Hereunder is the Photo Video of my trip to Turkey to join/participate in the 2018 Salomon Cappadocia Ultra Trail Race which was held in October 2018. This training running event is part of the Ultra Trail World Tour Event. I have published a Race Report of this event in this blog.
Thank you for watching.
By the time this newsletter hits your inbox, runners in the 2020 edition should have been testing themselves along the course of the Badwater 135, which many consider to be ‘the world’s toughest footrace’. Alas, in a very last-minute decision, organizers of the Badwater 135 cancelled this year’s edition, leaving this year’s field wondering what they could have accomplished with their fully formed fitness and heat acclimation strategies.
PHOTO ©ADVENTURECORPS, INC.
I have been fortunate enough to run and crew for the Badwater 135 a total of eight times, as well as prepare numerous runners for the event. All of these experiences have had an impression on me, and I am a better coach because of them. No other group of runners prepare quite as meticulously as the Badwater athletes do. The combination of the searing heat, mind numbing monotony of the road, the complexity of the application process and the exclusivity of getting an entry, the sheer expense of participating, and a relentless culture of improvement that has evolved over the years all combine to create what I observe to be the most prepared ultramarathon field on the planet. And the statistics bear this out. Badwater, despite the notoriously difficult conditions, has a finish rate of 85-90%. As a comparison, the Leadville Trail 100 hovers around a 50% finish rate for any given year, and the coveted Western States 100 has finish rates routinely between 70 and 80%. Make no mistake, the Badwater runners and their crews come fully prepared and bring it on race day.
Badwater is also one of the greatest hot environment sports performance proving grounds imageable. The searing heat will put your heat acclimation strategy to the test. Frequent access to your crew (your crew can leapfrog the runner in a support van) allows the runner to put cooling strategies and nutrition interventions in place without many logistical limitations. Being a crafty lot, Badwater runners have implemented an array of bizarre, sometimes effective and ultimately outlawed strategies in order to gain an advantage. Over the years I have seen everything from the use of refrigerated trucks to pacers on rollerblades with umbrellas (both of these strategies are now prohibited, by the way) to battle the heat. Still, the Badwater runners don’t always use the most efficacious strategies when it comes to heat acclimation and nutritional interventions. They tend to try to combat the challenges the course and environment will throw at them with contrived and combined strategies that at times are ineffective or even counterproductive. You might not ever have the urge to do the Badwater 135, but there are still some lessons we can all learn from the strategies this hearty group of ultrarunners use to battle the course and the heat, what actually works and how things go awry.
Out of all the unique aspects in preparing for the Badwater 135, acclimating to the heat naturally gets the most attention. With temperatures that can be in excess of 120 degrees, runners rightfully approach this element of preparation with upmost importance. I first attended the Badwater 135 in 2006. When I arrived in Death Valley, I curiously took a straw poll of the participants to understand the heat acclimation strategies they used in training.
PHOTO ©ADVENTURECORPS, INC.
Over the years, either at the race of from afar, I have done the same straw polling and observed what the athletes were doing to prepare. I recently pulled my notes from these experiences and below is a short list of various protocols I’ve found, in no particular order:
Although the complexity and duration of these protocols vary, they all can be catalogued into two broad categories: 1) passive acclimation/acclimatization strategies and 2) active acclimation/acclimatization strategies. Each have basic advantages and tradeoffs.
Passive strategies (strategies where you just sit there and let the environment do its job) allow for heat acclimation to occur with minimal interruption to training. They do not, however, allow you to ‘feel the heat’ while running, and many athletes feel the need to experience training in a hot environment before competing in one, simply to understand the sensation.
Active strategies (strategies that use a combination of exercises and environment) allow for heat acclimation to occur and for the athlete to feel the sensation of running in a hot environment. However, compared to Badwater, where the humidity is low and solar radiation is high, some of the contrived active strategies will be mismatched, particularly the overdressed ones that create a high humidity environment with little solar radiation. Additionally, active acclimation strategies involve some training compromise either by reducing the duration or intensity of the training session to accommodate for the increase in core temperature.
Fundamentally, heat acclimation strategies work by inducing systemic and cellular responses to help your body cope with the heat. Systemically, your body responds (primarily) by increasing plasma volume and sweat rate in an effort to dissipate heat. Cellularly, your body upregulates heat shock proteins which act as cellular chaperones and managers for proteins that have been damaged by heat stress and other forms of degradation. Both systemic and cellular responses help athletes manage the heat in various ways, ultimately resulting in increased exercise capacity in the heat (and sometimes in temperate environments).
What has started to emerge in the research is that the extent of core temperature increase is critical to the success of the strategy. Heat up your body to a certain temperature and then hold that temperature for a certain amount of time and you get great results. Miss the mark on the temperature or duration and the physiological results are not as good. This critical core temperature, which appears to be in a very narrow range of 38-38.5 °C or 100.4-101.3 °F, is difficult to achieve and athletes will describe it as somewhere between ‘feeling hot’ to ‘too hot, dizzy and lightheaded’.
Through this lens, we can look at the aforementioned strategies from our (perhaps ill-fated) Badwater runners. Strategies that are capable of producing a core temperature of 38-38.5 °C will be markedly more effective than those that do not. Additionally, active acclimation strategies (strategies that involve running/cycling in the heat or overdressed) will most likely be hampered by compromising exercise intensity, as a high core temperature will limit the duration or intensity of running (how long can you run while being ‘dizzy and lightheaded’?).
The Best of Both Worlds
Many athletes now choose to use an ‘active-passive’ protocol, where they go out and do a normal run and then immediately jump into a sauna or hot water immersion bath. The initial run begins the process of increasing core temperate and the heat exposure from the bath or sauna finishes it off to achieve the critical temperature of 38-38.5 °C. In this way, training is not compromised and the sauna/hot water immersion bath session duration is reduced. If you really feel like you need to ‘feel the heat’ to experience the sensation of running in a particular environment, contrive the environment to try to match the temperature, solar intensity and humidity of your event as much as possible, and do so for the minimum number of sessions to do the trick. For the Badwater runners, a treadmill with a dryer vent blasting in your face a few times is a better option than running around in a down jacket for a month.
THE VIEW OF RACERS RUNNING INTO THE EVENING, FROM WHITNEY PORTAL.
Ultrarunning has been known to produce good hallucinations. Sleep deprivation combined with physical exhaustion, bonking, and blurred vision is a ripe recipe for the mind to conjure up memories of distant past and teleport them into a fuzzy present. And Badwater hallucinations are the best, by far. While your trail ultrarunning compatriots will brag about stories of a stick that turned into a snake, a tree stump that looked like a bear or a rock that talked, the Badwater hallucinations take this altered reality to a whole other dimension. The runners at Badwater encounter a cast of characters ranging from the Michelin Man to old 49er miners. Even the infamous white line painted on the road gets in on the action by transforming into various beings of and out of this world. Hallucinations come complete with incomprehensible background stories (the Michelin Man is there to run for President), unintelligible plot lines (I was helping the 49er change a tire), and bizarre interactions that border between a Star Wars movie and a DMT trip.
There is zero training for this. So, I have no help for you here other than to say if you really want an out of this world experience, just go run Badwater.
One of the differentiating features of the Badwater 135 compared to other ultramarathons is that you have copious access to your crew and supplies. Food, water, pacers, your medical kit and the all-important performance enhancing ice, are never more than several minutes away. And, this level of assistance can be intensive. I once paced an athlete from Furnace Creek to Stovepipe wells, just a 24.6-mile section of the race, and blew through over 60 liters (15.8 gallons) of ice water in the process of drinking and dousing. And while it might seem like a luxury to have your every ultrarunning need fulfilled at a moment’s notice, at times it can be a bad thing. Runners can take on too much fluid and too many calories, particularly in the beginning of the race, simply because they are there. And later they lean on their crews to bail them out of a situation when they could simply just put their head down and run.
Remember that when you are training, you are doing the vast majority of it by yourself. Almost any racing situation involves many times more support than you would receive during any training session. And Badwater is an extreme example of this. While ultrarunners should learn to leverage their crews, pacers and other support personnel, they should not rely on them to get the job done. You don’t need pacers or crew to get the job done (in most ultras). Do they help, yes. But, running is ultimately the responsibility of the runner.
Like many of the races that couldn’t happen this year, Badwater will ultimately be back. I look forward to returning in some capacity, as an athlete, coach or crew. I simultaneously learn and get a chuckle out of many of the strategies athletes use to prepare for the event. I love hearing stories of how many layers of clothing athletes put on for a simple training run and how Kermit the Frog ran alongside athletes in the middle of the night during the race. Soon enough, we will get to experience or hear about all of these again. Until then, we can learn for the next time.
References-
Gibson, Oliver R et al. “Heat alleviation strategies for athletic performance: A review and practitioner guidelines.” Temperature (Austin, Tex.) vol. 7,1 3-36. 12 Oct. 2019, doi:10.1080/23328940.2019.1666624
Before Jason Koop wrote his book “Training Essentials For Ultrarunning” where he highly recommends Rice Cakes as one of the best solid food for ultrarunners, Dr Allen Lim, born in the Philippines and raised in the USA, Doctorate in Integrative Physiology; Director Of Sports Science for the Radioshack Pro Cycling Team and the Garmin Pro Cycling Team; and the only American scientist who had the unique distinction as the Chef/Cook for the said teams in their 2010 & 2011 seasons for the Tour De France, is considered as the originator of the famous Allen’s Rice Cakes which are very popular to professional cyclists as their food during their daily races in the said Tour and during their training rides.
Copied from Dr Allen Lim’s book, “The Feed Zone Cookbook: Fast And Flavorful Food For Athletes”, the following are the ingredients and procedure on how to prepare/cook the said cakes:
Ingredients:
2 cups uncooked calrose rice or other medium-grain “sticky” rice or sushi rice
3 cups of water
8 ounces of bacon
2 tablespoons of liquid amino acids or low-sodium soy sauce
brown sugar
salt and grated parmesan (optional)
Procedure:
Per Serving (1 cake): Energy: 225 calories; Fat: 8 grams; Sodium: 321 mg; Carbs: 30 grams; Fiber: 1 gram; Protein: 9 grams
Time of Preparation/Cooking: 30 minutes
I have been a loyal user of Salomon Trail Shoes since I started training and joining in trail running events whether they are local or international ones. After I have used a lot of pairs of their S-LAB Sense Trail Shoes, I bought my first pair of Speedcross 4 in one of the local distributors in the Philippines. ROX Philippines at BGC was my first choice of store if I am looking for reliable trail shoes. This is also where I bought all my Salomon S-LAB Sense Trail Shoes. I was lucky when the store have a 9 1/2 size of the Speedcross 4 as most of their stock for sale don’t have half-sizes. I immediately bought the said shoes and brought them to my Playground for a good run. That was almost 3 years ago.
As compared to the S-LAB Sense models, I found the Speedcross 4 to be more padded on the uppers and tongue which gave more comfort to my feet when running. I am also appreciative that the shoe drop or the difference between the stack height of the forefoot area and the heel portion is 10 mm which gave much comfort to my aching Achilles tendon on my right heel. I could run forever in these shoes without any pain on my Achilles tendon on the uphill and downhill runs. The shoe weights a little heavy with 310 grams on each shoe but the weight is given more to give comfort to my feet. The best feature of these shoes is the aggressive grip of the lugs on its sole. The sole lugs are best fitted to our local trail condition where most of the grounds are soft and muddy. They are also stable when running on rocks and roots that I did not have any experience of sliding from them. The quicklace system of the shoes is also very efficient and fast when wearing or removing them during races and training. Once you tighten the shoes with the quicklace system, you can roll the end of the lace and have it tucked inside the pocket at the end of the shoe tongue. The shoe looks slick without the ends of the shoelace dangling outside the shoes. The uppers are also quick to dry whenever they become wet with my sweat or during small stream or river crossing. The only weakness of this particular Salomon Model is the narrow forefoot. It is ok with my feet because they are narrow, too but in longer ultra trail races in the mountains, there is the tendency for my feet to expand that I need to loosen its “quicklace”. I have solved this problem by buying one size bigger and my shoe size now for this particular model is now Size 10.
In all my races here and abroad in 2018 and 2019, I have been using the Salomon Speedcross 4 and I am happy with its performance. I am still using them in my training runs but I have observed that the outer sole with the shoe lugs are getting torn apart from the shoes. I guess, the glue that binds the outer sole and the rest of the shoe is already brittle and dry. I could still have some glue in them but I have already bought two pairs of the Salomon Speedcross 5 as its replacement in Sizes 10. Actually, I have used the Speedcross 5 in size 10, in my two latest races: TNF Hongkong 50K last December 2019 and Borneo Ultra Trail Marathon last March this year. I will have a separate Shoe Review on this particular model and will have to compare them with the older Speedcross 4.
I have seen lately on the ads in the Social Media that the Salomon Speedcross 4 shoes are still available On Sale in the local market. Since they are now cheaper, if you haven’t tried them, I suggest you get one pair for your training and for your future trail running events. I guarantee that the price is worth its efficiency and durability. Overall, the Salomon Speedcross 4 is far, the most durable trail shoes in my trail running arsenal and I highly recommended them to beginners, average , and competitive trail runners.
I think I will be using my two pairs of Salomon Speedcross 5 for the next 3-4 years!
After running for six weeks on MAF training, easy running using my Heart Rate Monitor, following the MAF Formula where my beats per minute range would be from 112 to 122 beats per minute must be maintained while I was on my running workout. As a review, Maximum Aerobic Function (MAF) Formula is 180 minus my age of of 68 plus 10 bpm being a runner of more than 65 years old and had never been “sidelined” from running due to injury. My MAF bpm is 122 and my range of MAF Beats Per Minute during my running workout should be 112 to 122. For the past 6 weeks, I was not supposed to breach the maximum bpm of 122 during my easy/recovery runs. However, with my training schedule being a CTS athlete for the past weeks, I have to follow my training schedule and workout as prescribed by my Coach. However, what I have observed was that I was not fatigued in my tempo runs and I could easily recover after a day of hard training.
After two days of not running due to the inclement weather in my Playground, I was fully rested during the weekend and I decided to have my first MAF Test today, June 29, 2020. After a short stretching exercises, I started my run with a warm-up for one mile where my Heart Rate steadily increased from 90 beats per minutes to 112 after my first loop in my Backyard. Before I finished my first mile, I was able to reach 119 beats per minute. Once I finished one mile, I went on on my First Mile for my MAF Test. I finished my first mile in 16:15 minutes where I had to walk for a few seconds after my bpm reached to 123 bpm on the last 400 meter of my first mile. After the first mile, I took a picture of my GPS Watch, take a sip of cold water, and walked a few meters until 30 seconds elapsed (this ritual was repeated every time I finish a mile) and started my 2nd mile. The following is the list of my time every mile:
1st Mile——16:15 minutes 4th Mile——14:37 minutes
2nd Mile—–15:28 minutes 5th Mile——14:35 minutes
3rd Mile——14:31 minutes
It was only on the first mile that I breached 122 bpm to 123bpm but it was able to bring it back after a few seconds of hiking. For the rest of the miles, I was able to maintain my average of bpm within 121-122. On my last mile, I was able to maintain the whole mile with an average bpm of 122.
Although my Backyard Loop is not the ideal venue or location for my MAF Test, I am still satisfied with the result of my test and how my body felt after the workout. My body was very relaxed and not so worn-out or fatigued. In my past MAF Tests few years back, I have been doing them on Oval Track, being faster than my time in my Backyard Loop. With the uneven ground, lots of turns, and single-track trail in my Backyard Loop, I expect that my time would be slower than running in an oval track. On the contrary, I think I am faster now as compared when I had my MAF Test in 2011.
After 4 weeks, I will be doing my second MAF Test with the hope that I will be able to lower the times as compared to the results today. I will continue to apply MAF training in my easy/recovery runs in the coming days and weeks. I know that I will be a better and smarter runner in the next months and years due to this training.
In the history of the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB), the race started in 2003 but only after eight (8) years (2011) when Ultra Trail Runners from the Philippines started to join this iconic trail ultra which is considered as the “Holy Grail” of Ultra Trail Running In The World. Hereunder is the list of Filipino Runners who finished the race with their Official Finish Time and their year’s edition:
Last night when I was about to go to bed, I saw the post of Camille Herron on her Facebook Page that “she is jumping for joy and gratitude that the Badwater 135 got the green light as a “GO” race in two weeks time”. I was surprised about her post because I did not know that she is one of the listed participants for this year’s edition basing from the last update that I saw last week on the website of the event.
I personally met Camille Herron during the Racing Briefing for the 2017 Tarawera 100K Ultramarathon Race in February 2017 in Rotorua, New Zealand. She won the Ladies Championship Trophy for that edition. From that simple meeting and “selfie”, we became friends on Facebook and from time to time I would leave a comment on her FB posts since then. I even went to the extent of sending her a copy of the Ultrarunning Magazine (courtesy of Badwater Ben Gaetos) where she was in the Cover Page being the Ultrarunning Magazine’s Ultrarunner Of The Year in 2017 for her autograph. I still have that signed magazine in my collection of Ultrarunning Magazines. Last year, she went back to Rotorua, New Zealand and joined the Inaugural Tarawera 100-Mile Endurance Race and she won again as the Female Champion with a new course record of 17:20:52 hours. On the same year (2017) when she won the Tarawera 100K Ultra Race, after four months, she won Ladies Champion of The Comrades Marathon in South Africa which brought back a US athlete in the Event’s Podium after an absence of 20 years! She is the 3rd US/American to win in this prestigious event.
Being the President of the Philippine Association of Ultrarunners which sanctioned National Federation of Ultrarunning of the country with the International Association of Ultrarunners (IAU), I have been monitoring all the IAU World Championships Races where I was always been invited. Camille holds the record for being the FIRST to win all three of the IAU’s 50K, 100K, and 24-Hour World Championships. At present, she holds the following best performances:
50 Miles (Road)—–5:38:41 hours
100 Mile (Road & Trail)—-12:42:40 hours
100 Miles (Track)—-13:25:00 hours
12 Hours (Track)—–92.66 miles (149.12 kilometers)
24 Hours (Track)—–167.842 miles (270.116 kilometers)
She was voted as IAU’s International Athlete Of the Year in 2015, 2018, and 2019. I voted for her as I am one of the members of the IAU Nominating Committee in those years. Her performance in ultrarunning speaks well and she is deserving to get the award, winning over the Europeans and the Japanese women’s runners.
It will be a very exciting competition among the top athletes in this year’s Badwater 135 Ultra. Mike McKnight, a friend of mine also on Facebook, is one of the competitors in this year’s event and I came to know him when he ran solo (as an experiment) in a 100-mile route without taking any solid food where he finished in 18:40 hours. He is also holds the 2019 Course Record and Champion of the 200-Mile Triple Crown in 161:20:10 hours where he broke his own record the previous year by 46 hours. The Triple Crown consists of three 200-mile races: Bigfoot 206-Mile Race; Tahoe 205-Mile Race, and; Moab 238-Mile Race, a total of 650 miles.
Since there are no Men’s and Ladies’ Categories in the history of Badwater 135-Mile Ultramarathon Race, this will a good fight who will be the Champion and First to cross the finish line at Mt Whitney Portal. Good luck to these two fine and very friendly athletes!
I will be posting updates in this blog for this year’s Badwater 135-Mile Ultramarathon Race.
Chapter 3: My Four Months Training With CTS
I am not trying to force-feed you with the training that I did with CTS as I want to share my story from the time that they accepted my application as one of their CTS athletes. I was just lucky that I was able to contact Jason Koop when he was advertising the publication of his book on Ultrarunning in May 2017 and asked him if CTS accepts a 65-year old runner.
After I applied on line on their Website, I was asked to answer (on line) a questionnaire, asking my personal data, experience and number of years of training, and if I had a recurring running injury. After a few days, one of their Senior Coaches contacted me through e-mail and gave me instructions on how to set up my Premium Training Peaks Platform by giving me my Signing-In data. I think it costs me $70.00 as full time payment for my subscription with Premium Training Peaks. Two of my GPS Watches (SUUNTO Ambit 3 Peak and Garmin Forerunner) were linked to the said Training Site Platform. Everything (data) that my Coach need to know about my daily workout are uploaded to the Training Peaks and you can not fake your effort on those data. The Senior Coach had briefed me about the terms being used on the description of each workout and the specific data that are incorporated in the workout. Above all, my workouts were given to me in the number of hours and minutes and not by the number of miles or kilometers that I have to run in each day. My Coach asked me what is my preferred REST Day for the week and I said, I would like it on Mondays.
My Coach would send me my training workout for two weeks and each day I should give my feedback how my body felt in terms of effort from EASY to Very HARD, the rank measurement is from 1 to 10 with Rank 1 as Very Easy and 10 as Very Hard. It is a also a “must” that you send a short message as how you felt during and after the workout. Your feedback description will be gauged in terms of your fitness condition, fatigue, and motivation. However, your feedback will be matched with numerical data captured from your GPS Watch and as seen on Training Peaks. At the end of the week, you can easily see your totals in terms of the total number of hours and the total of miles/kilometers you covered from those hours.On those first days as CTS athlete, I would review the Book on Ultrarunning by Jason Koop making sure to know the description and details of each workout I was given to do.
It is worth mentioning that the Coach would prescribe in each daily workout the following description: (1) the number of hours and minutes of your total workout; (2) each workout is described from its warm-up period (in minutes), main workout (in hours and minutes, depending how long is the period), cool-down period (in Hours/minutes); and (3) the type of terrain where the Coach would suggest you to run, whether it is flat road, trail, or in a course with hilly or steep elevation. The Coach would suggest also your “Total Score Stress” (TSS) where Training Peak would refer it as Running Total Training Stress (rTSS). Depending on what type of workout, the Coach will designate an rTSS score for a specific workout (Easy Run, Endurance Run, Tempo Run, Hill Repeats or Interval). The higher the score, the more the stressful the run. Thus, your workout will be quantified in terms of training stress for a specific running workout. Once I upload my workout from my GPS watch, my rTSS for the workout will be immediately compared with the suggested rTSS from my Coach. Most of the time, my workout rTSS would not surpass or equal my Coach rTSS. But in my feedback, I felt that I am wasted as a result of the workout. Anyway, whether I can equal or not on the required rTTS, my personal observation was that I was running stronger every week.
For the first two weeks of training workout, I was given a mix of Endurance Runs, Tempo Runs, and Recovery Runs from the duration of One Hour & Thirty Minutes to Two Hours. In the succeeding weeks, I was introduced with Hill Repeats. After three weeks, I was asked to conduct a “20-minute field test”. It is done by having a 15-minute warm-up run first and then I did my fastest 20-minute run along a flat paved road, and then had a cool-down for 30 minutes. The result of my “20-minute field test” determined my Average Pace for the Tempo Run. The Average Pace would be my target time whenever I do my Tempo Runs. Most of the succeeding weeks will be devoted to Tempo Runs and Hill Repeats! I was surprised that my Tempo Run’s Average Pace would be faster than my usual Tempo Pace. Before, I could not breach less than 9:00 minutes per mile pace with too much fatigue and pain to my legs and body after each workout. But after 3 weeks of CTS training, I was able to breach the 9:00-minute barrier and with more regular “test runs”, I was able to record a 8:09 minute per mile pace and then lowered it to 7:30-minute pace. With my age and not-so-perfect running form and short legs, I could not believe how fast I could make those leg turn-overs whenever I do my tempo runs on a flat paved road. Since I was preparing for ultra trail runs in the future, I did not have a chance to run on the oval track. I guess, I could run faster if those “20-minute field test” runs were done on an oval track.
One month before the Javelina Jundred 100-Mile Endurance Race, I was given more time for my Endurance Runs on trails in my Playground and they would last from 4 hours to 6 hours. CTS would not allow their athletes to run more than 6 hours in their Endurance Runs for the basic reason that the runner could not recover in a span of one to two days. CTS wants their athletes to be fresh and feeling stronger after a day of recovery. The training concept on those four months was clear to me as it followed the training concept and principles written in the book of Jason Koop—-assessment of my body on the 1st two weeks, followed by fast runs through tempo runs and hill repeats, and then Endurance Runs on the last weeks leading to the target race.
Bottomline, with those 4 months leading to JJ100, I was not injured, my body was always fresh and recovered on Tuesdays, and felt becoming stronger during my Tuesday runs.
In the next succeeding posts, we will go to the details of my daily workouts.
Chapter 2: Consistency & Coaching Services
On The Local Running Coaches
After six months of blogging on this site, I retired from the active military service and created a team of elite runners which was then called “Team Bald Runner (Elite)”. I had then the best running team in Local Races in the country consisting of active soldiers from the Philippine Army and Candidate Soldiers for Enlistment to the Philippine Army. The team was coached and supervised by three (3) local coaches who were active soldiers (also) and about to retire from the active military service. One was an officer with a Rank of Captain and the two other coaches were senior Non-Commissioned Officers or Enlisted Men. The Officer and one of the Enlisted Men were IAAF sanctioned Level 3/4 Coaches while the other Senior Enlisted Man was a former Local Marathon Champion of so many Corporate-supported Marathon Races and winner also in International Marathon Races (Southeast Asia) in the 70s and early 80s.
During those days, my team won almost all the weekly fun runs and local marathon races, to include the early editions of Ultra Trail Running Events sponsored by one of the Outdoor brands. Their prizes were their personal incentives and I never had any share from their earnings. It was my way of helping them and motivate them to improve in their way of living. Almost all of them came from poor families in the provinces and longing to enter the military service with the running talent that they possess. I am proud that I became the bridge and instrument for them to enter the military service as most of them now have rise up from the ranks of Private to Staff/ Technical Sergeants, and for the smart ones, they became members of the Officer Corps. I had also the chance to bring them to International Races in Asia in IAU-sanctioned and world corporate sponsored races. In all these international races, they brought pride to our National Pride and Flag without any support coming from the Government.
The whole Team were housed and supported by me for three years. And one of the Multi-National Corporate Brands in the country had supported the Team for 6 months with the objective of qualifying them to the National Pool of athletes for the Marathon distance. Despite such effort, the support to this Team was not sustained as to the cohesiveness of the team and in terms of financial resources. There had been personal differences among my Coaches plus the fact that most of my runners became regular soldiers of the Philippine Army and some were re-assigned to different units outside Metro Manila. When the Team was dissolved, these three Coaches went on their own lives. One continued to develop runners in the “grassroots” level in the province where he is now residing. One is already immigrant in one of the temperate countries in the West. And the other one is still active as a Coach in Metro Manila. I think one of the Local Qualifiers for the Boston Marathon is being handled by this Coach. You can ask around about this Local Coach if he is still available to be your Coach and be able to guide you to qualify for the Boston Marathon.
For some of the former members of the Elite Team Bald Runner, I have seen them as “Coaches” to some new runners whenever I do my daily running workouts at the Philippine Army Parade Grounds’ Jogging Lane in the early morning or in the late afternoon.
As I have monitored in the Social Media for the past 6-7 years, I have read and seen Coaches on running giving their services to new runners and I am not sure where they got their IAAF Certification or other related Running Coach Certification as Running Coaches. I am not questioning their credibility but, personally, it is very irritating to hear new runners calling a certain average/competitive runner as a “Coach” as their title to them! This personal observation goes also to my former members of the Elite Team Bald Runner.
Why am I mentioning this thing? Because there are so many pretenders in the local running community. I am very sorry to say this one and it is my opinion based from my personal experience and observation of what I see and hear around. Just because they (Local Coaches) can finish a Marathon Race in Sub-3 or Sub-4 hours, they are now allowed to be given the title as Coach. More often, if they always give you some advise and you feel you are getting stronger and faster, the tendency is for you to call this person as your “Coach”. I know, I am becoming “judgmental” on this but that is the reality nowadays. Just be aware that at some point as you progressed in your running career, you will experience what they call “running plateau” where the same workouts that are being fed to you by your Coach will no longer result to a better performance on your part and that will be the time that you are almost a few minutes or seconds before you can qualify for the Boston Marathon. This will be your greatest dilemma or challenge.
Always remember, if you want the services of a Coach and if you don’t want to pay, YOU are the best Coach to yourself because Running is the experiment of one! And you are the most reliable to be able to “Listen To Your Body”. But if you have the time and money, get the services of a PROFESSIONAL Coaching Service and you will continuously progress towards the attainment of your goal without any injury.
(Note: Starting in my succeeding posts, I will be sharing what I have learned from CTS based from the training workouts given to me from those four (4) months leading to the 2017 Revel Canyon City Marathon. I will be requesting a $2.00 donation (not compulsory) if you think my suggestion/advise will be useful to you and in your training leading to your goal to qualify for the Boston Marathon. You can send it through Pay Pal through my e-mail address: jovie75@hotmail.com. Such donation will go for the maintenance of this website and Internet connection service. Thank you very much!)
Since the time that I have been blogging about Running and other related topics and subjects on the development of local athletes in the National Sports Excellence Program for the Elite Runners and local talents with potentials to become included in the National Pool ofElite Athletes, I have always thought and wrote about the creation of a National Sports Academy to address this matter. Every time that this “idea” would come into discussion and part of recommendation for our better ranking in the Southeast Asian Games, Asian Games, and the Summer Olympic Games is when our political leaders and sports analysts try to find out what is the problem in our Elite Sports Program and why we are always at the bottom rank among our Southeast Asian and Asian countries. And up to this time in the history of the Summer Olympic Games, the Philippines has never attained its FIRST Gold Medal. It is becoming a recurring discussion, investigation, and Senate/Congressional Hearings on how we would be able to have the BEST Athletes for International Competitions and such investigations were always done after the past International Games were held but after one week, all the discussions/investigations and recommendations were all forgotten. This cycle is being repeated every two years and four years when the SEA Games, Asian/Olympic Game are held, respectively.
Our National Pride was saved when we hosted the 2019 Southeast Asian Games (last year) where we ranked as the Number One among the SEA countries and hosted a top-notch caliber of accommodation and hospitality to our visitors. Such “bravado” on the part of the National Leadership to “salvage” the hosting of the 2019 SEA Games from Brunei on the later part of 2015 which was initially planned to use our existing Sports Facilities/Stadiums and with the addition of the Philippine Arena had made way for the Duterte Administration to create a specific Place or Area where the 2019 SEA Games would be held. Thus, the New Clark City was created in a record time of two years as the site of the 2019 SEA Games. Its structures and facilities for Sports Events are high-tech and very modern that it can compete or better than the facilities for the Asian Games and Summer Olympic Games. Bottomline, we should always remember that we have attained a level of “The Best In Excellence” as a Nation in Sports and the “Best In Hospitality” as part of our National Culture and Trait. Let us continue these in the years ahead.
This month of June 2020 and after 7 months from the being the Number 1 in the SEA Games, President Duterte had signed Republic Act No. 11470 which provides for the creation of the National Academy of Sports last June 9, 2020 in a simple ceremony at the Presidential Guest House in Davao City. “The Academy aims to develop aspiring Filipino athletes who are in the secondary level or high school and have demonstrated potential to excel in VARIOUS SPORTS by providing WORLD-CLASS for training and at the same time, continue their education”. The Academy shall be attached with the Department of Education in close coordination with the Philippine Sports Academy. The Academy shall be established at the New Clark City Sports Complex in Capas, Tarlac using its structures, facilities, and accommodation for the students.
This my personal opinion on the creation of the National Academy of Sports (NAS). Finally, one of my ideas in the development of Sports Excellence had been realized. It is a small FIRST step but it is really BIG in terms of providing continuity and permanence in instilling sports excellence among our local athletes. However, I have yet to read the whole content of this Law and find out the details on its Organization, Administration and Operation. I will be writing and posting updates on this Law once I get hold a copy of it. It will be a good source of discussion in my future posts.
Thank you for reading!
Bald Runner 
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