FOR most people, the hardest part in running is starting. In my case, it took me over a year of constant soliloquies—”I have to get fit, I have to exercise, I have to start running”— before I actually laced up and entered the Cebu City Sports Center.
The idea of running can be daunting. Five kilometers might as well be 50K for someone whose idea of rigorous walking is to visit all the shops in Ayala Center Cebu. Three kilometers might as well be a jaunt to Timbuktu for someone who’s never walked farther than the office canteen.
BUSINESS LEADERS BY DAY, UNGO RUNNERS BY NIGHT. (From left) Joy Polloso, John Pages and Sheila Colmenares during their pictorial for a series of posters showing how running is a sport for everyone. The posters are part of the Ungo Runners Think Pink campaign to get more people in Cebu running. CLICK ON PHOTO TO ENLARGE IMAGE. (PHOTOGRAPHED BY ALEX BADAYOS)
I thought I was running to the moon when I decided to run 10K in last year’s Milo Marathon Cebu eliminations even if I still couldn’t complete running an entire circuit at the CCSC tracks without crumpling out of breath. When I made up my mind, it was still more than two months away.
“The body does not want you to do this,” 1980 Boston Marathon women’s champion Jacqueline Gareau cautions, “As you run, it tells you to stop but the mind must be strong. You always go too far for your body. You must handle the pain with strategy…It is not age; it is not diet. It is the will to succeed.”
Gareau’s statement resonates even more with people like me as she started running to rid herself of a cigarette addiction.
It’s hard to start running. It’s hard to get out of bed earlier than usual to hit the road until you are out of breath.
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