The Manila Marathon - Prelims

I’ve decided I’m going to run a marathon. There’s no backing out now, as I ran 16 miles yesterday. What better place to run your first marathon than Manila? It’s the most humid place on earth and the particular marathon hosted here is technically uphill. (It starts on the bay and follows the river inland). It also starts at 4:30 in the morning. You’d be crazy to not take part in such an enjoyable experience.

The Philippine Marathon

That aside, I’m all in. I’ve been training since about Christmas-time. I won’t bore you with the training schedule, but don’t think for a minute it doesn’t still involve my good friend San Miguel. In my training, I’ve learned a lot about the Philippines. For example, it is illegal to run with your shirt off. When the sun is out here, it gets hot, so I figured I’d just take my shirt off while running through one of the local neighborhoods. I was quickly stopped by an official looking man with a gun.

Guy with Gun: Sir. What are you doing?
Sweaty Ringo: (pause to acknowledge the obvious) Running.
Guy with Gun: You cannot run with no clothes on.
Sweaty Ringo: I have no clothes on?
Guy with Gun: Sir, we have gotten complaints.
Sweaty Ringo: Complaints?
Guy with Gun: You pay a fine sir.
Ringo: (pause, silence)

Here we came to a draw. I had to run with a shirt on because he had a gun. But, he could not extract a bribe, since I obviously had no cash, nor even an identification to confiscate.* So I ran off.

The race is less than a month away, on Feb. 24, so look for race results on the blog sometime then. Until that time, I’ll be running a lot. With clothes on.

* I was not so lucky when pulled over on my motor bike. On that occasion, the policeman rode with me on the back of my motorbike around the corner, where he extracted an exorbitant bribe from me in order to return my driver license.