Where do I begin?*

Where indeed should I begin? Some start at the very beginning. Others start at the very end and scroll back. I choose to start somewhere in the middle, hopefully not too far yet from the very end. Yes, certainly not when the fun is only beginning.

I started running almost six years ago. At that time, the purpose was to be fit, to lose the extra pounds, to manage stress in a very stressful and demanding job, to stave away hypertension, and to prove, like many runners do, that I was different, perhaps even better than some. At first, my runs would consist mainly of endless loops around a concrete indoor gym or service area that I visualized as ovals, doing interval repeats of 50-100 meters, until I could complete 5 kilometers. These runs would be followed by a fair amount of weighlifting, not the kind intended to build muscles, but rather the type simply designed for improving fitness and strength.

Two years of the above and I had to move on to another job where the gym, luckily, offered the convenience of treadmill running. I would then do at least three 5K runs a week, sometimes, if my frequent travels abroad allowed, even daily. The runs oftentimes were mixed with various other types of strength and aerobic exercises, again, simply for fun. The routine was good enough to lower my blood pressure readings, keep stress at bay, and improve my endurance that soon thereafter I was beginning to run 5K in 25 minutes or less. Alternative music on my iPod, my kind of music after a long affair with jazz and the classics, softened the monotony of these stationary indoor runs.

The transformation (metamorphosis in sciencespeak) occurred in 2009, when the gym began to be crowded after office hours, and luck became the major determinant whether one could use the treadmill at the desired time. Living in an environment-friendly town, with a tree-lined university campus full of exercise- and science-loving people (the town even refers to itself as a science city), and lured by the physical challenge of mastering the steep slopes of a virgin mountain, outdoor running beckoned like a lighthouse in a sea of darkness. The choice to run outdoors thus became not only logical but also practical. So as the treadmill runs decreased, so increased proportionately the runs around campus (a negative perfect correlation in statistical parlance).

Then Typhoon Ondoy came, sadly for many. Charity became the order of the day. After donating loads of assorted clothes to victims of the tragedy, I came across a Rescue Run invite in a national daily - a supposedly no frills, no race bib, no timing chip run to be held at the Mall of Asia one early Sunday morning, with the run proceeds to be donated to the victims of the calamity. Why not, I reckoned? I was running anyway, had a place to stay overnight in Makati, and like everybody else, desperately wanted to help Ondoy victims as much as one could.

Little did I know that this was to be the beginning - the alpha to your omega - that what was aimed at rescuing others would rescue me as well! So, the 5K Rescue Run I signed up for, after realizing that it was too short, became an unofficial 10K bandit run (though banditry was still not part of my running vocabulary during that time), and has now become a lifelong Rescue Run for myself, and thru this blog, perhaps for others as well! As I post this entry, I have done an almost weekly assortment of 5Ks, 10Ks, and 21Ks. Name it, I probably was there. I even flew to Cebu just to run their marathon last January! Looming in the horizon are 15Ks, 16Ks, and 42Ks! Beyond these, who knows what else?

This blog will be about these runs, how I fit them to a lifestyle that primarily revolves around science and its practical applications. No heavy stuff whatsover, even if I will try to use sciencespeak from time to time, just for fun. I hope you will enjoy and perhaps learn a thing or two from reading my stories, as I will certainly try to enjoy writing them.

Welcome to the world of The Scientist Runner!.

*Inspired by the theme song of the 1970 hit movie Love Story ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/(Where_Do_I_Begin%3F)_Love_Story)