IF people wanted to follow in my footsteps, what caveats, rules of the road and lessons learned can they hear from me? Here are a few:
1. Eat. At first I thought that carbohydrates and calories galore were the way to go for a run that would extend beyond its original four-month time frame. But long-distance, multiple-day runs, I discovered the hard way, require a lot of protein, too. Though I stubbornly stuck to my no-pork, no-beef rule, I did add chicken and turkey to my fish-and-veggie diet, ate hard-boiled eggs and protein bars on the run, and drank whey protein (vanilla flavor!) which I mixed with low-fat milk and consumed immediately after a full day of road running.
A pelvic stress fracture, a typical injury of female long-distance runners, taught me the value of daily calcium and vitamin D intake. And thank goodness for glucosamine chondroitin. The supplements that are said to regenerate cartilage have kept my knees pain- and injury-free since I started taking them before my 2005 run from Davao City to Pagudpud, Ilocos Norte. As for what to drink, sports drinks with nutrients like potassium and sodium replenish those that you lose from sweat during the run. But don?t underestimate the importance of water, which cleanses the kidneys and liver of toxins and waste products.
2. ?Make ice your friend.? This I got from Fil-Am triathlete Arland Macasieb who tracked me down when I was on a month-and-a-half break in LA, and who joined my running partner Mat Macabe and I when we finally reached his stomping grounds in New Jersey. The trick is to fill a tub with ice and sit in it for some 10-15 minutes. Sure it?s mighty cold and it hurts, but the ice eases muscle inflammation and that ?beat up? feeling in the legs, feet, butt, and hips, making running just a little less painful the following day. Thanks, Arland.
3. Break down the job. Running from LA to New York is an overwhelming challenge. But running 26 to 30 miles from one point to another day after day is less daunting, and very doable for runners who are used to covering the distance. On days when even that sounds like too much, break the distance down even more by inching your way to your destination three, four, or five miles at a time. Before you know it, you?re there.
4. Embrace the unexpected ? and trust everything will turn out okay. Plan all you want, but even the most detailed, iron-clad, cover-all-bases kind of planning never always goes as you wish.
Besides, the unexpected, while scary at times, can also be exciting and even better than what you wanted. The unexpected brought us Danny Titus, a professional photographer who, after covering us in Las Vegas and from Arizona to Denver, ended up serving as our coordinator till New York.
The unexpected also led us to friends like Jojo Dideles, a Pinoy extreme athlete who cooked up a feast of elk and deer at our pit stop in Pagosa Springs, Colorado; and Tony Kuyper and Lucy Fund, pharmacists who literally ran into us on the Arizona highway and invited us for dinner and an overnight stay in Lucy?s home.
Even a serious setback like a stress fracture proved a blessing in disguise. The month-and-a-half break brought us back to the west coast, where Mat had a surprise reunion in Vegas with Dani Masangkay, a runner friend of his whom he hadn?t seen in 10 years.
And thanks to Ping Bayani, our Kansas-based Pinoy friend, our circle of friends grew even bigger when he invited us to speak in a gathering of ex-seminarians in Big Bear, California.
5. Surround yourself with people who care. Because what you?re doing is so tough and stressful, you need all the love and positive reinforcement you can get.
Besides traveling with two gentlemen who stuck by me when I was running at my best and worst, I was blessed with friends and family in the Philippines and along the 16 states we crossed who never stopped sending me their good thoughts and prayers.
And how lucky could we be to have sponsors who we could also call our friends! Dr. Arturo Ludan, inventor of SportsAde, cheered us on in his e-mails, while Mike Morelos, Western Union?s marketing manager for the Pacific and Indochina, was forever on our side during the highs and lows of our transcontinental journey.
6. Pray, pray, pray. I was in an awful lot of pain somewhere in Missouri when my mom texted out of the blue to tell me about all the priests and people she recruited to pray for us. ?Say the rosary while running, Joy,? she urged me.
I did and it worked: many miles, hours, and rosary cycles later, I was done for the day, the pain subdued by the calming effect of a string of Our Fathers and Hail Marys. I also said a novena daily to St. Therese of the Child Jesus, a practice courtesy of my friend and St. Therese devotee Alya Honasan. Of course, you need not confine yourself to Catholic rituals; simply asking for help or saying thanks to a Higher Being is enough to get you heard. And believe me, Someone does listen.
7. Don?t just dream, make it happen. Like the Philippine run in 2005, I was willing to do the work to make this mammoth project a reality. I wrote sponsorship letters, delivered some of them myself, pitched before would-be sponsors, and continued to push even after enduring one rejection after another. And of course, I ran, and ran, and ran.
It certainly didn?t happen as soon as I had wanted it to, but eventually our run across America did, and even then, I worked doubly harder, pushing myself to reach the day?s destination even when I was tired and in pain, and never giving up when the odds were against us.
As one friend put it when times were rough and my confidence was shaky, ?You have to really, really want this, Joy.? Running into New York City on November 22 and through a finish line tape held up by another friend in Central Park, I guess I really did.
