It was an invitation few runners are lucky to get.
Veteran runner Raffy Uytiepo sent me a text message last Wednesday to ask whether I would like to join organizers Noy Jopson and Hembler Mendoza run the route they were considering for The Great Lapu-Lapu Run on April 18.
WITH NOY JOPSON. Running with Noy Jopson and Hembler Mendoza (left) to map out the route of The Great Lapu-Lapu Run. (FOTO BY MARLEN LIMPAG)As soon as I read the words join, Noy Jopson and run, I immediately hit the phone’s reply button and said “YES!!!! What time?”
Several minutes later, I realized the full implication of the invitation.
Noy Jopson is The Ironman. He is the Philippine 70.3 Ironman Champion. He has three national triathlon titles. He won the Asian Cup Junior trophy in 1995, the bronze and silver medals at the Asian Championships and the Philippine Enduraman. I’m an overweight journalist barely a year into running. It was like Ronaldinho deciding to play pickup 1-on-1 football with an elementary school kid.
I immediately texted Raffy to ask about the pace, telling him I might pass out trying to keep up with Noy. He texted back, “slow lang. Walang iwanan.”
We met at the Liberty Shrine in Barangay Mactan at daybreak the next day. Noy is easy to pick out in a group, especially among grouchy early-morning runners, because the first thing you see him do is smile. For an elite athlete, he is down to earth. He’s “just like your boy next door,” said Annie Neric, Holiday Gym & Spa fitness program director.
“He has accomplished a lot but is still down to earth…He can be very unassuming,” Neric said in an e-mail.
The two hours and 15 minutes that Hembler and I ran with Noy Jopson last Thursday were among the best two hours on the road I’ve ever had. While running, we kept on discussing The Great Lapu-Lapu Run route. Noy commented on my and Hembler’s running forms. We talked about running equipment—from shoes to GPS watches to a Timex watch he was beta-testing. He talked about chia seeds, which was mentioned in the seminal running book “Born to Run.”
Noy Jopson’s enthusiasm is infectious. We were set to run directly to the Waterfront Airport Hotel & Casino Mactan, where Mendoza is the general manager, but ended up running the Marcelo Fernan Bridge not once, but twice, and going down to the park under the bridge in the Mandaue side.
Noy Jopson is a great athlete not just because he is a bio-mechanically efficient human being. Noy Jopson is a great athlete because he is such a wonderful person who is also bio-mechanically efficient. He has no airs about him.
Four years ago, when Annie Neric was still new in Cebu, she attended a spinning class, an aerobic exercise on a stationary bike, conducted by Noy at the Holiday Gym & Spa. When Noy knew she was from Manila, he got excited to know that she was a kababayan and kept on talking and interviewing her while holding the class. When she told him she was also a spinning instructress, she ended up leading the cooldown for the class.
“After his class, he introduced me to the manager of Holiday Gym and the week after, I became one of the spinning instructors of the gym and got myself a job in less than two weeks here in Cebu,” Neric said.
Noy would later introduce Neric to triathlon.
“I remember how he would go back for me after he finishes his race. I was still in the course since I was a new runner then. He would shout at me that I could go faster even when he knew that I was already struggling. Noy is like that because he knows that you could do it. He motivates and challenges you at the same time,” Annie said.
When we were in the final meters to Waterfront last Thursday, Noy playfully pushed Hembler, who wasn’t feeling well, at a pace I couldn’t sustain for long even in an actual race. But all three of us finished together, sprinting to Waterfront in time for a group photo.
We spent two great hours running about 19 kilometers last Thursday. With Noy around, I felt we could have run a full marathon.
But a sumptuous buffet breakfast was waiting for us at the Waterfront.
With Noy Jopson, Superman.