It’s been almost four years since my life as a competitive athlete ceased to be what it was before. From childhood to adolescence, up to my years as a young adult, the track and the road have been my playground, my home, a source of income, and at times, my escape from the troubles of the world. But as I came towards the end of my allowable stay at the University of the Philippines, College of Human Kinetics, it suddenly occurred to me that running would not put food on the table. I needed a fallback plan, in case my running career didn’t take off, or I become debilitated either by a running injury or old age. While I probably won’t go hungry working as a Physical Education professor, I felt that life had so much more to offer. And so, with nothing but my ambition, passion for running, some start-up money, and my saliva, I dabbled into the world of events organizing. And with that major shift in priority, my running career has taken a back seat since then. Well, at least until I was welcomed into the loving arms of the Timex family and became one of their product ambassadors. Soon after that, I rekindled my love for running and found myself once again sleeping in my running clothes and waking up as early as 4 in the morning to run up the treacherous hills of Sierra Madre.

Although I still continued to join run races once in a while, my breakthrough race was when I did the run portion of the Cobra Camsur Ironman 70.3 with my relay teammates Timothy Yap doing the swim, and Mark Bonzo on the bike.

I only had a few months to prepare, and training while being swamped with meetings and deadlines, and organizing races almost every weekend, proved to be much of a challenge. But luckily, the minimal training I was able to squeeze into my jam-packed schedule, coupled with the amazing talent of my young comrades, was enough to pull us through to a top podium finish in the all-male relay category.

And before I even knew what hit me, Timex instantly offered to send me to any Boston-qualifying race in the US and eventually to the Boston Marathon, IF I qualify. At that point, there was no turning back. I couldn’t let Timex down so I did what I had to do. I managed my time during the day, lessened late night dinners, and gave up last full shows so that I can sleep and wake up earlier. And again, thankfully, it was enough to earn me an unexpected fifth place finish for the 21K distance at the San Francisco Marathon, with a time of 1:17 – enough to qualify me for the New York Marathon – and to finish a mere 5 minutes faster than the Boston qualifying time for my age group at the Fresno Marathon. But that memorable experience was not without a lot of excruciatingly painful suffering during the last 10 miles. I don’t remember ever praying so hard as I cried out to God in pain and literally survived through prayer and the thought of not wanting to disappoint Ms. Gemma and my Timex family. It was, inarguably, the longest 10 miles of my life!

But the experience has definitely pushed me to train more seriously and regularly so as not to suffer the same painful fate. I’ve sought the help of my good friend and former classmate in UP and former running coach, Lemuel Dela Cruz – who is now based in Canada – for my training program, with no less than champion-marathoner and Boston-marathon-finisher Allan Ballester as my trainer and running partner. With my coach’s scientific principles backed by Kuya Allan’s wealth of experience, I know I’m in good hands. Now, I have no excuse but to do well at the Boston Marathon in April, and hopefully follow it up with a respectable performance at the New York Marathon in November. I’ve still got a long way to go, with hundreds of intervals to run, challenging target times to meet, and many hills to pave. This is my road to Boston.