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.

But for that to happen, you have to embrace failures and learn to use them as a springboard to success. You have to learn to fail successfully. How?

1.) Accept that you failed. That is the first step on the road to success.

The person who does not acknowledge failing will never succeed. Do not wipe out your failure by redefining success or lowering the benchmark because you’ll only be fooling yourself. Do not be obstinate in refusing to see your failings or doctoring data and results to make it appear that you are succeeding, you’ll just be a sad portrait of a loser.

2.) Find out why you failed. First, blame yourself. It’s easy to blame others, it’s harder (and yet infinitely much more fruitful) to blame yourself. Ask yourself, “what did I do wrong? What should I have done?”

If you fail to complete a 10K run, a 21K event or a full marathon, take time to find out why you failed. Did you lack training? Were you over-trained? Did you start too fast? Did you not eat enough or did you eat too much? Learn from your mistake.

Apart from running, web technology is my other burning passion. I experiment with a lot of programs and scripts and take pleasure in learning new things, even from encountering error after error after error. In one amusing incident that still makes me chuckle years after, I crashed my phone while making it run a web server.

I try to learn from each error I encounter, each mistake I make. I have an entire section in my personal wiki to log “errors and solutions.” By learning from each error I encounter or commit, I become a better Web worker.

That’s also the case in running, as in all sports. That’s also the case in life. We get better by learning from mistakes.

Failure, said Henry Ford, is nothing but an “opportunity to begin again, only this time more wisely.”

3.) Resolve to do better. Falling down isn’t as important as getting up. After finding out why you failed, plot a different course.

Someone once described insanity as “doing the same thing and expecting a different result.” Do not repeat the things that led to your failure.

If you DNFed (runner parlance for did not finish) because you lacked training, this time, be serious in your workouts leading to the race.

4.) Work hard; train hard. Mileage isn’t something you can buy. You can’t buy-one-take-one-kilometer. There are no shortcuts or habal-habal rides in running, you have to run the distance and the only way to do that is to put in the required training.

HONG KONG MARATHON. Cebuanos set personal records in last Sunday’s Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon. Leading the charge was serial marathoner Joel Garganera who finished the route in 4:26:54. Ultra-runner and journalist Haide Acuña exacted her HK revenge by finishing in 5:04, a long run for her 160-kilometer event next Sunday. Kenneth Toledo, meanwhile, finally broke 4 hours with a scorching 3:56:55.

Others who finished the full were Gifford John Perral, Jeppy Lumongsod and Ungo Runners Dindz Bartolabac, Troy Suico Pao and Victor Chan.

Meanwhile, speedster Arnold Go of Team Boyek blazed through the route in 3:57. Other Team Boyek members who completed the full marathon included top man Boyek Galang, Erickson Ong, Benedict Hong, Fr. Siongo Tan, Michael Enriquez and Rudy Galagar.

Mary Grace delos Santos bannered Cebu with a 3rd place finish in the 21K.

Those who completed the 21K included Waterfront top man Hembler Mendoza, Linaflor Chan, Gerard Tan, Sidney Carcel and Joanne Castillo.

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?

Apparently not. Apart from apologizing and returning his plate, the cheat also raised during his conversation with Raffy the question why Haide Acuña and I are the ones who are vocal on the issue when we’re not organizers of the race.

It makes you wonder whether he was sorry for cheating or for the fact that he was caught cheating. By the tone of his statement, as Raffy conveyed it, I felt that he thought Haide and I were blowing up the issue. I think he and his friends felt we should have kept silent.

Show remorse

He had more than a week before I wrote my column to show remorse, apologize to the organizers and return his plate. He did not. Until the day before my column was published, I was asking people for updates on the case and only decided to write about it when I was convinced no apology was forthcoming.

Apart from the ultra-cheat, one other runner returned his plate after reading my column because he rode a habal-habal for a few meters after suffering cramps on both legs during the ultra. He was quicker to apologize than the subject of my column.

I don’t think Haide and I are blowing up the issue. We would have been remiss in our responsibilities as running columnists had we kept silent despite knowing all about it.

It was only recently that I knew of the full extent of reports of cheating during the ultra. I was shocked to learn about accusations against certain prominent runners. But all these are just that, accusation, and they are still being looked into by organizers.

Serious issue

Cheating is a serious issue that impacts the whole running community.

Acuña rightly points out that due to the logistics involved in an ultra-marathon, organizers are unable to keep watch on every meter of the entire race route. Organizers depend on the honor system that exists in the community.

That system was breached by some misguided runners last Nov. 27—runners who wanted the bragging rights to being ultra-marathoners but were unwilling to push themselves to run 50 plus kilometers.

It is our responsibility as runners to make sure that honor system—the bulwark of integrity in our sport—is kept intact. If someone in your group cheats, it is your responsibility to tell him to stop and to inform the organizer.

There shouldn’t be a code of silence among runners when it comes to cheating. By doing nothing, you are as responsible as the cheat.

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 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.

That’s the distance Jonel and scores of other ultra-runners, including Atty. Haide Acuña and Bro. Carlo Bacalla, ran in the Bataan Death March (BDM). One hundred two kilometers.

Jonel has run the 102KM BDM route twice. He is set to run the longer BDM next year—the 151-kilometer category. This Sunday, he’ll run 100 kilometers in the TNF trail run.

How do you prepare to run more than 100 kilometers? It’s all in the mind, Jonel said.

UNGO RUNNERS of Cebu pose with Jonel Mendoza outside the Sun.Star Cebu office prior to running the weekly Friday Night Run to Banilad Town Center and the IT Park. CLICK ON PHOTO TO ENLARGE. (PHOTOGRAPH BY ALEX BADAYOS)

He said that in the previous TNF trail run in Baguio, he was more than physically ready to complete the race. He was in a much better shape than running the BDM 102.

“I already completed 102 kilometers. What’s a hundred, right?” Jonel said. But then someone started to talk about drinking the night away and sleeping. Jonel’s mental defenses against the rigors of running long distance crumbled. He failed.

This Sunday, he’ll be running after redemption in Baguio.

Of all the secrets Jonel shared that night with the ungo runners, a group that runs every Friday night from the Sun.Star office to BTC and the IT Park, one thing stood out because it was very counter-intuitive—take regular walking breaks.

Jonel said that like most runners, he used to scoff at the idea of walking breaks. But his ultra-running experience has made him realize the effectiveness of taking regular walk breaks.

FRONTRUNNER. Jonel Mendoza, me and Ray Abenojar during the Friday Night Run from Sun.Star Cebu to the Banilad Town Center and IT Park. CLICK ON PHOTO TO ENLARGE. (PHOTOGRAPH BY ALEX BADAYOS)

“Take walk breaks even if you’re still not tired, you’ll benefit from it at the end of the run,” he told the runners, “I love taking walk breaks to enjoy the scenery, to enjoy the run.”

Last Sunday, I followed his advice and took walk breaks for the first time and set a personal record in the 21K, breaking two hours for the first time. I finished 21K in 1 hour and 58 minutes, sprinting to the finish line with fellow ungo runner Anthony Gabriel Tuldanes. Other ungo runners who attended Jonel’s talk also did well. A few were able to finish their first 21K race while others improved their time. All said they took walk breaks.

Why run? Jonel answered with a quote from ultra-runner Dean Karnazes “I run because it always takes me where I want to go.”

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.

“Ayawg bira! Untol lang, untol” Bartolo told delos Santos at the downhill portion of Escario St. Let the momentum carry you forward, he said, “let your feet bounce.”

With more than two kilometers to go, the runners were taking stock of what’s left in them to expend in a final burst of speed to the finish line.

Delos Santos was withdrawn, her eyes permanently fixed on a spot about 10 meters ahead. Her stride rhythmic and effortless.

Tolentino was three steps behind, her eyes focused on a spot further ahead but once in a while directing an intent gaze at the back of delos Santos’ head.

As the pack turned toward University of the Philippines Cebu College, Tolentino’s teammate passed around a liquid in a plastic pouch. There was a strong acidic smell. Ice candy? Ice candied Gatorade? Vinegar?

Rocket fuel.

The two runners kept the same distance until at that point shortly after they turned towards the IT Park when, with her legs about to give up, Tolentino ran with her heart.

Four hours later, with Tolentino and delos Santos long gone with their medals and other prizes, the organizers were still gathered at the finish line, waiting for the last few runners to finish.

Lawyer and broadcaster Haide Acuña was fidgeting. It turned out she was waiting for her husband, Eugene, who ran the marathon for the first time despite lacking the required mileage in training.

HE NEVER GAVE UP. Haide Acuña embraces Eugene shortly after he finished the marathon that he ran for her. The lack of training and leg cramps did not stop Eugene from finishing the race. CLICK ON PHOTO TO ENLARGE. (PHOTO BY MARLEN LIMPAG)

Haide, in an eloquent post in her blog, said Eugene ran the marathon for her because he wanted to understand her.

“Because I want to understand you. I’m doing this for you,” Eugene told Haide shortly after signing up for the full marathon.

When all but a few had left the IT Park last Sunday, a poignant scene unfolded at the finish line.

Haide erupted in cheers as her husband limped his way to the finish line. She then broke into tears while tightly hugging Eugene, who embraced her while mumbling about how one shouldn’t skip training. All the while, Eugene continued to walk in place to stave off cramps.

Eugene, who ran for one runner’s heart, has a runner’s heart. He never gave up.

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.

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.”

Problems caused by wearing the wrong type of shoes are something RUNNR can help people avoid.

The store is known for its Footworx, an integrated system that helps people pick the right pair of shoes based on their foot type and the way they run.

The system consists of the Footdisc Analysis System to determine foot type. After that, the customer is then made to run on a treadmill for a high speed video gait analysis. Using a camera, the system checks the customer’s pronation angle as he or she runs. The customer can then compare different pairs of shoes to find out which works best for him or her. After that, the store can then craft a custom insole using its “Flashfit” molding process while the customer waits.

Claudio said RUNNR’s custom insoles, which are really custom-made and not like the generic orthotics being sold elsewhere, costs between P3,000 to P4,000. And if the insoles start to get out of shape, they can be re-flashed in the store for free.

STORE EXPERIENCE. RUNNR founder Toby Claudio says that apart from offering top-of-the-line brands, RUNNR offers a total store experience that inspires people to run and educates them on the sport. RUNNR Cebu will have information kiosks and the distinct environmental panoramic graphics that dominate the RUNNR store on Bonifacio High Street. CLICK TO ENLARGE. (RUNNR FOTO)

“These customized services ensure that whatever one’s requirements as a runner, the shoes and optional insoles minimize foot instability for better shock absorption, and minimize fatigue while reducing the chances of injury,” the company said in a statement.

Claudio said the gait analysis system will be offered to customers for free.

“It will always be for free but we’ll be setting up a queuing system especially for busy days,” he said.

To discourage the practice of groups of people deciding to have their gaits analyzed just because one member of their group had it done, Claudio said they might require token purchases like buying socks for those who won’t buy shoes in busy days.

Claudio said that when he went to New York City, the world’s running mecca, he checked out running stores and found a few that had treadmills on which customers can run to test out their shoes. He said he found at least three with video gait analysis systems but none with the advanced software that RUNNR uses. He said no store offered the integrated system that RUNNR offers its customers.

Claudio said RUNNR had the gait analysis system custom-made in Germany for running. Using the system, RUNNR employees can determine which pair of shoes works best for a certain customer.

He said his company’s goal is to train its workers to a point that by merely looking at a customer take three steps into the store, he or she would know the shoe type for that person.

Claudio said that they decided to open their second RUNNR store in Cebu because they see it as an underserved market.

“Every major city in the world has a running store. Cebu is a major city,” he said.

RUNNR Cebu will open in the Active Zone of Ayala Center Cebu in the first week of December.

He said RUNNR offers more than just a good lineup of products but a total store experience. He said a distinguishing design element of the store are panoramic environmental graphics that inspire people to run.

RUNNR will carry premier brands including Adidas, Asics, Fuelbelt, Hammer, Nathan, New Balance, Nike, Polar, Newton Running Shoes, and CW-X compression apparel.

Apart from these, RUNNR also sells books and educational materials on running. It will also have information kiosks to guide people on running.

“RUNNR will have everything that you need to enjoy running to the fullest,” Claudio said.

But when asked by broadcaster, lawyer and runner Haide Acuña what he would recommend to someone who has never run and who finds his or her way into the store, Claudio said, “I won’t even recommend that they buy a pair of shoes. Buy a good running book.”

RUNNR BRIEFING. Toby Claudio with (from second from left) The Freeman columnist Raffy Osumo, Marlen Limpag and Max Limpag of Sun.Star and CebuRunning, Dr. Raymund “Reel” Bontol, and Haide Acuña, the Marathon Foodie.

More than just a market, running is an advocacy for his company, Claudio said.

“Some people still have not discovered the joys of running,” he said. They plan to spread running through regular clinics in the store. He said RUNNR is looking for a local running coach who can be tapped for the store and for the clinics.

He said the mission of RUNNR is to get people into the sport and to help those who are already in it.
Claudio, who runs only in Newton Running Shoes, stressed the importance of the local government supporting the sport as a way to improve tourism.

“When you run, you realize how much you are capable of,” Claudio said.

He said he uses running to de-stress and “when I have a bad day, I really need to run.”

“Marawi-Iligan, Cagay-an, Davao, Cagay-an, Manila, Cebu…,” Ireneo “Rening” Ylaya recites like a mantra—in a strained asthmatic’s voice—the places where he ran marathons. He says the names in the order that he ran them, going back to “Marawi-Iligan” when he skips a place and slapping his forehead while apologizing for forgetting. “Tiguwang na lagi (I’m getting old),” he said with a sheepish smile.

Cagayan de Oro? I asked Rening on what was probably the 6th lap of our interview while jogging around the CCSC track oval, where he is a fixture.

RENING YLAYA. The Cebu City Sports Center fixture keeps telling people, “if an old man like me can do it, how much more young people like you.” (Photo by Marlen Limpag) CLICK ON PHOTO TO ENLARGE

“Cagay-an de Oro. Didn’t I tell you? It’s the best marathon route I’ve run and I did it in 4:26 (four hours and 26 minutes), my fastest marathon time,” Ylaya said in Bisaya, barely breaking a sweat while I slowed down to catch my breath.

A stocky jogger then passed us, catching Ylaya’s attention. “A couple of years back,” he told me in Bisaya, pointing at the jogger with his chin, “I wouldn’t have let that pass. I would have run him down. Not the top runners, I couldn’t keep up with them, but the regular joggers. I would have never allowed him to overtake.”

He then went ahead a few steps to tap the shoulder of a female brisk walker and tell her, “Lane 5, lane 5. Walkers use lane 5, 6, 7.”

That’s how most people encounter Ylaya—being told to use the outer lane as he leads a group of runners around the CCSC oval. That’s how I met him and the idea of being told to give way by someone who looked twice my age and half my size rankled.

“Believe it or not,” Meyrick Jacalan of the Cebu Executive Runners Club (CERC) later told me when I recounted the encounter, “I had a hard time keeping pace with Rening in the oval.” I snickered, half-suspecting Jacalan, a model of physical fitness, of teasing me.

He wasn’t.

I only realized that when, boosted by the ecstasy of finding myself inexplicably ahead of broadcaster and regular runner Haide Acuña during the Run for Sight edition in July, I plunged into the agony of finding Ylaya 20 or 30 meters ahead. Acuña would later zoom past me in the last few kilometers to win in her division, but that was expected. What I didn’t expect was to see Ylaya 30 meters ahead, his distinctive stride mocking me.

Guards of a North Reclamation Area company watched us. One pointed animatedly at Ylaya before all three turned to me. I didn’t need a lip reader to decipher what they were talking about.

I ran faster, the insult egging me on, to cut the gap. But Ylaya wouldn’t budge. When I began to close in, he’d increase the gap with that annoyingly consistent stride of his that’s one part skating with invisible rollers and another part Happy Feet. Every time I’d get closer he’d break away.

It was at that point on the road at the back of Cebu Doctors’ University that I realized, with my heart straining to pump blood and my lungs barely able to provide my body with needed air, that it would kill me, a 33-year-old man, to try to overtake Ylaya, who will turn 74 in March.

But a weak bladder would do him in.

Minutes after I gave up trying to overtake him, I saw Ylaya slow down and go to the side of the road to urinate. “Hay salamat, ginoo ko, (Thank God! [note: this English translation doesn’t quite capture the desperation in the phrase ]),” the moan escaped my parched lips as I ran past him. Despair brings out piety.

I swear I could hear Vangelis’ “Chariots of Fire” playing as adrenalin pushed me to increase the distance. Ylaya did not give up and still tried to overtake me but I was on my way to win our encounter. Score one for the fat kid. Chariots of Fire was already playing.

He chuckled when I recounted the run during our interview. “I used to be very fast,” he said, “I was faster than Yong Larrazabal when he was still starting.”

Potenciano “Yong” Larrazabal III, one of those responsible for the sharp growth of running in Cebu, gave a sheepish laugh in confirming the fact. He said it was during the Queen City Run when he immediately entered the 10-kilometer event on his first try and finished in more than an hour.

“I observed him when he runs and he isn’t that fast, but he is consistent,” Larrazabal said.

Sun.Star Cebu columnist and sportsman John Pages said Ylaya’s lean frame—he weighs just 95 pounds—helps him run fast.

Larrazabal said Ylaya’s ability to run at his level at his age is astounding. It inspires younger people to take up the sport and improve their times, people at the CCSC told me.

“If an old man like me can do it, how much more young people like you?” Ylaya said.

Jacalan agrees that Ylaya inspires younger people to run, saying he is one of them.

“I’ve seen Rening join plenty of races and many of those he overtakes can’t believe that they’ve been outrun by a ‘grandpa.’ I also see some who are embarrassed. After Rening overtakes them, they’re stunned and try to catch up. But Rening is a seasoned runner and paces himself. In the end, he beats many of those half his age… myself included,” Pages said.

Ylaya said his fastest 10K, set when he was in his mid 60s, was 47 minutes. That is confirmed by Raffy Uytiepo, running columnist for The Freeman and one of the pillars of the sport in the country. In contrast, Pages said his fastest 10K was 51 minutes.

Larrazabal, who is planning to run 33 marathons in his lifetime, said he plans to run until he is Rening’s age or even older. You can’t doubt the doctor’s determination—not someone who runs 20 kilometers on a Sunday and then join a 10-kilometer run and record a decent finish.

GOING 42. Rening Ylaya plans to run the full Cebu City Marathon on Jan. 10, 2010. (Photo by Marlen Limpag) CLICK TO ENLARGE

That determination is reflected on Ylaya. He plans to run the Cebu City Marathon in January. Not the 10K or 21K races that will be held together with it but the actual marathon—the entire 42 kilometers around Metro Cebu. It’s running to Carcar from Cebu City.

“But can you still do it?” I asked Ylaya while slowing down as I strained to hear him answer.

“Sa akong estimate kaya pa kay murag wala man lang nako ang 10k. Basta maayo lang akong lawas, mudagan gyud ko (I think I can still do it because 10K is nothing to me. As long as I feel good, I will run),” Ylaya said. He said he now averages 50 laps at the CCSC oval. I had to stop mid-stride to ask him, “Singkwenta (fifty)?” Yes, fifty.

He reached into his running short’s waistband and took out an inhaler. He never goes out without one, he told me. He once collapsed at the CCSC during an asthma attack. He held out his hand to count with his fingers the days of his confinement. Two days after he left the hospital, he ran a 5K race, a week later he ran 10K.

“Kaning ako talent na ni, asa man ka kita pareha nako ug edad nga gadagan. Pasalamat lang gyud ko sa ginoo (What I have is a gift and I thank God for it.)” Ylaya said.

He then pressed the inhaler to show me how it works in dealing with an asthma attack.

That is what worries Larrazabal, who helps Ylaya with his medications. He said Ylaya can run the marathon if he wants to but he should take a full medical checkup to make sure his body can take the toll.

Uytiepo thinks Ylaya should no longer attempt the marathon. “He has nothing to prove. I think he should slow down. Not stop, but slow down and just run for his health.”

He said Ylaya has a prostate ailment and should “take it easy.”

Rening, however, would have none of it, “ingon sila na-prostate ko. Naay mga doctor nga niingon silay mu-opera nako libre pero di ko, mamatay pa lang ko tiguwang na gud ko (doctors offered to treat me for free but I refused. I might die from the treatment).”

Uytiepo, who also directs races, said he was so concerned with Ylaya joining runs that at one point he stopped signing him up for free. “But he’s stubborn. Grabe iya pride,” Uytiepo said, “he told me he’d run anyway, with or without the race number. So I let him run.”

“Taas man ko ug pride, mao nang nilakaw ko diretso (I’m a proud man, that’s why I left her),” Ylaya said when our talk drifted to his domestic life. He became a widower in the 1990s and married again after a few years. He left his second wife but not before she organized what was to be Ylaya’s first ever competitive run—a 5K contest for senior citizens for their chapel’s organization in Toledo City.

He was 60 years old when he won that race, much to the surprise of his wife who thought he took a shortcut. After that, he said, he’d join races whenever he could, sometimes sleeping at the venue to make sure he’d be there when the starting gun is fired.

He went on to talk about how his pride led him to blow off thousands of pesos in the casino and shutter his small lending business “naglagot man ko kay daghan ko ug collectibles (I got angry because many debtors didn’t pay).”

We breezed through his life in the short span that it took to complete less than a dozen rounds in the oval—how he spent more than 30 years playing duckpin bowling all over the country, how he tries not to burden his son who drives a taxi, how brothers Rovie and Romeo Aguilon, Jr. and people like businessman Jonathan Guardo and Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmena give him money for his daily needs and races, how he was a Cebu City Charter Day awardee for senior citizens, how he also joined seven triathlons and nearly drowned in the last one.

I once asked him about a certain detail and he quickly offered to grab his bag, where, along with a change of clothes and his wallet, he keeps laminated clippings of certificates and news stories about him.

“Run at your pace, I’ll follow,” he told me in Bisaya as we concluded the interview. I had enough in me for a quarter of the oval, no more. I feigned a limp and excused myself.

He waved me off and went on in that annoyingly consistent stride of his.

(Note: This article was first published in Sun.Star Cebu on Aug. 23, 2009)