It’s 3:30 in the morning and I couldn’t sleep. I’ve been craving for something to eat but I couldn’t put my finger on it… Until I got the urge to have some pancakes. Out of nowhere, I got a craving for bacon, sausages and pancakes! [Maybe because it was what Jack Nicholson was having for breakfast in the movie "As Good As It Gets" which was showing on HBO].

I got out of bed, went to the kitchen and opened the pantry. I couldn’t find any “one step” pancake mix… What to do? OH! I spotted some flour, baking soda… Why not make pancakes from scratch?! Though I’ve never tried it before,  I decided to give it a try.

I went back to my room, got on the net and keyed in the keywords: “pancake recipe from scratch” and lo and behold, a link to AllRecipes.com showed it. It was a link to “Good Old Fashioned Pancakes“. The picture was mouthwatering:

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At the end of my day, I headed straight to ULTRA for my training. My calves still hurt like hell but what the heck. No pain no gain… well, hopefully, it would result in a loss of more pounds.

I did the usual 2km warm-up followed by some running drills. It’s really difficult to start back at square one. I’m building my base but I know that it’s also for the best since I don’t want my body to get shocked. Slow and steady is best and it is more reliable.

When I was doing the running drills, I found myself gasping for air. My body is really not used to doing what I used to do on a regular basis.

The last time I was at ULTRA, I wasn’t sure if I was doing the midfoot or forefoot strike. So today, I tried my best not to land on the area between the ball of my foot and my toes. According to what I’ve been reading, that’s the forefoot. I also consciously tried not to land on my heels. I guess if I did both, I’d end up doing the midfoot strike.

My plan for the day was to do a 5k interval session. This means running at 80% at the straight parts of the track while jogging on the curved portions. Well, since I was starting, I thought that I should run-walk-run instead of run-jog-run. Thinking of the entire workout bored me. It would mean that for every loop around the oval, I’d run twice and walk twice. In order for me to do 5k, I had to do 12.5 laps around the oval and it would translate to 50 run-walk-run segments. The idea of doing 50 just seemed too much and seemed really boring and I didn’t like the idea that it would take so long to finish.

As predicted, I got bored in the middle of the workout and I ended up doing 3.2km or 32 segments of the run-walk routine. Well, not bad if I count the 2km warmup that I did also. Let’s just hope all this work pays off

I’ve been contemplating whether I want to share with the other contestants what I’ve been doing the past few days. I finally decided… NOPE! Hehe

Since this blog has been helping me keep track of what I’ve been doing and writing down my insights, I decided to make it temporarily… CONFIDENTIAL!

I’ll divulge the password after the “Biggest Loser” ends on Dec. 13 or change the settings, but for now… Unless you’re part of my training team or pool of supporters, hehe, you won’t be able to see what I’ve been doing.

I’ll share my rest days though and other stuff I do to indulge

Day 3 was… indulgent! OH NO! I ended up watching a movie, ordering the “Oscar Bundle at NY Fries” which included the following:

• spaghetti meatballs
• chicken poppers
• fries w/ pesto dip
• ice tea

Then I also bought myself 130grams of chocolates from Candy Corner. Uh-oh…

I had set today as the day I return to ULTRA. I was quite anxious for many reasons…

ONE… It’s been a while since I’ve trained at ULTRA.

I think it’s been months if not a quarter since I last set foot on ULTRA. It’s really been that long. It felt like my first time when I set foot inside the track. I scanned the area for people I might recognize. I was looking for the usual coaches who were there or those that used to Coach me like Rio, John and Roel.

TWO… I felt out of place.

Ultra is know for people who do speed work and not for those who jog or walk around the track. It’s known to be the home of so many athletes… and I was not one of them. As I scanned the track oval, there were a lot of people who looked and ran like runners, not your recreational runners who take their sweet time as they stroll the entire  5k route. Inside were runners who were real serious about their training, either doing their tempo run, interval or fartleks.

THREE… I was huge.

I felt embarrassed about how big I had gotten. I was hoping not to see anyone I knew. Perhaps in their mind, “Si Passion Runner ba ‘yo?! Bakit parang hindi niya kamukha yung facebook profile niya? (Is that Passion Runner? How come he looks nothing like his facebook profile pic?)”

Or something like, “Geez! This guy ain’t a runner, what is he doing here?”

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