Season's Greetings!

Wishing you all more toys to tinker with for the upcoming year, and more importantly, a wonderful world to play in.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone!

Image Credit: Getty

Recycling Magazines

Looking around my apartment, it's easy to see that I love outdoor and fitness magazines. From my desk where I'm typing this, I can see the latest issue of Ride Cycling Review, the October/November issue of Australian Mountain Bike, two back issues of Runner's World, MultiSport, the last two issues of The Bull Runner Magazine, Weekend Warrior, Roam, Mountain Bike Action, an FHM (I like the articles), and five back issues of Men's Health. Yeah, Men's Health Magazines make up the bulk of the lot since they're easy to get and cheaper compared to other foreign mags. Plus, I get a lot of work-out programs and tips from their pages.

As much as I like reading magazines, I've never subscribed to any single publication in my life. I hardly even buy latest issues anymore, and it helps that I'm no longer in the loop when it comes to local sexy celebrities--seductive cover photos don't reel me in (it's much stronger when there's a "connection").

Maybe I was on to something with the whole just getting back issues thing. Check out exhibit A below:
  

Beauty is in the details

Details: Image credit

Sunday Ride

Being unable to confirm a ride on Saturday evening, I got up later than usual on Sunday morning, thinking I'd take the dog out on a long walk at the nearby park then head over to the folks for lunch. Unfortunately for Tala (the dog, a.k.a. almighty queen of the house) I lost track of time when I was trying to figure out how to set up my mobile phone for MMS and WAP. Shut up. I'm not up to speed with today's mobile phone technology and I wanted to send a photo of the dog to my significant other who was in Cebu. Looking at it that way, the dog brought it upon herself, missing a big walk. She found solace in sunbathing on the couch. The dog probably hates my guts.

She's Only Happy in the Sun

Helmet Wash

Show of hands. How many of you wash your helmets after a ride? Thought so. There's a reason why we leave our helmets hanging on the handlebars, away from the table where we eat our mid-ride meal. It's bad enough that our shirts are dripping wet from sweat; we don't need to bring the funk of a helmet that has gone through months of riding without a wash. 'Fess up. There are some of you who have never washed your helmet since buying it. Truth be told, I belong to that group, too. Until this evening.

Condura Run 2010

This is why I've been waking up early each morning (almost):

Condura Run 2010, Image Credit

I'm planning to run the half-marathon on this event, and hopefully another half mary or two for the entire year of 2010. My friend Sidney and I have agreed to run the 21K together, though I'm not sure if we'll be riding bets on this one too, like we did on the KOTR. More than anything, I just want to be able to finish the run in a decent time and get over any mental hurdles the race may pose. Surely finishing a half-marathon will help my mind process the thought of signing up for a full mary in 2011.

Plus, this run is going to be for the dolphins. I like dolphins.


For more information on the Condura Run 2010, click here for the Takbo.ph write up. Also, the official race website will be up by December 14.

Team RadioShack Trek Madone 2010

Introducing the Trek Madone 2010 for Team RadioShack:

Suh-weet. Love the color scheme!

Image via source

Maarat: The Litmus Test

Sunday. After an exhausting first week of training for a 21K (a run I'm planning to join a little over two months from now) I was itching to get back on the trails. Fortunately, my biker friends from Cainta already cooked something up--a return to our old training ground, Maarat. Since my training program actually calls for a long run on Sundays, I moved the blocks around and did the LSD (long slow distance, not the drug) on Friday to get at least a full day's rest on Saturday before a hard ride to cap the week off. My buddies might not have been planning for punishment, but I was. I've become a masochist as of late, waking up at 5AM, going to hell, dancing with the devil, and then heading back home for breakfast.

Motivation

Motivation comes in many different forms. Right now, mine comes in the form of a t-shirt. Yup. A simple, black shirt. The cost? A hundred-peso donation, and my early mornings, weekends, and social life (not much of a loss there).

I'm talking about the shirt which comes with becoming a member of Bald Runner's 1,000-Km Club.

1,000-Km Club T-shirt graphic

Pinoy Weekend Warrior Wishlist: Other

With Christmas a mere three weeks away, here is the final installment of my wishlist this year.

Pinoy Weekend Warrior Wishlist: Other

Ride Planet Earth (Manila)

I'm reposting this from our good friends over at The Firefly Brigade:

• On 6th December '09 cyclists around the globe will take to the streets, demonstrating the capacity and willingness of ordinary people to take action against climate change.
• The next day in Copenhagen, 7th December '09 the COP15 negotiations begin. Ride Planet Earth aims to help convince the governments meeting there to take immediate action.
• Participants can record video messages to send to the COP15, stating not only why action is necessary, but also what they will be doing about it personally, to show that if governments don't take the lead, ordinary people will.

The event began as a solo bicycle journey by Kim Nguyen from Brisbane, Australia to Copenhagen, to collect messages from people already effected by climate change.

Over the course of the journey a movement developed such that there are now rides occuring on every continent bar Antarctica.

"Joggers" no longer allowed in Veterans?

My apartment is just a little over a kilometer from the Mindanao Avenue entrance of Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC), and I was introduced to the 1.8 kilometer loop inside the compound by a friend of mine who used to live there. We had Day 1 of our training just before the GIG Run in July. I'm sure Day 2 is bound to happen sometime soon.

Or maybe not.

Due to its proximity, I've been using the Veterans loop (and the roads leading to it) as my training ground for the past few weeks, moreso now that I actually have a training program to follow. This morning, I had a short 3K run scheduled so I got up relatively late knowing I could complete the distance quickly. I had it planned, too: I was going to run from my apartment to the entrance, do a loop, and I was done.

As I turned left from Mindanao Avenue to enter VMMC, two guards were standing at the side of the entrance and one of them, upon seeing me, quickly pulled up the chain he was holding and effectively blocked me from proceeding further. The other guard asked "Brad, joggers ka ba? Joggers? (Bro, are you a joggers? Joggers?)" Well, I was all by my lonesome so technically, I wasn't a "joggers" but I said yes anyway. He continued, "Bawal na. Bawal. (Joggers aren't allowed here anymore)"