Musing

Sitting alone amid the din and chatter
I think of birds chirping,
the rustle of fallen leaves
as running feet hit the ground.
When was the last time
I heard the brook whisper
unheard stories of lands it has seen?
When will I feel again
the kiss of the cool breeze on my sweaty skin?
Missing the trails while in a city
a hundred miles away I can only write lines
and wish I could run there again.

In perspective: Mary Joy Tabal’s 2018 Asian Games women’s marathon run

As is always the case with news stories, online reports on the performance of Cebu City’s Mary Joy Tabal, the country’s bet in the Jakarta Palembang 2018 Asian Games women’s marathon, had basically the same content but were headlined quite differently.

One read “Tabal finishes a tad outside of top 10 in one of toughest Asiad marathons.” The other: “Tabal good for only 11th in women’s marathon.” I guess it was the runner in me, something I take pride in, more than the journalist that had me thinking:  Now, that sounds quite belittling. So why don’t you try and run all 42.195 kilometers in the heat of Jakarta and let’s see what happens.

But the reporter was correct. Mary Joy failed to barge into the top 10. She did not manage to improve on the previous 8th place finish of another Filipina marathon standout, Christabel Martes, who ran for the country in the 2002 Asian Games in Busan, South Korea. But, no, this does not mean Tabal’s accomplishment in Jakarta was not notable.

“One of the toughest Asiad marathons” is a description with enough reason. Run in Indonesia’s tropical monsoon climate, a marathon in Jakarta, which in August is said to have temperatures ranging from a high of 31° Celsius to a low of 24° Celsius, could sap you.  The amount of heat produced by the body can increase 30 to 40 fold during a marathon. Over the entire course of the marathon, you will lose three to six liters of sweat. In hot weather, this could easily go up negatively affecting your performance. It slows you down. Without enough hydration to replace the lost fluid, your body could shut down.

Rose Chelimo was apparently slowed down by the Jakarta heat. The Kenyan-born runner has a marathon personal best of 2:22:51 set in 2017. She ran a 2:27:11 in London that same year in winning the World Championships women’s marathon. She clocked 2:34:51 in winning the gold for Bahrain in the August 26 race in Jakarta, more than 7 minutes down from her time in the world Championships.

So was Japan’s Keiko Nogami who took the silver in 2:36:27. She ran a marathon best of 2:26:33 in Nagoya, Japan earlier in March this year. She was slower by almost 10 minutes in the heat of Jakarta.

Tabal ran 2 hours, 51 minutes and 41 seconds in taking 8th place, a tad more than 8 minutes slower than her personal best of 2:43:31 set in 2016 when she placed eighth during the Olympic qualifying 2016 Gold Label Road Races held in cold Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It is also slower than 2:48:26 she set in ruling the 2017 Southeast Asian Games in Singapore last year.

Still, Tabal bested 8 other runners including two who did not finish, one from Kyrgyzstan and the other from China. 19 runners from 11 nations joined the race. Tabal was also the highest placed among the Southeast Asians, proving her gold medal finish in the marathon in the Singapore games last year was no fluke.

With Busan’s temperate climate conditions may have been a tad better for Christabel Martes on October 13, 2002 when she ran, one of 11 runners coming from 8 nations. Temperatures in Busan in October range from a high of 22° Celsius to a low of 14° Celsius. Martes finished in 3:09:48, the penultimate runner who crossed the line at the Busan Asiad Main Stadium, some 13 minutes ahead of Mariana Dias Ximenes of Timor Leste who arrived last in 3:22:03. Two other runners, a Chinese and a Korean, did not finish.

Christabel Martes still holds the Philippine women's marathon record of 2:38:44 set on July 2005 in Manila. When that will be broken and who will break it remains to be seen.


(Photo: Adrian Portugal/Rappler)

The last marathon

(Blogger's note: 5 years ago, I posted two entries on lessons I've learned running the marathon, the first one in February and the second one in July. Now struggling with added years and weight, I decided to look back at my last marathon almost 7 years ago, and write about it, sort of a third installment to my Marathon Lessons posts earlier. I hope I can do another one. The dream lives on even as I struggle through my current situation.)

  

December 4, 2011. I stood at the starting line along with the other runners of the 28th edition of the Davao Finishers' Marathon at the Victoria Plaza parking area. It was still dark. We start our 42-kilometer journey as most marathons here do in the early hours of dawn to make the most out of the cooler weather. Even in December, the intense morning sun has a way of beating down on you especially in the closing kilometers of what could perhaps be the most grueling road race in this part of the Philippines. I guess this has been its lure for me, the way the hills come one after another at the most crucial time, when your body has been through the stress of more than 10 kilometers of running. It is a tough race on a tough route where finishing is always sweet and fulfilling.

I tried as much to relax standing there side by side with some of the grittiest runners I know, faces I have seen more than once in races I have run here. These guys can run fast. These are the ones who would be kilometers ahead of me before the first quarter hour of this race is done. I wonder: what am I doing here with these guys? That is the beauty of this sport of ours, we can stand side by side with those we admire for their grit and prowess in this event, our idols, our heroes, feel one with them for a moment, all runners ready to face the challenge that looms ahead, one and the same. Until we are separated by the bark of the starting gun.

Most of the runners even the gritty ones stay bunched in the first few kilometers of the run, keeping a steady measured pace, avoiding getting burned out early. I run my own pace, keeping in mind not to chase those who go past me as that could spell disaster later in the race. I have always been the cautious runner. A friend told me once with a laugh that I was afraid of speed. Truth be told, I was afraid of speed, reckless speed. I know my limitations and I am mindful of it. I run at a fast pace I can hold. I don't surge. I just go on my steady pace, kilometer after kilometer, and that works for me. In a race as long as 42 kilometers, there would always be runners who passed you earlier that you eventually pass back later.

I passed back the first few of those runners on the Ma-a ascent. Before that were a couple of climbs, but nothing like the Ma-a ascent heading for the hills of the Diversion Road. It was a different beast, the Ma-a ascent. It is not one big short climb. It is a long steady ascent that slowly gnaws at your strength and endurance. It starts at the 15th kilometer and runs all the way to the halfway point at 21 kilometers, 5 long kilometers of steady climbing. Running it from the junction at MacArthur Highway in Matina to the junction at the Pan-Philippine Highway better known as the Davao City Diversion Road is a challenge to all who run this course, and it was a challenge I chose to face.

  

I have run this route more than a couple of times before this. I have always walked sections of this ascent in Ma-a. It has always left me frustrated, knowing a better time would have been possible if only I hadn't walked. But the legs grow weary, the body grows tired, and all that has a way of telling you either walk part of the way or you could end up not finishing at all. My legs and my body were stronger this time, more than in all those previous runs. I felt it. Yes, my legs were weary but not rubbery, I was tired but still comfortable enough with the stress, and I found myself running until the junction at the Diversion Road. The race was not over though. There were other hills along the remaining part of the route before the descent to the Panacan Crossing then the 32 kilometer point at the Davao City-Panabo Road.

I was upbeat up to that point of the run, my spirit buoyed up by being able to run continuously until the 32 kilometer mark. But there is a saying among marathon runners: it is the final 10 kilometers that count. The year before, a little past the 32 kilometer mark in the  27th edition of the Davao Finishers' Marathon, my mind and my legs began arguing. My mind was telling me to run. My legs were saying "walk". With less than 10 kilometers to go, my legs won, and I switched to run-walk mode. It was not until a while, with 5 kilometers more to go, that I started feeling better and started running longer than I walked. I ran the remaining 2 kilometers to the finish and crossed the line at 4:23:17.

  

It felt different this time. I was still running steadily, maintaining my pace until past the 35 kilometer mark at the junction of the road going to the old Davao City airport in Sasa. Still I was praying for continued strength or whatever remaining I can muster up to the finish line 7 kilometers more ahead. "Lord Jesus, give me strength." that became my mantra for the remainder of the race. Passing the Davao Medical Center and later the Redemptorist Church at Bajada told me I was nearing the finish line at Victoria Plaza. It was a mixed feeling of exhaustion and elation that overwhelmed me as I crossed the finish line. The latter more than the former. The clock showed 03:52:52. I broke the 4-hour barrier, logging an average pace of 5 minutes 30 seconds per kilometer. Doing it at the age of 56 made me feel good. Finishing in 10th place among male runners made me feel even better.

I DNF'd on my first take on this challenging race and route in 1994. I did two more marathons and finished both before I took on the Davao Finishers' Marathon again and conquered it 13 years after my first attempt. My third time to run it ended with a sub-4 and a 10th place finish to boot. All that told me one thing: patience and persistence do pay.

Finishing.

Elated with the 10th place finish.

And so I run on

I was wheezing as I hit the second ascent in the 10k route I had myself tackle that Saturday. Not that I didn't wheeze when I did this same route years before. I got into oxygen debt just the same back then. But doing the short but quite steep climb felt more difficult and demanding this time. I can only think of age as the most logical explanation. The same explanation I can think of for the added weight and the frustratingly slower times I have been doing my runs.

It was a hilly route, five kilometers out from where I start just a short distance from home and another 5 kilometers back. Along the route are three rivers where the road descends while approaching and goes up again from the bridge that spans each. It's the same both ways.

There isn't very much flat surface to talk about which makes the route quite a challenging one. It gradually climbs from the start to the first kilometer mark before it levels off a bit and then descends to the first bridge and goes up again on the second climb. Whatever momentum you gain on the descent to the bridge is erased by the time you hit the middle of the second climb. There is no denying the labored breathing and the heart's vigorous pumping. It would be comforting no doubt to stop and just walk the rest of the distance to the top of the ascent. Who would mind?

I would. Stubborn old me wouldn't allow this climb, this entire route in fact, to take the best of me and run me down. Not today. My runner's pride won't allow it. I had run this route before, I could run it again, and I would run it again. Period. So I trudge along, taking on one descent and ascent after another, carrying on with the added weight from added years, gulping as much air as I could while negotiating every steep climb to compensate for the oxygen debt, dying at every effort only to be revived and resurrected again every I reach the summit and take the downhill again only to face death yet again in the next uphill.

My boss several decades ago, very familiar with my running back then, told me runners are masochists who find pleasure in the pain. The harder and more difficult the run, the more we love it, the more we find gratification in it. Perhaps there is truth in that. Just as much truth as there is in finding gratification in being able to conquer and discovering how one can fare in the face of adversity, what one can do to overcome challenges, and in that find the gift that has been given and the blessing that has been bestowed.

Not that many my age are as stubborn, or as obsessed, as me in my chosen sport. I look around and I often only see mostly people half my age or even younger doing what I do.  I admit, I find pride in that. I revel in the fact that I am but among a few who can nail a 10k without taking a walking break in between kilometers. But at the same time, I am humbled by that. Humbled that such a gift has been given me. And when you realize that you have been blessed, what better thing is there to do than be grateful and give praise to the giver by utilizing the gift that has been given you?

And so I run on.