on the right track

After two weeks of bronchitis in December, four weeks of holiday feasting and five weeks of no exercise, I am quite about ready to burst from my seemingly shrinking clothes. And today, being the last day of the Christmas season, seems like a good day to start getting back on the road to physical well being. Plus there’s the crucial fact that I just finished the last crumbs of that moist chocolate cake with mint icing in the ref. As long as nobody gives me another layer of irresistible baked goodies, then I’m on my merry way to good health.

I figured that boxing again this soon would be too abrupt and strenuous after weeks of being sedentary, and might just trigger an asthmatic attack. I thought walking and jogging would be a good start. There's the much raved about newly installed rubberized running track at the Perdices Coliseum which they say is so heavenly it's like you'll never get tired. Owws? The skeptic in me doubted that very much so yesterday I tried it out for myself. How many rounds would I last?

Rubberized red running track

It turns out I'm really not good at counting and I lost track of how many times I went around the track in one hour. And I don't remember getting tired, I just stopped because it was already dark.

And I remembered that once upon a time in college my friends and I would run around the campus at night, to put some oxygen into our book-numbed brains. Our favorite time for running used to be midnight, when we were too tired to study and too awake to sleep, until the dorm enforced an earlier curfew because somebody got mugged in campus while jogging at night.

So we ran during the day, in the rain or under the noonday heat of sun. Up to the Quezon Memorial Circle where, unbeknownst to me, somebody took my picture and put it on the cover of Health and Home, a health and fitness magazine. So, what can I say, except that once in my life I was a covergirl!

Some things are black and white.

But that was then and this is now. And the cold fact is, if you overeat and undermove, you’re going to get fat. No further explanation needed.

On the right track? Check!

So eating right and regular exercise would be the right moves for 2009. But you knew that already in 2008, and 2007 and 200… As Nike says, stop talking and Just Do It.

The people of Dumaguete are fortunate to have this really nice rubberized running track. How much does it cost to run there? Nothing! As it has been paid for already by our taxes. There’s just a glass-walled box there where you can donate any amount for the upkeep of the place.

I think it’s a waste that not a lot of people actually go there to make use of the track. But sadder still is the fact that there are some trash scattered around the place, mostly empty water and juice bottles, discarded by health buffs. As Gaya said, "We are a third world country because we have third world manners."

Fit 'n Right? Umm... not quite.