1. In a few hours today, Joy Rojas’ “Takbong Pangarap” Run Across USA will hold a Press Conference at the Hotel Intercontinental in Makati City about her 3,000-Mile Run Across USA which she completed on the middle of November 2009.
2. I knew this Press Con event from a Race Organizer who is close with Joy Rojas and Mat Macabe last week. I asked from the Race Organizer if I can attend the said event since I know that such event needs an invitation letter of e-mail. However, since Monday, I was given a lot of reasons and “alibis” for me not to be able to contact a certain Leila Caringal, the event organizer. And the Race Organizer who informed me about the event is no longer answering my text messages if there is a possibility that I could attend the Press Con. And what is worst, I know that Mat Macabe has my cellphone number.
3. It is on record in my blog that I tried to locate the location of Joy Rojas after a month or two from the time she started her run from Eagle Rock, California on the 2nd week of May of this year. From the e-mails I received from my ultra running friends and comments in my blog, some problems emerged from the team of “Takbong Pangarap” where one of the members left the team and returned to the Philippines due to some “complaints” and “misunderstanding” with Joy and Mat. Aside from the said “misunderstanding”, one of my readers questioned the integrity of the running event. I tried to get the side of Joy and Mat about such “issues” and it was an opportunity to exchange e-mails with Joy and she was able to send me some of her pictures of which were “grabbed” by other websites. Joy tried to evade to answer the “issues” but she told me that her run will go on. As Joy reached Idaho, I stopped monitoring her running event and since then, I never heard about her whereabouts.
4. After reading the book of Brian Stark on his experiences of running across the USA through the American Discovery Trail and Trail Roads without any support; watching the DVD film on Dean Karnazes’ 50/50 and Running The Sahara; and browsing the different blogsites and websites of runners who ran the Transcontinental USA for the past years ( pls refer to www.seejohnrun.com), I have my personal doubts about the feat and accomplishment of Joy Rojas. These ultra runners prepared their plans for years and collected at least 500 maps to trace and plan for their routes; they have journals and documents to prove their feat through their websites and blogs, complete with pictures; and they take advantage of the gadgets and devices that the high-technology world has to offer in order to track and recors their runs.
5. An ultra runner friend of mine, Tess Geddes, a Filipina who finished two editions of the Marathon Des Sable in the Sahara Desert had recommended me to track one of his ultra running friends, Ray Zahab, who was running across Canada with the use of a GPS tracker. By clicking his website at www.impossible2possible.com, I was able to locate him on real-time on what part of Canada he was running! Ray Zahab is the Canadian runner who is one of the team members who was featured in the film “Running The Sahara”.
5. If you think that this is one of my “crab mentality” stories and insights, this is not so! We are dealing here with the truth and integrity of a runner’s accomplishment and purpose. If I was not invited for this presscon because of the thought that I might “ruin” or question the integrity of Joy Rojas accomplishment, then they are wrong. I will let this blog speaks for itself. You will be the judge.
(P.S. I never met Joy Rojas in person! The PressCon would have been a nice venue to meet and congratulate her personally)
Bald Runner 
One thing I learned from running is not to fake your accomplishments. I’m not ashame if I only run 1K or 10K for me making that first step is my biggest accomplishment of all.
Been following your blog for sometime now its very informative and serves as my inspiration and motivation to keep on running.
Happy holidays sir.
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thanks, mon. in whatever you do, you have to maintain the integrity of the feat you’ve been through. keep on running. my friend!
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How sad. If that’s the case, then let them be. I only hope that what they’re claiming to be is authentic and not fake. True to what you have said, ‘crab mentality’ is not the issue, we wanted only to rejoice with them, with such enormous feat.
Iimbitahan na lang kita Sir sa presscon ko someday hehehe.
Nice post
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pls find time to read the bull runner’s latest blog entry, this proves that i was not invited while others were invited. i was thinking that the event was cancelled. how sad…very sad!
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We will have to take their word and trust that they are telling the truth. But being a writer for the Philippine Daily Inquirer it would have been easy for Joy to keep a blog and share her experiences online. I hope she will write a book about her run across the USA, and also her run across the Philippines. An article written by others about it is not enough.
I wonder if they gave a video presentation of the epic journey.
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father, i wonder, too if they presented any video about her run. thanks for the comment.
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Sir jovie, not sure if she was able to run across the US but i did read months back that she had a stress fracture either on her hip or lower leg but i know a stress fracture will not allow you to walk properly let alone run. maybe she walked across the us?
a friend did run with her last month somewhere in the east coast area
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yes, i read about that story which she wrote for PDI. i can not comment on the said injury because i was not there with her. we only rely on her words.
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and this injury started early during their run across the states..
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yes, that was she said in her story. hopefully, she will be able to come up with her full account of her run so that we will be informed. thanks!
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Saying ‘cross my heart and hope to die’ is not enough. she owe it to everyone to come up with a proof.
I still believe that one day Joy will show all the proof to give credibility to her claims. I will just wait. she must be tapering or recovering right now. 🙂
Nice post, Sir.
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i hope she will show some proof of her aside from the pictures she sent to me. we will just wait.
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if there’s nothing to hide, then they should not be afraid of any kind of scrutiny. if they chose to shy away from these, then the touted achievements of Takbong Pangarap will forever remain tainted. if they chose to fake their accomplishments, then history will judge them unkindly. lest they prove themselves otherwise, then Takbong Pangarap will just remain as it is – a dream.
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check out the latest blog of The Bull Runner @ http://www.thebullrunner.com wherein she was invited to the said presscon. we have to wait for the interview of joy rojas which she promised to publish.
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Hi BR,
I was a little skeptical about the run across the US after you tried to track them initially. Maybe 2 weeks ago, I saw a photo of her taken in NY (?) to show that she finished. Hmmm, I thought.
But I do applaud anyone who makes such an attempt. That’s just crazy. Who has the time?
QS
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you are right. for us who had been to the US of A knows what is like to run there. well, a photo does not say so much running from LA to New York City.
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hello again , from the press releases joy ran again from st.louis missouri on the second week of oct after she recovered from her stress fracture injuries and torn muscles, passed by western union branch washington dc and ended up in central park new york on nov 22. i googled the distance and it came to about 1,031 miles (try it), my running friends in the east coast think this is too fast from someone just recovering considering the wind chill of autumn (cmon, girl get a grip) – maybe she got more than a little help from her sponsor, a lift perhaps?
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that is what i suspect…somebody made her run faster after recovering from her injuries.
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hello,
do you know when she had the stress fracture and muscle strain? i know recovery period for this type of injury is no running for 6-12 weeks
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i think i read an article with PDI last sep-oct which she wrote and i am sure she might had a “miracle cure” for her injuries.
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me again – technically if you start on May 10 (is it) and end on Nov 22 or six and a half months later , you could actually walk on a leisurely pace from california to new york without injury making your Trans-USA sojourn more a travelogue than an athletic feat requiring no hoopla or records trumpeted as being broken
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Galit ka ba kay Joy Roxas? Bakit naman?
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