I missed the company of the other “blogger-runners” after finishing the Adidas “King of the Road” 21K Run last Saturday morning. After seeing Bards aka Banana Running with her camera taking my finish pose; having a pose with Ivan from Los Banos, Laguna and the Philippine Army runners, I tried to look for my car where I could change my running kit. Instead, I met my officers and runners from Camp Aguinaldo and they offered me a bottle of 100 Plus Orange-flavored bottled drink while we were having a brief conversation. As soon as I finished drinking the whole bottle, I felt something wrong with my stomach! The drinks made some weird reaction to my stomach that I felt I was going to have a “LBM”. I immediately located my car and went home, missing the “photo-ops”, brief chats, and race stories with the other runners, most especially to the “runner-bloggers”. Anyway, after “relieving” myself at my place, I had to re-fuel, drink a lot of water and sports drinks, and had full rest. Later, I made my race report on this blog.

Yesterday afternoon, I decided to have my afternoon run along the stretch of Roxas Boulevard. I parked my car on the farthest open parking area at SM Mall of Asia. Wearing my TNF trail running kit, Camelbak Hydration, and ASICS Gel-KInsei 2, I was on the road, running along the roads of MOA towards the PICC-FAT-CCP complex until I reached the stretch of Roxas Boulevard. I reached up to the US Embassy before having my turnaround back to MOA. I did more running at the MOA area and stopped when I reached the distance of 14 kilometers to listen to a live band (infront of one of the restos located near the sea) playing the early songs of the Beatles (from their LPs “Hard Day’s Night” & “Help”). The songs and the wind near the sea were refreshing! But not the smell of the place. The smell of the underground drainage along the roads at the back of MOA was really awful and rotten! Anyway, what the heck? After all, I did a 14K run comfortably!

For last week’s recap, I was able to run a distance of 87.40 kilometers or 54.6 miles. I was able to increase at least 5 kilometers from my previous week’s total number of kilometers of 82. So far, so good with no problems/soreness/injury with my legs. Why? I would attribute this to the following factors/reasons:

1) 8-Hour Sleep—I see to it that before 9:00 PM I am already lying flat on my bed about to sleep with my alarm clock set at 5:00 AM. No TV. Just read comments posted on this blog, if there are any, after dinner or read the books of Dean Karnazes and blogs of other runners.

2) Ensure—Since I had “gout” and haven’t eaten pork, beef and some seafoods (since April), I’ve been drinking Ensure before and after my workouts as a supplementary drink. When I drink Ensure after my workouts, I allow at least one hour after drinking Gatorade/Propel drinks. I am not a paid advertiser of this drink but it really works for me. (I guess, I am already old!)

3) Water and Electrolytes—I drink a lot of water during workouts because I sweat a lot and drink more Gatorade or Propel after workouts.

4) Massage—Go to a professional masseur. It costs more but it is worth the price. Have your massage at least 2 days before the race and one day after the race.

I hope to have more runs this week! Rain or Shine!