Jogger

I jumped into the bandwagon. Jogging or running has recently become popular here in the city. It's so popular that almost every Sunday, one or two running events are staged. Most of the major streets are blocked to give way to thousands and thousands of runners.

I started joining fun runs last 2nd quarter. Getting myself to join my first ever run, I needed to overcome my insecurities and my self-doubt that I could finish the course. Although I've joined distance running back in highschool, I never got serious with it until just now. I used to be contented with just walking and walking around the blocks without end but it didn't give me much chance to sweat heavily. For sweat is relative to the heat generated by the body. The amount of heat given off is proportional to the calories burned.

Practice runs started on a treadmill. I got bored of spending too much time doing treadmills and walks for hours just to reach the target calories to be burned. I realized that running could burn me the calories at a faster time. It saves me some minutes which I could use to do other circuit exercises.

Endurance is one of the keys to running. Every aspiring jogger must develop the skill to sustain their running. I started with a 10-minute run on a treadmill. It was difficult at first to endure that amount of time on a treadmill but because I did it in successive days, my body learned to adjust to the activity. Having to do it everyday, I somehow gained the confidence that I could finish a certain distance.

My first run was last June 27. A 5km run which I did at a pace of over 6mins/km. Over the months, I had already joined 10 organized running events.

With constant practice, now I could do at least 60 minutes of continuous running. This translates into a minimum run of 10km. I did practice runs not only on a treadmill but also outside of the gym. Most of the times I did my runs around several blocks in an I.T. park in the city. I've tried running at the rubberized tracks of the city's sport complex and may soon be practicing there more often. My objective now is to carefully develop and increase my running time to 2 hrs so that I could already join the half marathon next year. It's a tall order for now, but I want to prove to my self that I could do it.

As for now, I am contented with the short courses. Gym bunnies and the eye candies usually join short distance runs. The marathon and the 21K runs are for the serious ones.

Since basically it's a START-to-FINISH thing, in the runs that I've joined, the distance between had validated my capacity and my determination to finish what I have started.