Monday, February 21, 2005

Run Like the Wind

I planned a long time ago to write about my experiences as a seasoned jogger in this part of Cavite. In the hacked journals that had been deleted in my harddisk that brought me headaches as I tried to reinstall software components deleted along with all my files, there were a couple of scribbling about my jogging experiences as I was just starting to find this fitness exercise healthy for the body as well as for imaginative and observant writing-mind of mine.

There was a time, before the sun breaks out in the East, that I would run several rounds in the one hectare of vacant lot in front of our subdivision, my mother joining me or probably me joining her, being a hardcore smoker that I was and believer that there was no better life than living a sedentary life to ponder and write about life, stirring my limbs to sweat was far from my mind.


The experience brought boredom and uselessness since you could see nothing but cogon grasses, piles of garbage around, with pesky dogs barking at you as you do your rounds, and then made worse by defeatist practice of slumping on the ground as oxygen seemed had been depleted in the air. And to add more injury by taking puffs of ever-ready Marlboros in my pocket.

Where's the logic of it all, one would ask.

I said to myself, pondering for better running experience, that I would just have to postpone running, until I had a good running gears and ready to run along the stretch of Roxas Blvd., from Coastal Mall all the way to Luneta. Yet, that time would not come soon I thought.

Running came into my disordered rountine again after hearing that a highway, near us, Daang Hari as it was named, was suitable for runners. Of course, you still have to keep yourself on sidewalk to avoid being hit by speeding automobiles.

When the rebirth of my jogging journey began, running consistently was an ordeal. Just a short stretch was short of pushing me on the brink of collapsing, the nicotine accumulated through long years of smoking was hard to shake off out of my clogged, brownish lungs. A hundred meters of continuous running would make me gasp for air, my lower limbs faltering, and my world was getting dimmer. After two consecutive days of running, I returned home dead tired, the whole body aching, and the thought becoming sick. After running for one and half hours, I would sleep the rest of the morning.

Nevertheless, my body has gotten accustomed to running already. Myself still brimming with energy enough to write throughout the day.

Now, as a I have become a frequent runner along Daang Haring, the order of the day is to run longer stretch in the coming weeks and months. Attempting to run farther distance, I'm training myself to have the heart of an athlete, the go-getter, aiming to beat every competitor, including myself.

When I run, even as I am already panting, knees and calves weakening crying for a rest, I imaginatively beat my chest to keep running still. Shouting inside of me that I have the heart. "You can do it!" a variation of ancient Japanese swordsman Miyamoto Musashi' chant: "Just do it!"

And yes, I'm gonna run with a heart as I did hours ago, and for the coming days ahead.

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