From XL to XTERRA

Between celebrating the Christmas holiday and the New Year, it has been a challenge to stay on the path of the “training righteous” during the last couple of weeks—to say the least. I freely admit to carrying a couple of fully loaded plates and to enjoying a couple of well-prepared desserts, but I knew fully well that I was going to have to do a little more work than usual to make up for it.

Making matters worse was that my training partner went on vacation on Bali for 10 days, as I was easily able to shirk a few of my daily workouts because I had nobody to let down in the process.

The good news is that I didn’t let everything go during the break, and that I had a great time training in the last event of 2004.

On the day that he was leaving to Indonesia, John took valuable time away from his last-minute packing duties to take part in one of his longest and most enjoyable runs since the first day of training.

Six hours after Christmas Day gave way to the relentless army of time, 11 teams of runners set out upon the first leg of a mile-by-mile journey from the south of Saipan to the Last Command Post of the Japanese occupying force in World War II in the north of the island.

In the 26 years that the relay race has been existence, the Cross Island Relay has been more of an entertaining form of exercise than a serious competition. Contestants don costumes and make wagers as to which team will outperform the others despite a stomach-full of the previous night’s holiday cheer.

John and I were on different teams—I was joined by my coworkers at the paper, while the big guy was flanked by a cast of characters that sported “pectoral enhancements.”

I was among the first runners who took off before the sun had a chance to paint the clouds, and I learned quickly the value of pacing.

After running the best 5-kilometers of my life a week and a half before, I felt like crap two-minutes into the first mile. I wanted to see how long I could keep pace with the big dogs at the front of the pack, and I did—for about two-minutes.

It felt as if I couldn’t open my mouth wide enough for air, as one by one the speedsters passed me by. The only reason that I didn’t stop and walk was because my coworkers were alongside of me in a car cheering me on. I mean c’mon, how inspiring would that be if the guy who was actually training for this stuff crouched over on the side of the road sucking wind and taking it easy?

I toughed it out and eventually evened out my pace. After I regained some composure, I passed two people before tagging my teammate Mark Rabago, but the main thing was that I found out the importance of running MY pace.

John was the second runner on his team, and his team had a lead on us. As the racers neared the second relay point, John was still ahead of Mark, and I recall my teammate saying at the turn, “I planned to pass him when he got tired and started walking, but that Douglas guy didn’t quit!”

One by one, my fellow reporters took turns running the mile-long lengths of the relay, to include my editor Jayvee Valejera. JV wasn’t too keen about joining the relay in the first place, but he eventually caved in to the peer pressure and ran along Beach Road from Grand Hotel to the Quartermaster Tank before tagging Liberty Dones

For one 13.7 mile stretch of road, my friends and colleagues had the opportunity to experience for themselves a piece of the thrill that I has enveloped me for the last two months

I saw in their faces both joy and pain as one by one the Tribune Newsmakers ventured from San Antonio to Marpi—one mile at a time.

While we all took turns huffing and puffing toward the tail end of the pack, John and “Nice Boots” were making their way north at a steady pace. After he finished his second leg near Winchell’s in Garapan, John had to beat feet and pack, but at least he jumped in to do the last bit of training that he could before leaving.

Needless to say, John Ravelo, Shan Seman, Agnes Donato, and the rest of us Newsmakers did not set any land-speed records along the way, but we did break new ground. This was the first real team-building experience that we had undertaken since my joining the Trib, and judging by their reactions it will not be the last.

As if I haven’t discovered enough positive aspects from training for the 2005 Saipan XTERRA Championships, I was happy to see the progress that John has made, the last minute effort he put in, and share the exercising rush with my pals from the paper.

For a more serious issue, my lungs officially become a smoke-free zone this weekend, as I will let the tar-coated respirators regain their youthful pink hue in the next three months before the race.

I’m sure that it won’t be fun in the beginning, and that I may be discouraged by a weight gain as well. I’ll just have to rely on the word of the good folks at the American Lung Association, and trust that this will be good for me. The only thing that I am really concerned about is quitting a week before our next race. I mean, I should race the way I train, right? And since I have been smoking while training, logically I should continue smoking until next week’s Enticer Triathlon, right?

Alright, alright, I know, I know—I’m done at 12:01am on Sunday morning. At the very least, I know that my mom will be happy to know that I am just saying no to tobacco. Feel free to wish me luck on this one.