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Last year, I ran the Globe Run For Home course and set my then personal best for the 5km (29:14). It’s an above average time, but for someone of my age and level of activity, I knew that I should be a lot of faster and better. After joining a lot runs last year and moving my way up to the different distances in road races and really pushing myself to train for longer routes, I think it’s a good time to try out to push myself again and go for a 21km course. Continue Reading »

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The Philippines owns the unenviable record of having nine Olympic medals with no golds to show for it. With Mongolia winning a gold during the Beijing Games in 2008, the country was left as the nation with the most number of medals and yet still have even a single gold medal. With the rarity of Olympic gold medalists in our nation’s history, you would expect that Filipinos would somehow be more appreciative and mindful of the people who were able to bring glory to the country’s name in the sporting world’s biggest stage.

Pop quiz

Can you name another Olympic medalist who isn’t named Mansueto “Onyok” Velasco? If you mentioned Akiko Thompson, Eric Buhain, Ryan Papa, Bong Coo, Arriane Cerdena, Willy Wang or any other well-know Filipino athlete from the 1990s, you’re wrong. None of these athletes won an Olympic medal; Cerdena, Wang and Lucero though won medals for exhibition events of their respective sports. Continue Reading »

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I ran my fourth running event yesterday and I set a personal record! Sadly, the results are still not our for Globe Ayala Land Run For Home.

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My good friend and dive buddy Angel of Lakwatsero.com went to  Davao for a weekend of diving. Everything went well as far as his safety was concerned but the same couldn’t be said for a certain doctor who died while diving with the same dive operators that Angel had. The not-to-be-named male allegedly died due to a heart attack while he was still underwater – lack of air was ruled out since he had a dual-tank setup. This incident occured the same day that two tourists died in Cebu while diving. Scuba diving has  generally been safe in the Philippines so such a surge in dive-related fatalities may merit some further investigation. I only heard of one scuba-related death for the whole of 2008 so this disturbing cluster of deaths is nothing short of shocking.

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I figured most of you would be interested in how you could have your own scuba diving experience after reading my last few entries so let me share this how-to guide.

What do I need to dive?

While there are dive centers that would typically allow non-divers to have short “intro” dives, the best way to make the most of your time and money is to have yourself certified. Various diving organizations sanction the certification process with PADI being the most popular outfit.  Unlimited Diving offers a reasonably priced program at 8000php for a CMAS certification. You may call  Cell Globe 0917-TX Diver [893-4837] Smart 0929-8182478 for inquiries. Please tell them that you have been referred via this site.

Most dive resorts would have a well-stocked dive shop complete with gear for rentals. You can still go diving even if you don’t have any scuba equipment with you, just be prepared to shell out money for rentals. As you  dive more and more often, you might want to consider investing in equipment since you’ll probably recoup your initial expenses by saving on rental fees in the long run.

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As promised, here are the pictures from our dive sessions yesterday. Divers obviously can’t communicate through conventional means  underwater so a simple set of hand signals were devised for immediate concerns. The most popular of which is the ‘OK’ sign. It is done by forming an “O” shape with your index and thumb while extending the other three fingers. This signal is so popular that non-divers have been using it in ads and television shows.

This has got to be the coolest shot of the bunch. There was a big school of jack – that’s talakitok in local parlance — that literally conjured memories of great National Geographic features. I wish it were me on this picture! The fish were silver and they were moving in a synchronized manner as if they comprised just one super organism.  They came in different sizes – some were the size of my hand while some looked like they were as long as my arm!

I was actually trying to remove my regulator (the thing you bite to allow you to breath underwater) to flash a smile but since the photographer (who happens to be my cool dive master Penn, all photo credits go to him!) couldn’t read my mind, he ended up shooting this one a tad too early. Here are DM Penn’s other shots:

Clownfish!

A banded pipe fish!

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