Ensure To Endure Run - The Weather Factor

In the past "weekend road races" have been an integral part of my workouts. However, due to injuries and sickness in the past three months, I have barely participated on any road races which has been a big void in my regular life. Blessed lately that my injuries are recuperating and with the ultimate goal to find oneself back to my regular routine, I decided to participate in ENSURE to ENDURE 10k event sponsored by Abbott Laboratories.

ENSURE to ENDURE Run has a very unique form of registration. Instead of the usual cash registration fee for the road race, the sponsors opted that a participant purchase any ENSURE products and with a pre-determined amount of purchase, this qualifies a person either to the 5k, 10k or 15k event category. At least registration fee is converted to a product that you can enjoy and benefit from.

To qualify for a 10k event I purchased an ENSURE “Gold” 400 grams chocolate flavored energy powder and a 250ml ENSURE Liquid Nutrition the cost of both is about P810 which about equal amount should a registration fee been collected.  The purchase receipt served as proof of purchase which I did my registration at Riovana at Fort Bonifacio.

Today 20May2012 I arrived the venue at Fort Bonifacio BGC at around 5am and you could easily determine if the race is well participated by the difficulty of obtaining a parking space, which on this occasion was quite easy which translated to a forecast of not so well participate race. Overall with the three different categories, I would guess that there were no more than 2300 participants. Anyways, it is not the number but how the race was to be handled and executed.

At 5:23am the 10k event was gunned off which brought the runners lonly within the Fort Bonifacio Global City circuit of roads. With what I have seen and personally experienced, I would congratulate the organizers of the event as all logistical needs for a good race have been duly taken cared of. The any thing missing is the volume of participants.

The weather was hot and humid but was much better than the previous days. 01h24m21sec after the gun start I crossed the finish line on my racewalk mode dripping wet all over. It was a very slow 10k for me but I would take it gladly considering the weather condition and the long hiatus on my weekend road races. The race name I think more than describe my performance for this event, ENSURE to ENDURE. Yes, I just barely ensured myself to endure the event on a very humid and hot morning. A weather factor indeed.

Celebrating 61 years with 16 Km

Today May 3^rd 2012 I turned 61 years old! God I am old! To celebrate the day I think and wish that my age is numerically reversed … 16 ….. what better way to convince myself but do 16km workout early today at Fort Bonifacio which took me along the streets of Bonifacio Global City (BGC) then to Lawton Avenue to Bayani Road until Heritage Park then to C5 all the way back to Market Market and end at 26^th Avenue and 5^th Street. On a racewalk mode I completed16km in 2.5736 Hrs . It was my worst 16k time. It is the sad reality in life that age is catching up on my body. A lame excuse is that it was too hot and I did not have the right preparation.

I shall be limiting my road races from now on to 10k distance and probably do only the 21k during the Condura events. I still foresee myself to do work-outs on the road but now with a modest distance log of 30-35km/week or 100km per month (use to be 200km/month a year ago).

With the reduction of my road workout, I intend to dedicate more time in my old passion....golfing. Since I picked up running I sacrified a great time of my golfing to running.  I could still remember that between 1994-2006 I was practically playing golf six (6) times a week and that there was a time that my handicap was down to single digit (+9) compared to present which is +22. My problem is that practically all of my golfing buddies either have, passed away, too sick to play or have aged that I need to make new golfing buddies. But, I still love my golfing buddies in Valley Golf and Tagaytay Highlands. They are down to earth and we have shared lots of jokes and laughter during a game and most of all they allow me to win.

I have stopped my oil painting….. since last quarter of last year for whatever reason all the inspiration and drive that use to push me to be prolific and produce a painting a day has died down… the urge that just came all of sudden from no where then has all of a sudden vanished life a wind… I just could not explain why I can not lift the brush now…I pray that the inspiration and talent would come back on another cycle in my life while I still have vision and strength.

To all the people that have greeted me on my birthday, THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR REMEMBERING. I hope and pray that in my own simple way I was able to touch your life as you have touched mine and you being a part of my life in that 61 years span. Certainly you were somewhere in that span of 61 years. We may have laught, cursed, fought, smiled, ate, drunk, work, golf, run, played or just talked and shared stories but without you people my life would have been empty. Thank you for being there! Let me continue counting till 100 and I will still be meeting more people till then.