Three weeks ago, after I had finished my 12th and final laser-and-ultrasound therapy to cure the Iliotibial Band Syndrome (ITB) injury I sustained while running, my fear was that the pain would recur when I ran the 2008 Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon. And so, when I asked a good friend and top Cebu physician what medicine he recommended to help prevent such injury from revisiting during race-day, his answer caught me dumbfounded: Viagra.
Month: December 2008
Singapore Marathon
Suffering, victory at the Singapore Marathon
SINGAPORE—As much as we wanted to watch Manny Pacquiao, his fight was not shown here. Too bad. But what a victory for the Filipino! Updates on our Singapore Marathon… Millette Chiongbian ran the fastest, but what a story: Staring at her Garmin GPS watch in the early part of the race, Millette’s pace read “6:00 mins./km.” That’s too slow, she told herself, and so she sprinted. The next thing she realized, her speed was 3:45 mins./km.—unbelievably fast.
Better to have a ‘good time’ or a good time?
As I’ve written on this sports box on many occasions, last February 17, I attempted my first 42K run at the Hong Kong Marathon and failed. At the KM. 28 mark, I succumbed to massive cramps then, when the muscle pain subsided, the sides of my knees hurt like they were hammered by a baseball bat. I limped to the 36th km. until the 5-hour mark arrived but couldn’t finish within the allotted 5-hour, 30-minute marathon cutoff time.
Why did I fail? Having trained for six months, I felt confident. Maybe, too confident. Despite experts suggesting that first-timer marathoners “not bring a watch… forget about the time… and just finish,” I neglected to heed that advice. Instead, self-assured and undoubting at the training I had logged, I targeted to finish between 4 hours, 15 minutes to 4:30.
I aimed to have a good time.
Rick and Dick Hoyt… I Can Only Imagine
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afv5jTrC7nM[/youtube]