The minutes count down and the clock strikes 11:59 on this last day of 2009. It’s hard to believe only twelve months ago I was re-starting this blog. Twelve months ago I hadn’t yet made the decisions that took me through this year — and it has been a rollercoaster of a year, even if I didn’t get it all down in twelve months’ worth of blog entries.

Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?
In daylights, in sunsets
In midnights, in cups of coffee
In inches, in miles
In laughter, in strife

I wrote around some personal drama earlier in the year, so some months in the Archived Posts seem less action-packed in terms of content. In reality, those were the months something was going on that I didn’t want to record for myself or others. But I still have so much to thank God for.

It’s time now to sing out
Though the story never ends
Let’s celebrate
Remember a year in the life of friends

Before I take a step into the new year, I’ll take one last glance back. Here are my five favorite posts from 2009.

• Midnight DJ Demon Cellphone Number OBB: A guest role on the TV5 show Midnight DJ landed in my lap. Naturally, I was proud of my work.
• Up and Running for Home: I competed in my first foot race ever. I chose a 10K because I’m macho.
• Slice ‘n’ Scrape: I survived my first (and hopefully last) stye-draining procedure. I will never be a Peeping Tom again.
• The October Fashion Mega-Post: I modeled on a runway and attended Philippine Fashion Week all in the same month, and my sartorial sense is all the better for it.
• A-Okay at the Ukay-Ukay: Thrifted in Manila for the first time. It had me asking, “Why only now?”

Looking at these posts now, I realize I didn’t write about the happiest moments I’ve had this year. I saw my sister fall in love and get engaged to a wonderful man. I’ve never felt more loved by my parents and friends. I have not been deprived of anything I want or need, whether materially, emotionally, or spiritually, because God loves me. Now I understand, it has been a great year.

For next year, my blog entries will reflect more of the love I receive and give.

Oh you got to, you got to remember the love
You know that love is a gift from up above
Share love, give love, spread love
Measure, measure your life in love

(All lyrics from the song “Seasons of Love” from the musical Rent)

Tags: New Year, Retrospective

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I couldn’t bear having my running year end on a sour note, so after taking a weekend off running, I was back on the pavement for the Philstar.com Christmas Celebrity Run. (It kind of helped that one of my friends registered for me.)

Distance 10K: check. A hilly winding course: check. Plus, the route went through McKinley Hill, which kicked my butt the first time I ran it during the Urbanite Run. I began calling it my redemption race.

Emotionally, I was nothing short of grateful to God for the race day ahead. I already knew that whatever I had lost, God would give even more. Whatever happened, I was determined to kick those thieves’ asses the only way I knew how: to return to running and prove what they did to me had not broken my spirit.

Some vestige of paranoia stayed with me, of course. I packed only a change of clothes and a water bottle in my gym bag. Money and my license wrapped in plastic went into the back pocket of my Race for Life singlet, and I slipped my cellphone into my running tights’ back pocket. The car key was in the music pocket strapped to my arm. All this just to ensure my peace of mind.

Since it was a media-sponsored run, I knew there was a slim chance race results would be published. Instead, I strapped on my good old Casio digital watch and started the stopwatch at the gun start (which was late). I started in the middle of the pack with my friend from the Ateneo run, adopting his strategy of slowly overtaking runners in front of us as they slowed down from their sprinting start. A more steady pace would keep my legs fresh for the final kick.

Water supply was plentiful, and I watched the first three kilometers whiz by. Then we turned into McKinley Hill, and I even overtook a woman and man from the David’s Salon triathlon team. On this winding route with three U-turns, I put into practice something I’d only read about: running the tangents. Instead of plodding along with my eyes on the ground, I scanned what was ahead so I could run as straight a line as possible, eliminating extra mileage and shaving off seconds from my time.

based on Jaeb’s GPS map

As we got back onto 5th Avenue on the 7th kilometer, I checked my stopwatch. Only twenty-five minutes had elapsed?! I began mentally ticking off the kilometer markers I’d passed, and I was confident I’d collected all the checkpoint bracelets being handed out.

And then I realized: McKinley Hill wasn’t as hellish as I’d expected. No way?

The David’s Salon tri-team overtook me at Kilometer 9, but I kept hard on their heels. Breathing steady: check. Pain-free: check. I kept right behind the tri-team as we approached the last stretch of road before the finish. Cameras snapped. I saw the timer at the finish line read 48+ minutes. As the man from the tri-team sprinted away for his own sub-49 finish, I accelerated to keep an older man from finishing between me and the woman triathlete. I crossed the line and tore off my tag to give it to the race marshal. Then I clicked off my stopwatch. 48:33.

Given that it took me 31 seconds from the gun start to cross the start, and a few more seconds after I crossed the finish line to turn off my stopwatch, my conservative estimate of the time it took me to run the course was 48 minutes, only one minute behind Piolo P’s heartbreak 47.

Wait wait wait. Forty-eight minutes? *faints* I’d been trying to get below 51 minutes since I ran the Globe run, and the flat course during the PIM only helped me bring it down to 51:15. And then all of a sudden to breach the 50-minute mark? I’d have done cartwheels if people didn’t all have their cameras out to take photos with the celebrities at the finish line. Eep!

On GPS trackers, the distance was only 9.8 kilometers. However, since GPS doesn’t measure topographical changes, that’s within its margin of error. Even if the distance were that short, I was running 4:54 minutes per kilometer and would still have finished a 10-kilometer distance in 49 minutes.

I returned to my car, half-expecting my bag to have disappeared again. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw my doors were still securely locked and my bag was still stashed in the back, in the same position I’d left it.

McKinley no longer Hell: check! New PR: check! No thievery: Check! Elation flooded me, and the only thing I could do was lift up a prayer of thanks for a beautiful end to this year’s running. My redemption race was a runaway success. Ü

Tags: Running, Race, Philstar Celebrity Run

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Running while listening to music over earphones is supposedly a bad habit to get into. If you’re pounding the pavement while something’s jammed into your ears blocking surrounding sound, you’re ripe pickings for getting run over before you even know what hit you. Also, being too in tune with your music might mean you’re not listening to your body enough, making you prone to pushing too hard, too fast.

Still, it’s undeniable that music can give you that extra push, particularly if you’re trying to beat a personal record. I’ve run races with and without music in my ears; I know my legs have a faster turnover when I’ve got a high-tempo song on, rather than if I were just listening to the sound of my own breathing.

So, maybe the next best thing to running without music is running with a good pair of earphones that stay in your ear but allow ambient sound to come through. For Christmas this year, I got myself a pair of Nike Flow sports earphones.

Going with the Flow

Rather than being of the in-ear variety, the Flows clip onto the earlobes and nestle comfortably atop the ear canal. This means they won’t fall off and I get great sound even without turning the volume way up. In turn, I can hear sounds around me, including the hum of a car engine and tires getting uncomfortably close. The Flows are also sweat-resistant, which is a must for sweaty runners like myself.

I used the Flows at the Philstar Run last Sunday and despite a hiccup with my left earphone (it slipped off whenever I flipped my cap to dunk water on my head), I’m really very happy with it. Ü

Tags: Earphones, Nike Flow, Running

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