My First 21K and Blog Withdrawal Syndromes

I’m dying to blog! I’ve been pretty busy lately with preparations for a management visit coupled with the fact that for the first time, my broadband died on me. At last, my broadband is back and we are wrapping up the management visit. I think it is almost 10 days that I have not really updated the blog. After a period of no blogging, I felt uneasy not seeing new updates on the blog. It felt as if my day is not complete and I’m mad at my broadband provider for being inconsiderate. I won’t mention the provider anymore, but thanks for visiting us yesterday to fix the issue!

I ran my first 21k (yes, 21 kilometers) last Sunday. It was a half-marathon run in preparation for July 22, Milo Marathon. I almost died and for a second, I was tempted not to finish the race. I finished the course for 3 hours and 19 minutes. This is too slow, and I was second to the last to cross the finish line. We were annoyed by the ambulance tailing us when we run and tempting us to give up. I’m not the type of person who would easily give up.

It was not an easy feat. I’m starting to run the marathon to lose all the weight I gained through blogging. I gained 40 lbs (can you imagine) and I’m running at my heaviest. I plan to organize a marathon-for-a-cause for my first Marathon run on July 22 and I’m looking for a charity institution to partner with. I will announce more details of the marathon-for-a-cause but simply I plan to solicit monetary support for the charity institution depending on how many kilometers I run during the marathon. One could pledge P100 for every Kilometer that I finish. If I finish 42 kilometers, the donor will contribute P420 to the marathon-for-a-cause. I want to do this so that my first run becomes very meaningful and I have something to motivate me when my knees are giving up at the 30k point. I do hope you can support me on this 🙂

I’m a techno freak and I’m inspired to run because of the running “costume” and gadget. Running a marathon is a good justification for me to buy the Nike Plus Shoes, Ipod Nano and Nike+ pedometer. It was so cool to run with Nike! I wish I was a certified runner and not a blogger so that Nike can think of sponsoring me…

The race started at 5.40am and it runs through from the Fort Bonifacio Grand Stand to the Libingan ng mga Bayani, passes through C5 and make a U-turn in the bridge after Petron, then back. There are water stations along the route, and I had to bring a gatorade with me. My boss said that there are people who dies in Marathon because they only drink water. Btw, I’ve tried Pocari Sweat for the first time, and it was a hundred times better than gatorade. However, I can’t find it in the convenience stores because I want to use that instead.

The sunrise run around Libingan ng mga Bayani was very nice. It was my first time to see these crosses. This was the only scenic route in the 21k course and the rest are public streets where you could inhale all the possible pollution from the cars and motor bikes.

In the end, I finished 21k in 3 hours and 19 minutes. My 10k record is 1 hour and 10 minutes. They were almost packing up when we crossed the finished line. After the run, my entire legs are arching to that point that I would question myself, why am I running and doing this to myself? In the end, I’m still determined to finish the marathon on July 22. Only 0.001% of the world’s population, finish a marathon. I want to be part of that elite group. P&G will be the biggest delegation in the July 22 Milo Marathon and we are estimating that we will finish the course in 7 hours!

One of these days, I’ll join Aidan in my runs. After the 21k, we celebrated this milestone by having breakfast at Portico in Serendra!