Sometimes fits of insanity happen to me. Hahaha! I always say to myself “Aileen, you are a crazy woman!”
And crazy I was. Sometime in September 2007, I weighed a hefty 155 lbs. My face looked so bloated that my neck can be barely seen. Two years before that date, I was a sexy 125 lbs. and was into vegetarianism, meditation and into spirituality. What ever happened to that woman? Was she just a dream? Hahahaha….
Seriously, I needed to do something drastic to reverse the cycle of horizontal growth. I was inspired by Jackie Chan in his interview in the Ellen Degeneres show when he said “All it takes is discipline!” or something like that. So I started in June 2008 to put some discipline in my once lazy butt to stand up every morning and go to the park for brisk walking. Then came an email from Apple. I was part of their mailing list as I just recently bought an Ipod nano for the daily walk. It said that I could use my Ipod to measure the distance and speed of the walk as well as calories burned! That so cool, I thought. I have to get one of those.
Oh oh, after getting the sensors to attach to the Ipod, I was informed I have to buy special Nike shoes for the other half of the sensor. Now I have to get new shoes to make it work! So I bought the shoes. Then my old walking shirt and pants don’t look too good in my new Nike shoes, so I had to buy tons of Nike dri-fit shirts, shorts and jogging pants! The entire cost was three times the cost of my Ipod! Oh well, I bought it anyway.
Part of Apple’s email was to go to a website and register so I can upload the results of my walk or run and track my progress. In the website was a small button that says “The Human Race”. The ever curious person that I am, I clicked on the button. It led me to the site of the Nike Plus 10k “Human Race”. It stated that the race will happen in 25 countries in one day with an estimated one million runners. The site said it was history in the making.
I looked at Manila as one of the sites but sadly it was not one of the 25 countries. The nearest was Singapore. I thought, what the heck, I will run in Singapore. So I clicked on the Singapore site. What appeared in the website was a big sign that says “Registration is closed”. Gheez, this is harder than I thought. The other cities near Manila were Shanghai and Melbourne.
I clicked on Melbourne, paid the 60 Australian dollars registration fee, chose the WWF as my charity contribution as part of the fee, and clicked submit. Sitting there, I thought, what are you doing? You’ve never ran a 10k race before. You only have two months to prepare. You have to make travel arrangements. You have to spend (again!) for airfare and accommodation and the clincher…it’s still winter in Melbourne on race date! Are you crazy?!.
I guess I am.
So off I went in a frenzy search in the internet on preparations needed to run a race. The next day, I followed all the “tips” I’ve learned in my search and started the “program” I developed to get me to the finish line. My plan of action was to get from my normal 3 km walk by adding one kilometer per week. That should do it, I surmised…
So I ran and walked 7 days a week. However, adding one kilometer a week was such a challenge. A week before leaving for Melbourne the farthest I got was 8 something kilometers.
On race date, Aug 31, 2008, I donned on my thermal shirt, race shirt, jacket, cropped running pants, and jogging pants. I was by Australian standards, overdressed! Hahaha… Coming from a tropical country, I was not used to the cold weather. At the race site, a number of Australians were only dressed in their shorts and race shirt! Not to look out of place, I remove my jacket and jogging pants and showed some skin. Hahahaha! Brrrrrr…..cold…..
I was in Zone 4, last to start as I was in the “needs more than one hour to finish” zone. At the 4 kilometer mark, there were already runners finishing the race. Oh boy, I still have 6 more kilometers to go… Help!
Run, Aileen, Run. Life is just a box of chocolates….. you’ll get a box when you finish the race….
I guess I went into a delirious state at some point in the race. All I thought was food. I was so hungry as I haven’t eaten breakfast. I was, however, well hydrated as there was a water station every 2.5 kilometer of the race course. Also the medics on bicycle were very handsome. It gave me inspiration to move on. 
I changed strategy at the 5 kilometer mark and said to myself, “Enjoy the race!” Look at the trees and the birds and the bees!
Then it started to drizzle. Murphy’s law. Just when I was enjoying Albert Park, small drops of rain came pouring in. I ran so fast that I reached one kilometer in less than 5 minutes. Then the drizzle stopped so I went back to my usual pace. When I reached 8 kilometers, I knew I would make it. I did not feel too tired nor too thirsty as was usual in my daily runs. I was just too happy to have gone that far. 9 kilometers…. 9.5 killometers…then finally I can see the finish line…. Just a little more….and I finished the 10k! I raised my arms in victory! I did it!
Maybe I should try the Boston Marathon next…..hmmmm….I need to sit. My legs hurt….