CRAMMING TIME

In education, cramming  is the practice of working intensively to absorb large volume of informational material in short amounts of time.  It is often done by students in preparations for upcoming exams.

Many say there is no cramming in running, but I gotta do something as my international  “exams” is just around the corner.

With a week to go before the Singapore Marathon, my very first outside the Philippines, I am on cramming mode.  The past 2 months have been busy, causing  me to miss a lot of weekday runs and a few of  the long weekend runs.  I have doubts if my cardio vascular conditioning is adequate for me to improve on my marathon finish time.  Yup, for fat penguins like me, the finish time(s) is/are indeed modestly pedestrian.  But, we do dream of improving our lot.   

Luckily, I still remember the coaching tip of Jim Lafferty from my TBR Dream Marathon experience in the summer of  2010.  Coach Jim pointed out that one  can do  back to back 21-km runs in a span of 2 days to “cram” for a marathon. 

Given this stock knowledge from an optimist of a coach, I set out for 2 long runs on the last weekend before the December 4 Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon (SCMS).  

The first, I ran at Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City   with fellow 83nean runner Ed on Saturday (November 26) morning (7am). Both of us covered 18 kms.Our starting point was the ROX at Bonifacio High Street going to the back of the British School area and then coming back to the High Street via Lexus and St. Luke’s Medical Center.   

The second long run was Sunday (November 27) morning (6:30am) and it was inside Camp Aguinaldo, Quezon City.  I was joined by my fellow Ateneo de Naga HS Batch 1983 runners registered for the Singapore Marathon: Ernie, Ed and Fards.  Plus we had a pacer in our  Batch 83 classmate Ron Hemady.  The four of us ran 3 loops inside the camp, giving us  21 kms,  while Ron did only 2 loops.  The long run inside the camp was a relaxing one with a lot of chit chat on our upcoming Singapore treat.  We sure are excited about this coming weekend.  

Tree-lined asphalt road of Camp Aguinaldo

83nean runners in various stretching pose

Easy run by Ed, Ernie, Ron and me

In front of St. Ignatius Church inside Camp Aguinaldo

The Singapore expedition squad of Batch 83 - me, Fards, Ernie and Ed

Would this be enough to improve my marathon finish time let alone, propel me to a sub-six finish time?

As they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.  We shall  see come that Singapore morning of December 4, 2011.  

For the record, hereunder are the finish time(s) of all my 4 marathons to date:

·       6 hours 8 minutes            The Bull Runner Dream Marathon (May 2010)

·         6 hours 20 minutes          Camsur Marathon (September 2011)

·         6 hours 30 minutes          Camsur Marathon (September 2010)

·         6 hours 30 minutes          Quezon City International Marathon (December 2010)  

One  can say, I am getting tired of all these six.