Be Cool Runner

First Truly Pinoy Triathlon
Organize By: Provincial Government of Albay
Headed by: Councilor Celoy Chan, of Legazpi City Government
An Event for the Magayon Festival last April 24, 2009

This is probably one of the CRAZIEST and MOST FUN triathlon event in the country, actually I’m not sure it can be called a triathlon event, check out the photos and tell me..

First Event.. 85km biking around the base circumference of Mt Mayon Volcano.

Second Event: 2.6km Extreme River Running in Yawa River

Third Event: 2.6km River Tube Riding/Drafting or whatever you wanna call it.

Note: Special Award given to best Tire Tube Design

Fourth Event: 4.5km Pagulong – truly Pinoy style! Running with tire tube

GAME NA KAYO FOR NEXT YEAR?

I’ve been too busy, or maybe to lazy to update my blog..though I’ve been continuously running

Sticking to my runnersworld half marathon training has been difficult, with my work ending too late for training at BU oval, but I still manage to put in about 20-23 kms a week of mostly road running around Alternate Road, Washington Drive and around the city, at this stage I should have been logging in close to 30kms a week something I know I could achieve but as always it comes down to the weather and my work schedule. The weather, mainly because of global warming?!, or our small city’s has it’s own climate system coz we get a lot of those  sudden 30 mins heavy rains. Then regarding work, well juggling between two offices and having an on going small construction really messed up my normal running skeds.

Things to watch out for in my blog this week…

becoolrunner meets Jean Beliveau

Jean, is a guy who is finishing his 80000 kms lone journey around the world on foot, he has been walking for 8.5 yrs, leaving his home in Motreal, Canada August 2000.  http://wwwalk.org

Magayon 2nd Endurance Race Report

The Absolutely Craziest truly Pinoy Triathlon event in the country.

So here’s what I did…

Lunch time Food Loading…

I cooked…

pepper crusted herb pan seared beef tenderloin…

and Beef Teriyaki..

and some leftover chicken curry..

then after running….

Like they say….it’s important to eat a few hours before you run, and to eat within thirty minutes after you run..just doing proper training:)

..and also doing three things I’m passionate about all at once, photography, cooking and running..oh add to that achieving my first 200kms for the year…it’s just LE-GEN-DAR-RY

My HR diagram..I burned 1069 calories

I downloaded a 16 week 21k training program and tried to follow it last week, but those tempo trainings prove slightly a bit too much for my body, although I was a bit out of shape too, from severe lack of sleep the night before due to clog nose from seasonal allergies, and also a little extra work load.

Anyway I decided to just get back to my own training program for the next two weeks, “base building” that’s what I call it, running with long warm ups, and doing long aerobic ceiling runs, then long cool downs. Which in the past did work for me, and helped me improve my 5k time.

So after doing almost just half of my weekly mileage last week, I decided to do a long run to start this week, but three days of rest still doesn’t seem enough because the first 4 laps of warm up at the Oval was still a torture, somehow I can’t seem to tie my shoelaces right, during the first lap shoes felt too tight, then my calves started feeling tight too, I had to stop for a lot of stretching or risk injuring my knees or Achilles tendons. After four laps there was a slight pain in my right knee, felt like it’s not warming up enough, so I just went for it and ran at slightly sub 5min/km pace for 2 to 3 laps around the oval, and somehow after that everything seems to fall into place and I got my groove back and went on to finish 5km before a water break.

After the water break, it was torture, my right knee was at it again slight pain, I figured it must be the constant strain running the oval counter clockwise, so I decided to go clockwise, my apologies to the runners there for constantly surprising a few, but hey I’m only half finish and I don’t want to injure myself, but somehow my crazy idea worked! during my sixteenth lap I found a nice pace, which is my usual 2 min 40-50 sec per lap pace, I was back running strong again and so I kept at it and finish my goal of 10kms today, actually I added another lap to make 10.4kms and was semi tempted to go 12kms, I guess I’ve reached the runners high.

lessons learned today:
1.) 2 to 3 degrees change in my normal running temperature added almost 10 beats to my HR. today was a bit hot.
2.) I have to rethink long distance running in Ovals, and do more research, especially it’s effects on the knees.
3.) Check MP3 before leaving the house, my right earphone was not working.
4.) Readjust shoe laces as soon as it doesn’t feel right.
5.) Pick your clothes well, my tight fitting dri-fit cause quite a chaffing on my inner arms.

Surface: Dirt Track

Length: 400m inner lane

View: Calm and Serene on Sundays, Very busy on school days

Parking: Very Ample

Entrance: Free

Air Quality: Very Good

Useful Tips:

1.) If security guard stops your vehicle, just tell them you’re going to the oval track to jog.

2.) Parts of the Oval near the grandstand are a bit rocky

3.) Parts of the Inner/Outer lane is soft

4.) Be aware of surroundings on school days because students are accustomed to just walk or cross the track.

5.) Basketball, volleyball, softball and etc.. are all goin on around the track, so be aware of flyaway balls.

6.) Bring you water, i dont see a canteen near the track, though I’m sure there is one inside the university.

7.) If you need to take a leak, go to the poolside.

A good friend wanted to join me on The Happy Run, but wasn’t able to coz registration was full.

He wanted to join me in Botak Paabilisan, but wasn’t able to coz he didn’t know how to register last minute.

He planned to join me in my future races doing fun runs…..

But last night he went on a new journey alone.

Oliver Chan, a good friend with the purest of heart I know. Circumstances and geographically moving around has made him single all his life, he leads a clean and honest life no vices whatsoever. He was a friend that reminds you of your good side, and that doesn’t come by everyday.

Civil Eng Batch 99 will never be the same…

Section EP boys will never be the same…

LSD-Long Slow Distance, a term in running community that means exactly that, running long distances at slow pace.

LSE-Long Slow Eating, a term in my own running world.

It’s Sunday and it’s always my planned LSD, but after a fast pace 8k last friday, I haven’t fully recovered so I decide to do a recovery run of 5k at BU Oval later this afternoon.

Instead of doing LSD I’ll do an LSE instead, five minutes of youtube and I had my mind set on cooking my own Katsudon.

Katsudon recipe by http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klFyrnrUSck

tada…

and of course brown rice para healthier for our running bodies…

Magayon – Maganda – Beautiful

I think I’m one of quite a few people who would run through Magayon Drive, it is not exactly a runner’s paradise road, the street is very narrow and made of concrete, I always have to make sure I run facing oncoming vehicles. The beauty of this short one kilometer stretch is actually the view (this is the back/front of the airport runway depending on how you see it), I always find peace in this area. When mountain biking this is the calm before the steep slope of ligñon hill, I would spend Sundays taking sunset pictures here.

This road leads to a number of trails, you can make an exit to Bicol University to run at their Oval track, there’s a side path to Daraga Market that leads you to the famous 17th century Daraga Church, straight through you can go to Ligñon Hill and do Hill repeats, going forward from Ligñon will lead you to Barangay Pawa and Bonga where you can go serious trail running up to the Lava Wall of Mayon Volcano, moving on Bogtong Road will lead you back to Legazpi City across beautiful scenic view of Mayon Volcano and Yawa River. There’s also nothing stopping you from river running at the knee deep waters of Yawa (an endurance river running was held here a few years back), all these places I’ve mentioned are within a distance of 5-15k from the heart of the city. Given time I will do all these trips and post a photo blog.

PS
Photo taken with my crappy cellphone, it didn’t do justice at all to the sunset.

Ten Golden Rules of Lomography: (taken from http://www.lomography.com/about/ )
1. take your camera everywhere you go
2. use it any time – day and night
3. lomography is not an interference in your life, but part of it
4. try the shot from the hip
5. approach the objects of your lomographic desire as close as possible
6. don’t think
7. be fast
8. you don’t have to know beforehand what you captured on film…
9. …afterwards either
10. don’t worry about any rules

And so I took my Vivitar UWS with redscaled film while running my LSD 10k . Photos Below, hope you guys like it.

Ligñon Hill – Great place to jog and exercise, Legazpi City’s own Heartbreak Hill, 900 meters of steep slopes, great for hill repeats.

the rest were taken in Bogtong Road, a diversion road that links Legazpi and Daraga.

I came across a fellow takbo.ph runner’s blog i2runner.wordpress.com talking about counting mileage not just on a weekly basis but on a seven day history because our body doesn’t just resets itself at the start of the week.

Now I have always thought I’m at the 22-23km a week mileage, but after checking my Polar Protrainer logs, I realized since last Tuesday I’ve log in about 28kms.

Mar 4 – Recovery run 5k
Mar 6 – Mid Aerobic Zone 8k
Mar 8 – LSD 10k
Mar 10 – Speed Train 5k

From this realization, I think I can increase/decrease my newbie mileage at a better injury-free pace now. Thanks to Zixednatz for that blog.