My affinity with endurance sports started with walking.  When I was 17 I would choose to walk 3 km to mass daily.  From our house in Kapitolyo, I’d walk out of the neighborhood, on to Shaw Blvd and walk to St. Francis Church which is near EDSA.

I enjoyed that rhythm of walking and finding a pace that I could maintain.  It somehow put me at ease.

I liked being “in” the world vs. being in a car. I’d let the sights, the sounds, the smells wash over me and it felt good.

I liked that it also made me more connected with my self. It was noisy on the streets, but I was very quiet inside.

I liked the idea of being able to use only my body to get to a place that others would normally ride a car to get to. There was a sense of freedom and sense of being different — walking far didn’t seem to be the norm. I like that it was somehow counter culture.

When I discovered running and running long ten years ago, all these seemed to come back to me. I guess that’s one of the reasons why I got into it, and kept on doing it until today.  There’s something about going long, just using your legs, that seems to connect with me and how I’m built.