welcoming July

I welcomed July running. Yes, this asthmatic active sports enthusiast (that’s me!) joined another marathon sponsored by our office. It’s free anyway, so why not grab the chance to exercise? Unlike last year under Unilab RunRio Trilogy Leg 2 (Family) Run to which I was with my sister Yulab, this time it’s registered under Robinsons Supermarket Fit and Fun Wellness Buddy Run where Karen and I were buddies.

2011 Unilab RunRio Trilogy Leg 2 ─ with Yulab, Mao, Anna and I

People knew that despite my respiratory impairment, still I climb mountains. My lungs are tried and tested. I am very much aware of how far I can go and how slow I should move when I do exhausting activities like hiking, cycling and swimming ─ and I must tell, I am not good at all at running. I suffer from shortness of breath frequently that makes me feel like collapsing any time so I don’t get to force myself in doing this as normal as others do. Since I didn’t do any marathon after last year, joining the run last weekend without enough preparations was a mixture of fun and disaster.

Fun because it’s another office privilege to grab and enjoy with my real friend, Karen along with a number of running buddies. We were early birds hopeful for our “worms” that day. It’s not anymore our desire to be at the top list considering a crowd of participants but the grocery items awaiting the finishers were our real drivers. I loved, too, the photo shoots! The gazillion shots taken by photographers I didn’t know (and I didn’t care at all, I just smiled when I saw them taking pictures) were the extra juicers. In my mind I was crazily seeing a hundred photos posted in Facebook!

We ran, we walked, we posed and smiled, we thirsted, we jogged.
We laughed, we rested, and soon enough, we finished.

And the twist... it was a disaster because I had to endure an unexplainable body and muscle pain days after the event. I was proud to go back home from the church right after the run without complaining anything in my body, until the following morning… I was nearly crawling off to the toilet for a shower. The pain in my legs was excruciating and worse when I take stairs going down. Karen and I were laughing to death when we realized that we had to take the stairs on the underpass. We went on the opposite side and held on each railing while going down. If the normal time to walk down the underpass is three minutes, maybe it took us four times slower! Upon writing this post, I honestly can still feel the discomfort but is now more manageable.

I loved the experience, though. The fact that each has finished the race, it’s an achievement in itself. Another thing to be proud of when you’re not an inborn healthy person. Oh, by the way, I thank God that it didn’t rain! :)

Posted in: extra-curricular,fun-tastic,workopolis