HARUKI MURAKAMI

I arrived early for the scheduled Happy Feet get together in Greenbelt. To while away the time, I decided to indulge in one of my favorite past time – browsing at available titles in bookstores. I asked the sales lady at the National Book Store what section the books by Murakami are located.

When I looked at the available titles, I saw the book I have been looking for: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running and bought it.

The following day, I had a good though very wet 10 K Eco Dash run. And when I went home. what better way to relax than to read Murakami’s book.

As I read, I found out that there were a lot of things that I can relate to. The book is a memoir about the author’s obsessions with running and writing.

Murakami is a person who likes to be by himself. He likes reading books on his own or concentrating on listening to music. The hour or so he spends running, maintaining his own silent, private time is important to help him keep his mental well being.

Like Murakami, I too enjoy the solitude that I find in running. It is like running in a void. Not in a vacuum, of course, since random thoughts occur. But always, they are subordinate to that void.

Once he interviewed Olympic Runner, Toshihiko Seko, and asked if he as a runner ever feel like he’d rather not run today, like he doesn’t feel like running, and he’d rather sleep in?

Seko answere “Of course. All the time!”

It sounds so familiar. The Love/Hate relationship that most of us have with running.

Murakami talked about his mantra as he run from Athens to Marathon:

“No- forget about beer. And forget about the run. Forget about the wind… Just focus on moving my feet forward, one after the other. That’s the only thing that matters.”

A very familiar feeling to me. Especially on long runs, on those long uphill runs.

Murakami’s basic rule when training is never take two days off in a row. If you increase the amount of work your muscles have to endure step by step, they learn to take it and gradually grow stronger.

However, if you halt the load for a few days, the muscles relax and cancel the memory of all that hard work. Then you have to repeat the whole journey from the very beginning.

This is a nice tip to keep in mind.

Murakami want to be remembered thus:

“HARUKI MURAKAMI

Writer and Runner

At Least He Never Walked”

How I wish I can say the same.

MOMMY MILKSHAKE YEAR 3

This is my first time to join the Mommy Milkshake Marathon. Master Mon of Happy Feet informed me during one of the practice runs that you can register online through The Bull Runner website so I registered. The organizers were so efficient that I soon received a confirmation e-mail. Since I  was not able to find a pink singlet, I decided (together with Master Mon) to wear the ‘famous’ Takbo Bayani singlet with the blue and pink MMDA colors.

I was wondering if the race would push through because of the moonsoon rains caused by Typhoon Labuyo. I also have  coughs and colds so I was not sure if I can run. I received another e-mail from the organizers that participants will receive an sms message at 3:00 a.m. Saturday if the race will be canceled.

It was raining hard in the morning and I thought that the race will be cancelled. When I received no sms message that the race will be canceled, I started preparing to leave the house. I arrived at the site very early and saw the organizers setting up the booths. I walked around BHS and after sometime, I saw fellow Happy Feet runners and Takbo.ph runners. We decided to have a warm-up run and saw other runners doing their warm-up also.

I was a well-organized race, with generous freebies, snacks, and its free! I had fun, a good 5 K run, and a hearty post-race breakfast with some of the Happy Feet and Takbo.ph runners.

I did a little research on the past Mommy Milkshake Marathons by browsing TBRs website. The first edition in August 2007 had over 100 participants.  The second edition in August 2008 had more that 300 participants. And MMM 3 had about 800 participants.

And as I  looked at the pictures in the website, I noticed that through all editions, there were a lot of familiar Happy Feet runners!