Tag Archives: Haide Acuña

How to fail successfully

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JOHN Pages gave a beautiful speech on success in last Saturday’s Sportswriters Association of Cebu awarding. He talked about failure.

Pages, one of Cebu’s best sports writers, told awardees and their relatives present during the 29th SAC-SMB Cebu Sports Awards that failure leads to success.

He shared with those present a gem of a quote by sports legend Michael Jordan, who said, “I have missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. Twenty six times, I have been entrusted to take the game-winning shot…and missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life…And that is why I succeed.”

In running, as in real life, failure is but part of a cycle that leads to success. It’s easier and faster to see the connection in sports, where training and preparation bear almost immediate fruit.

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Still, integrity

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The ultra cheat I wrote about last week called up race organizer Raffy Uytiepo last Friday and admitted riding a vehicle on part of the route of the 1st Cebu Ultramarathon 50K last Nov. 27. He apologized to Raffy and Jonel and returned his finisher’s plate.

Uytiepo was in the Sun.Star office when the person called up to say that he was in Casa Ilongga, which is owned by the race organizer, to return his plate.

Is everything okay, then?

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Transcend limits, ultra-marathoner Jonel Mendoza tells Cebu runners

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The mind is a powerful thing, ultra-runner Jonel Mendoza said in an almost conspiratorial whisper that carried across a room full of stunned runners.

If you think it, you can probably do it.

Preparing to run 100 kilometers takes more mental preparation than physical readiness, said Mendoza, ultra-runner and Frontrunner publisher and editor-in-chief.

Jonel MendozaJONEL MENDOZA, ultra-runner and publisher of Frontrunner, talks to the ungo runners in the Sun.Star Cebu newsroom. CLICK ON PHOTO TO ENLARGE. (PHOTOGRAPH BY ALEX BADAYOS)

“Huwag na tayong magbolahan dito. Hindi ko sasabihing hindi masakit, dahil masakit. Masakit na masakit (Let’s not kid ourselves. I won’t tell you it’s easy because it hurts. It really hurts),” Mendoza told a group of runners gathered at the Sun.Star Cebu central newsroom last Friday. With that, the room fell into stunned silence.

For a newbie runner, it’s hard to take in the idea of running 42 kilometers—the distance from the Capitol to Carcar.

It positively boggles the mind to cover that distance, come back to Capitol and continue running to Talamban in Cebu City, then Mandaue City, then to the old bridge and ending somewhere in Camella Homes in Barangay Pajac, Lapu-Lapu City.

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A runner’s heart

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In front of the traffic sign that announced a 20 kilometers per hour (kph) speed limit inside the Asiatown IT Park, Aileen Tolentino gave her all.

She covered the last 300 meters to the finish line within the automotive speed limit but at a combustive endgame 18 kph before collapsing at the finish line in a guttural scream.

“Aaahhh!!!” her victory cry a shriek of pain. Tolentino snatched the Cebu City Marathon Women’s 42K crown from Mary Grace delos Santos in the final minute and paid for it with a body racked by cramps.

SHE GAVE HER ALL. Aileen Tolentino collapses after winning the Cebu City Marathon 42K Women’s event. CLICK ON PHOTO TO ENLARGE. (PHOTO BY IGI MAXIMO OF PabolFC.com)

The celebration would come later.

Three hours, 15 minutes and 30 seconds from starting her run, Tolentino lay screaming in agony, her head saved from slamming into the pavement by race organizer Meyrick Jacalan. Thirteen seconds later, delos Santos crossed the finish line, buried her face in her hands, and leaned slightly on pacer Elmer Bartolo.

Until that 20 kph traffic sign, you’d have thought the race was delos Santos’s to take.

Delos Santos, the top female runner in Cebu, built an early lead at the South Road Properties, running at least a minute ahead of her long-standing rival. Someone who saw the two runners there said he thought Tolentino was done for, lagging behind a still fresh-looking delos Santos.

But near the Bureau of Internal Revenue office in Banilad, Tolentino already caught up with delos Santos. With their teammates and pacers, the two ran in a pack.

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More than just a market, running is an advocacy: RUNNR founder

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ROBERTO “Toby” Claudio, Jr. hated running because of his bad back and anterior cruciate ligament injury.

But he later found out that with the proper form and correct pair of shoes, he could run despite his bad back and knee injury. Now, the eponymous eldest son of Toby’s Sports founder Roberto Claudio, Sr. regularly runs and has even finished the half-marathon. He’s still planning to run his first full marathon and is considering doing it during the Cebu City Marathon on Jan. 10, 2010.

Toby Claudio with Newton Running Shoes ONLY IN A NEWTON. Toby Claudio explains to Cebu bloggers and reporters what sets a pair of Newton Running Shoes apart from those of other brands. Claudio, who runs only in Newtons, is the founder of the running specialty store RUNNR, which will open in Cebu in the first week of December. CLICK ON PHOTO TO ENLARGE. (PHOTO BY MARLEN LIMPAG)

“Running is not as easy as it looks. It’s hard on the body,” Claudio said in a briefing last Saturday for Cebu journalists and bloggers on the opening in the city of his running specialty store RUNNR.

From “zero running,” Claudio said he was able to regularly run relatively injury-free after learning the proper running form, particularly ChiRunning, and wearing correct shoes.

“Many still use improper footwear for running. That and the lack of proper technique can cause pains. Then they stop,” Claudio said. “The solution is to get the right shoes. Choosing the wrong shoes can cause a lot of problems.”

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