September 15, 2008, 5:00 a.m.
I got up on my feet, splattered water on my face and donned my rubber shoes. It was going to be an epic day. I walked out the door after kissing my wife and kids goodbye without waking them up. The road was empty and only the curious barks of the neighborhood dogs floated through the air.
I lifted my right leg and took one giant step, then another, then another. Slowly, the steps became more and more frequent and I was running...alone in the middle of the street.
I gritted my teeth in furious agony when my lung started to expand and blew out.
Then I stopped and hunched over my knees. I was catching my breath, dizzy with sweat beads on my forehead.
I looked back and saw the skid marks of my insanity blitz... I have just ran 100 meters...
More than a year ago today, I took my first steps to fulfilling a promise I made to myself. A promise that would challenge my determination and endurance...a challenge to be a triathlete by the age of 40!
My training started a few months before my 40th birthday. I was a heavyweight at 205 pounds of more fats than muscles. I stopped going to the gym a year earlier and saw my gym equipment gather dusts and rusts 6 months after. Slowly but surely, the flat tire around my waist was getting inflated more and more as the days went by.
My only exercise was a bottle of San Mig Light being lifted from the table on to my lips several times, and it did very little to firm up my biceps nor my deltoids. Yeah, I was living a (night)life of pure indulgence and alcohol was my favorite energy drink.
Then, in a bizarre twist of events, something within me just snapped. Suddenly, I was bored and no amount of liquefied roasted malts could overturn it. I wanted out of what I was in...I wanted something new.
Norman Stadler was wincing in pain as he tried to shake off the cramps which hounded him during the run portion of the Ironman World Championships 2008 in Kona, Hawaii. Craig Alexander would overtake him and eventually win.
It was a sight that would be etched in my mind for days after watching it in YouTube.com while I was surfing the internet...and it was the "something new" I was looking for. The thought of becoming a triathlete excited me and in the days that followed, my journey to multi-sports began...
November 22, 2008: 5:30 a.m.
I was at the starting line of Race For Life 2008 5K marathon for my first ever race. I was nervous and stiff the whole time just before the gun start.
+/- 200 lbs on my first race, Run For Life 2008
I was expecting to finish between 40 and 45 minutes and was grinning from ear to ear when I crossed the line in less than 33 minutes. I was pumped and looked forward to running the Milo National Finals the week after, in the 5K category of course.
Milo Marathon 2008 was my baptism of fire to BIG organized marathons with roughly 20,000 runners pounding Roxas Boulevard. Some ran to race, some to socialize and some just to pass their PE class in school. I finished the race in almost the same time as my race a week earlier.
December 2008 was a no race, training month for me. I rode my bike more and started getting familiar with swimming. I must have been crazy wading at the Ultra pool at 8 in the morning with temperatures of 23 - 25 degrees. It was also the first time I felt the pain of going up Sierra Madre on a bike. It was a month of realizing my greatest weakness among the 3 disciplines of triathlon...I didn't know how to swim properly.
In the weeks to come I would try teaching myself how to swim correctly, a futile effort. I instead encountered frustrations and embarrassment everytime I try to cross the 50-meter length of the Ultra pool. Undeterred, I enrolled in a swim class that would start in February of 2009, just in time for my first planned triathlon race in April.
I continued biking and running in January, 2009. I ran my first 10K marathon at the PSE Bull Run and finished in sub-1 hour or 57mins, 35 seconds.
Towards the end of January, I joined my first ever 15K marathon, The HAPPY Run, a race organized by Drew Arellano, a triathlete himself. Finishing the race in 1:26 put me on ecstasy mode, I was getting faster!
From January to March, I joined a 10K, two 15Ks and a 21K marathon which saw me running on the Skyway with thousands of other runners. It was my first half-mary, and what better way to do it than run above the Skyway while the sun rose. Amazing! The organizers of that race, Condura Run, did a great job in giving runners something new. I myself had something new in that race...the stabbing pain of "side-stitch' which hindered me from achieving my sub-2 hours goal for a 21K. Though I was looking at doing sub- 2:15, I changed my goal from generous to aggressive when I completed the 1st 10K in 56 minutes. Lesson learned: Learn how to avoid side-stitches!
The last week of March also saw me compete in my first ever duathlon, the Powerade Philippine Duathlon Open. It was a complete thrill for me to run and bike with the country's top duathletes and triathletes, and it was my first time to eat dusts from the more veteran competitors, and it didn't taste good. I needed more training!
Trying to catch up with other riders during my first duathlon
After religiously following my swim schedule, I plunged further into multi-sports by registering and competing in TRAP's mini-sprint triathlon offering in Ayala Alabang in April. It was again, a whole new experience for me. I realized that in triathlons, mere guts wouldn't take you to the finish line, you need the skills first. As I was making my 2nd lap in the 50-meter pool, a swimmer on the 3rd lane took a stroke and the water splashed directly into my mouth as I was breathing in, causing me to choke and hang on to the lane line. I panicked and lost my rhythm. A more experienced triathlete would have just took it easily and continued on, I didn't. I finished the 350 meter swim, 12K bike and 3.5K run in 1:06, not last but definitely far from the finishing times of the stronger competitors.
That finish would dictate my training schedule. I swam, biked and ran more often and with higher intensities.
May 6 was one of my most memorable day this year. My father-in-law, who had been paralyzed for 10 years, passed away. When he suffered a debilitating stroke in 1999, my wife and I decided to have him, with my mother-in-law, stay with us in our house. In the morning of May 6, he passed away peacefully, nobody in my household even noticed he wasn't breathing anymore. Our househelp just found out he was dead when she was about to feed him his morning snack.
I was registered to run the Botak Paabilisan 21K that weekend. When my father-in-law's body was cremated a day before Botak, I hardly had any sleep, and was in doubt on starting the half-marathon the day after.
Saturday night at 9:00 p.m., I decided to run.
It was one of my toughest races, primarily because I wasn't 100%. I was at 1 hour and 45 minutes into the 17th kilometer of the race when I bonked, a condition I felt for the first time. Though my lungs could still manage to run, my body just gave up. I couldn't run and walked the remaining 4 kilometers leading to a 2:19 finish, my worst.
June came and I was back to my competitive self. There were two races I was setting my eyes on, The Animo Sprint Tri and the Powerade Duathlon 2nd leg. I managed a 2:26 finish time in Animo and a 1:55 in Powerade Duathlon, and ranked respectably in the finisher's list. I was happy with the progress and set my sight on Camsur Ironman 70.3.
Crossing the finish line all smiles at the Animo Sprint Tri in June 14
With Javy Olives of Team Super during the Powerade Duathlon 2nd leg
The whole month of July was a no-race, all training month. Every triathlete in the country eyeing a good finish in the inaugural Ironman event in the country littered the swimming pools, running places and biking routes in Metro Manila and probably the whole of Luzon. Nobody wants to come unprepared for the "ultimate" race of the year.
In August 23, I toed the starting line in Lago Del Rey, Camsur Watersports Center, with 409 other triathletes who were all hoping to cross the finish line. The 1.9Km swim, 90 Km bike and 21 Km run wasn't a joke, and it was a test of not only one's physical strength, but also of one's mental toughness.
Camsur 70.3 was a race of agony, pain and ecstasy for me. It was scorching hot during the bike and run, and for a brief moment then, I was about to give up. But the recognition of being an "Ironman" plus the substantial registration fee I paid, plus all the months of training, was too much for me to just say "I quit!". As my good friend Retzel Orquiza have said "With everything that we have done and paid for for this race, DNF ( did not finish ) is not an option.". So at the 7th hour and 20th minute of the race, I crossed the finish line with my teammates Pastor Ernie Catanghal and Melvin Fausto. It was the pinnacle of my multi-sports journey, to be referred to as an Ironman.
Gritting my teeth as I left T1 for the bike portion of Camsur 70.3
Though my body ached for almost a week, the roads saw me training for my next race less than a month after. In September 20, I ran away from the starting line of the 3rd leg of the Powerade Philippine Duathlon Open, which would prove to be my fastest race for the year. I ran the first 7.1km run in 38 minutes, biked the 32Km course in less than an hour and completed the whole race in 2 hours 25 seconds. I was 57th among more than 140 competitors and was only behind by 3 minutes from a good friend Noel Padrigon, who normally smokes me by more than 10 minutes. It was a great last race prior to Ondoy, a typhoon that brought havoc to my family and training.
Running a strong first 7.1Km at the Powerade Duathlon OPen 3rd Leg
My 40th year on earth had been blessed. I turned from a literal couch potato to an Ironman due to sheer determination and resolve. I have done 7 marathons, ranging from 5K to 21K, 3 duathlons and 3 triathlons and finished the holy grail of it all, an official Ironman 70.3.
As I turn another year in my life, I cannot help but to look back to the past and analyze how the year turned out the way it did. There was one person that was common in everything that I have done, from training to races, from morning until night, from pain to complete recovery, from getting down to standing up again...Carol, my beautiful and ever-supportive wife, who single-handedly managed to keep everything intact while I busied myself, was there. I love ou very much!
In all that has happened, God always played a big role. From the very moment I leave the house to train or to race, He was there. There were several times I had close calls with Hades but He always protected me. When I had my first BIG crash along Aurora Blvd. when two jeepneys sandwiched me and a 3rd one almost ran me over, He was there embracing me...Praise you, O Lord! And may You always protect us from harm....
I will turn 41 four days after I have completed writing this entry, but to me, and probably for others as well, AGE IS JUST A NUMBER. I have never been so fulfilled and happy in my life. There is a saying that Life Begins at 40...in my case, it DID! and I just turned 1!
