It’s been almost 4 weeks since I finished (sort of) reading Born to Run and I’m still on a Tarahumara high. In the book, the author mentioned two diet staples for the Tarahumara runner– pinole and iskiate. I immediately researched where I could get the ingredients for both here in the Philippines. I made my first iskiate last week (will post details and pic soon) since it was easier. Tonight I made my first attempt at pinole.

Pinole recipe

1 cup fine grind corn meal
1 Tbsp cinnamon
2 Tbsps brown sugar or honey
2 Tbsps chia seeds (optional)
Water

Toast the corn meal in a non-stick pan over low to medium heat for 5 minutes or until it turns light brown. Stir often. Turn burner off. Mix in the cinnamon, brown sugar, and chia seeds. Add water as desired.

Fine grind cornmeal

Chia seeds

You can get the cornmeal from the local Healthy Options stores for less than P200. The chia was a lot harder to find. I found some online but they were waaaay too expensive (P1500 for 500g) so I asked my sister in the US to order it for me. This 454g bottle costs $10.29.

Step 1: toast the corn meal

Step 2: Mix in the cinnamon, sugar, chia, and water

You can use more cinnamon or sugar if you prefer it to be sweeter. You can also add more water to make it more oatmeal-like.

Step 3: Bake the mixture (optional)

If you don’t like the pasty texture, you can bake the mixture at 250-300F for 15-20mins to make it into a cookie. This is more ‘portable’ for long, or in my case short, runs. All in all, this is a cheaper alternative to power bars or power gels.

Based on the finished product, I think I need to add more water to my mixture. But hey, it’s my first attempt right? I’ll do better next time. Let me know how your experiment turns out if you decide to try this for yourself.

I want!

The past two Mondays for me have been about pain. Last week it was about recovering from the NB 10k run; this week it was about recovering from Sunday’s rescue class. Let’s recap my adventures of the past two weeks:

New Balance Power Run

I was going to post this last week but I got buried in Christmas party preparations. I really don’t know how I get suckered into organizing these things. Anyway, better late than never.

So how did I do? Pretty well, thank you very much. My goal was to finish between 1:17 & 1:20 but I actually finished in 1:12:41. As expected, the route was much, much harder than the KOTR one. It felt like 90% of the route was an uphill run.

Interesting side story. Since Paolo absolutely hated looking for parking, we arrived an hour early at BHS. Plenty of time to check out the booths, warm up, stretch, and go to the loo. Well after dilly-dallying about, I was late for the 10k starting gun. How I managed to get to the venue 1-hr early and still be late for the race is beyond me.

NAUI ASRD

I’ve been wanting to join the rapelling/rock climbing portion of the rescue class ever since Paolo told me about it last year. You see, unbeknownst to most of my friends I’m actually a big wimp. The only thing that pushes me to try new things, like scuba diving, is pride. Heehee! The one thing I didn’t want to do was to chicken out in the middle of the rapelling or climbing part. That and falling flat on my face and breaking every bone in my body of course. I’m very happy to report that I made it! I think deep inside Paolo and I both had doubts whether I’d be able to finish the exercises but like I said, pride is an excellent motivator. I’ll post pictures as soon as I get my hands on some. Sensei Dencio took some crazy shots of everyone.

Update: Photos here!

Last August I mentioned that I was going to run my first ever 10k race in the New Balance Power Run but things didn’t quite turn out as planned. The event was postponed due to typhoon Ondoy so the Adidas KOTR 10k came first. The NBPR organizers moved the event to Nov. 29th and this time it’s definitely pushing through. Barring any other natural calamities of course. My personal goal for this weekend: 1:20. I know that’s slower than my KOTR result but I’m compensating for several things: 1) the course is supposed to be harder; 2) I will be wearing my NB 1350 running shoes (which are HEAVY!) instead of my Adizeros; and 3) I haven’t been training hard for the past 2-3wks due to cough and cold. But since this is going to be my last race for the year, I am determined to finish it.

I’ll post another entry after the race on Sunday. For now, wish me luck!

A few months ago when I decided that it was time to graduate from the 5k race and move up to 10k, the thing that I really feared the most was that I would bust my knees in the middle of the run and not be able to finish.  Even armed with Paolo’s certainty that it was going to be a piece of cake for me, I still wasn’t so sure.  Since I didn’t want to crash and burn on my first 10k race, I prepared well. During my training runs, I limited my pace to 8-8.5mins/km and kept my pulse rate below 170bpm. My only goal was to finish in under 1:30.

My unofficial time today? 1:17.

Race route

about to cross the finish line

on the left is the official 10k clock

I’m not going to review the whole KOTR experience (let’s just say the registration process sucked) anymore. I think it has already been covered in great detail.  But I will say that I enjoyed the route. Going up the Buendia flyover during the first half was epic! There were no cars, the sun was just coming up behind me, and there was a nice, cool breeze blowing. All in all a great day for a run. There was a brief moment of levity when I heard the guy running next to me say, “Pot@, ano ba ‘tong pinasok ko?” (Translation: “What did I get my self into?”) To think we were barely past the 3km mark at that point. Haha!

I’m happy to report that up to now, I am still injury and pain free. A little tired but that was expected. We’ll see how things are tomorrow. Up next is the New Balance Power Race (moved from Sept. 27 to Nov. 29 due to Typhoon Ondoy). I hear the McKinley Hill route is a bit harder but more scenic. I’m hoping I can improve my time even with the increased difficulty level.