explains why the bond remains even if we don’t see each other for months or years.  I just had dinner with her last night, I promised to see her in London prolly by next year… that should be fun.

I met Lady Lawyer two years ago, we worked together on certain ‘need to know basis’ projects.  Due to the toxic nature of these projects which required us to work closely together, we kinda got to know each other.  These days, I not only get legal advice with regard to work, but advice on how to keep my relationships CLEAN (maybe she smells a paternity suit around the corner?.. .hehehe)

Me and the T2 ladies share one common passion… we LOVE to run, we’d talk about running shoes, training programs, running personalities, we’d plan which races to run, we would always negotiate with Coach BARDS with regard to the distances of our long runs.  And there’s always the post race breakfast where we’d critique about the run, cool running shoes on other people, weird outfits, and people who smell funny after the run.   It’s the common passion for running that bonds us, but i think it’s the release of endorphins, that keeps everybody running ergo keeps the experiences coming ergo strengthens our bond.

It was only of late that i was introduced to HAPPY’s friends.  It was a pleasant experience having dinner with them, they are non-pretentious down to earth people, it was easy for me to become comfortable with them.   I’m looking forward to get to know them more   

THAT is MY simplistic view of FRIENDSHIP, I’m sure there are more profound / complex explanations about relationships, as possibilities are just endless….. To my current friends, DONA, PAM, LADY LAWYER,  T2 Ladies Bards, Tin, Kathy, Xtine, Beni, Mesh, Vicky, Ana, THANK YOU for making my life meaningful, and colorful, I hope i have the same positive effect on all of you.  To HAPPY’s friends Tish, Mishy, Francis, Peter, Mai, Pio, Mitzi, Anton, I hope to see you guys soon, looking forward to getting to know you better…..

• lagi kong kasama
• sexy
• matangkad
• pretty
• mabait (yata)
• mahilig sa claritin
• makes me happy