Blas organized this press and I’m really surprise my friend was able to pull this off. Well the foods were great, there were fun games where you’re entitled to win something (the luckiest one was Jazz for winning another runner shoes and Rico for some hotel accommodation somewhere in Bohol. There was also this speech of Joey Villa (Churner Group big boss) about the benefits of Suchero, the sugar alternative. Well, I was really keen on listening to him, as diabetes run in the family, I’m pretty sure its just a matter of time before I myself suffer from some type of diabetes if I don’t check my health and control my sugar intake. Anyway, see the official info below for Suchero which is already available in the market:

The Search for the Best Sugar Alternative
An organic certification provides assurance that no chemical food additives or processes that may prove harmful over the long run were used to produce a sweetener Unwanted pounds, obesity, and diabetes are some good reasons to avoid sugar and to find an alternative sweetener. But not all alternative sweeteners are the same.

A number of artificial sweeteners that have recently appeared in the market, for example, claim zero calories. The nutritional information to any product with zero calories, nevertheless, will reveal that these products likewise have zero or close to zero carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals– in short, no nutrients. As such, how can you consider these sweeteners to be healthy when in many cases you can’t even consider them to have any nutritional value, a number of health experts are now asking.

While other alternative sweeteners are plant- or fruit-based, they may cause side effects like bloating, nausea or dizziness. They are likewise highly processed and may have a bitter after taste, making them a poor alternative for the family. How can children appreciate, for example, a supposedly sweet-tasting dish with an unpleasant after taste?

The best sugar alternative fit for the whole family must not only be healthy and all-natural, it must also be certified
organic, according to Joey Villa, president of the Philippine-based Churner Group which produces Suchero. This alternative sweetener has an organic certification from the US Department of Agriculture – National Organic Program and a Certificate of Conformity from EU (European Union) Organic Products. Both certifications ensure that no synthetic inputs or chemical fertilizers and other harmful ingredients were used to produce Suchero. After all, some sweeteners may claim to be natural because they are plant or fruit-based. “But there is no assurance that they were not subjected to chemical and other harmful processes or do not include chemical food additives that may prove to be unsafe over the long run. An organic certification dismisses all those fears,”
according to Villa.

The best proof of Suchero’s effectiveness and safety as a sweetener is in the tasting. Made from the sap of coconut trees, it has a rich caramel flavor and no after taste. It is also rich in amino acids and vitamins as well as minerals such as calcium, potassium, magnesium, phosphorus, zinc, iron, and manganese. Explains Villa: “The human body does not produce minerals and these must be provided from food sources. Vitamins have little function without minerals. Minerals enable the vitamins to effectively accomplish its purposes.”

According to Villa, health buffs especially those who join marathons take Suchero straight from the packet to
replace their energy after strenuous activity. “Suchero provides them the extra energy they need but does not
dramatically raise their glycemic index the way real sugar does.” After a GI spike, the body ironically feels lethargic and weak. Better yet, Suchero behaves like sugar. “Thus, when a recipe calls for one cup of sugar, one may use one cup of Suchero without worrying about any deviations on taste. Preparing and cooking food is thus easy and hassle-free,” according to Villa.

Certified by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and recognized as organic globally by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the European Commission (EC), “you could say Suchero not only makes you look good because it is 100% natural with less calories, but also packed with nutrients to make you feel good,” says Villa. Suchero is now being marketed in major supermarkets and drugstores nationwide. It is now also being distributed in South
Korea by a leading coffee shop chain and is now available in supermarkets in the US, Canada, and Netherlands. It will soon be available in more countries around the globe – a recognition of its superiority as a healthy organic and great tasting sweetener.

If you look closely above, you better expect a minimalist shoes coming from Mizuno. However, here’s a caveat, its not made for running, you cannot use it during your training runs, tempo or worst use it when you feel like racing. Weighing only 7 ounce, the shoes main selling is point is you can use this to help strengthen and activate your lower leg and foot muscles to improve running performance. So you can probably use this when you’re walking around your house, mall or when you’re doing yoga. However, I won’t be surprise if I see “minimalist” runners running on this shoes.

Here are some photos:

And since I feel like being Santa Claus today, I’m giving a way a voucher which entails the winner to get the shoes for only php1995 (SRP is php 3995). To join, simply comment below and let me know why you deserve it.

I went to St. Lukes BGC last Monday for a checkup with urologist. After several days, I finally have the courage to have a doctor checked my condition. What made me decide to finally see a doctor was because of the same issue I encountered before, pee on my blood after running or work-out. It was Friday the previous week when I did a light and 30 minutes of workout at Slimmers World Pasay road branch and after the work-out, I saw blood again in my pee. That was enough to scare the hell out of me that I finally decided to visit a hospital. You see I don’t like hospitals. The only time I have to go to hospital is when I have to be with relatives or my love ones confined in hospital and I have to be around to be the errand boy, give moral support, courage and financial assistance (lol).

Anyway, so the doctor asked me a couple of questions and I told him my situaion. I didn’t want to tell him that I’m spending php1,200 for a few minutes of chat with him just for him to confirm my own diagnosis.  So he requested me to go for ultrasound (KUB) and urinalysis.

You know what I hate most about the ultrasound? The nurse/doctor required me that I fill my bladder with water such that my bladder is about to burst through my penis, before they could even do the ultrasound. So I drank 8 cups of water to do that first task and I told the nurse that I’m ready coz I’m starting to feel like a jerk I could pee anywhere. Alas, when she checked my bladder via the ultrasound machine, she confirmed that my bladder is still not yet filled up according to their standards and I have to drink more.

FYI: did you know that we should drink at LEAST two liters of water a day? Yep! She told me that, it makes me realize what my daily consumption of liquid regularly and here it is on a daily basis. 3 cups of coffee, 1 can of carbonated drink (its free in the office!) and if I’m feeling good, 1 glass of water and in the evening, 1 glass of soya milk. That will be my total liquid intake for the day and probably my habit for the past months hahahaha! so I drank more than 2 litres of water in span of 5 minutes.

Anyway, so I drank another 8 cups of water to fill up my bladder but the goddamn bladder will take several minutes to be filled up.  Finally after 10 minutes, I feel like I could urinate in front of the nurse, I told her that they must do the procedure or the inevitable will happen. She checked my bladder via the ultrasound and confirmed that she could start the procedure. You know what I cannot forget about the whole thing was that she was pressing that gun-like device to check my bladder area (and also at the back) and I was feeling jerky and about to puke because of the way she pressed it against my bladder. As she was scanning my bladder I noticed a black mass of something in the screen, I asked her what was it. She told me that she’s not allowed to divulge any info and that I need to check it out with the doctor to confirm it. Her cellphone rang (i thought it should be turned off during any medical procedure!) and I told her that her ringing tone sounded like a 10 note bass slap by Victor Wooten, a popular jazz/punk bass player. I told her that I also play bass guitar and I found out she also play bass guitar. I somehow got her attention and finally we “clicked”. I asked her again whats that black mass of thing I just saw in the screen and she told me its a cyst. She said it in a way like it was nothing for her. The word “cyst” got my attention and the first question I blurted out was if “am I dying soon? How big is the cyst”. She told me its about .4cm and its a cyst filled with water. I have no idea what that meant but for some reason that got my attention, she had to call a doctor to confirm what she just scanned and after some chit-chat with the doctor, she told me that it was nothing, there’s no kidney stone in my kidney, my prostate and bladder is normal and everything. I kinda don’t believe her because I have a feeling she just wanted me to calm down because I’m getting scared *laughs*. She told me that I need to have another checkup with the urologist the next day.

I got home that day hiding the info to my wife. I did some research later that night and found out that a renal cyst could just be a simple renal cyst (which 70%-80% of the population normally develops as they get older) that is not cancerous and will not develop into one  or a complex one which could lead to cancer or already a cancerous cyst. My prayer was that it was just a simple renal cyst and that I could proceed with my life normally.

The next day I was not able to work as I was very worried. I went back to St. Lukes around 4pm and had a chat with my urologist. He told me its not cancerous because its normal in shape, there’s no calcification inside so its just filled up with water and my condition might be the result of exercise induced hematuria. I was about to explode with joy but I have to keep it to my self. I was happy because he confirmed my own diagnosis and I don’t have a complex renal cyst. So there you go, I went back to my life normally and sent an FB update about my status hahahaha!

Now I regularly drink at least 2 litres of water. I also avoid coffee and soda now.  I like to stay this way and I’ll be more careful now. Life is too short and we must exercise extreme caution for your love ones.

So there you go, I’m back!…darn I miss running again…

My next worry is my weight, it must go down!

After a 10km run this morning, my urine still contains blood. I feel like a guy on period and I should warn everyone around me this week to be extra cautious of my unnecessary mood swing. Seriously, this is freaking me out. I shall go St. Lukes to have it check. I expect some x-ray or that painful injection of dyed ink to my bloodstream to check out any blockage on my urethra or any stone in my kidney.

What makes it especially interesting is the blood in my urine only shows up after a run. Is my gallbladder grew up so big ever since I also grew so big that they started causing friction on other organs, causing me to bleed? Are my kidneys no longer normal after a month of taking this multivitamin? We will see.

There was a side-story after my run this morning. My urine contains blood when I urinated after the run. I frantically posted an FB message to check if this is normal and the conclusion was, go see a doctor. I didn’t go for the doctor, instead I went to a clinic for urinalysis. Here’s the result:

RBC: 0-2/HPF
Pus Cell: 0-2/HPF
Albumin: Negative
Sugar: Negative
pH: 5.0
Mucus Threads: FEW
Amorphous Urates/Phospates: FEW

It looks normal but I will go and visit a doctor next week. The last time I urinated with so much blood was when a small stone actually exited my penis. I remember I was about to undergo a lithotripsy when I decided I should go for alternative medicine and there you go, I was actually able to pass out the stone naturally. I wonder if this is the same case this morning. I didn’t notice a stone coming out but I felt somewhat relieve. I shall try running again tomorrow morning and see if there will be another blood in my urine. If there is, then you know I’m royally screwed.

Funny how I blogged about getting back to running asap, but I only started to run almost a week later. I realized that what kept me from running was not that I hate running, but I have a hard time waking up each morning and actually doing it. For the past 6 days, I my clock would alarm at exactly 5:00 am, I would put it into snooze several times and the next thing I know, its already 7:00 am. Well, it seems to me that maintaining a discipline to actually start doing it was the toughest part and I can only blame myself for it. Eh bakit nga ba di ako nakakatakbo sa umaga? Well I lack sleep, and I need sleep. My working habit these days have been very unhealthy. I would accept some projects, work up until 2am and sleep. How could you run at 5am that way? Hahahahaha! But since we have a very long weekend I decided everything must stop and I must reward myself of a nice run.

So this morning, I actually attempted to run. And I did it successfully. I woke up at 5am, change into my running clothes, and ate my son’s 2 small toblerone chocolates he got from trick and treat last week. God I wonder how he would react when he starts looking for them…Anyway, so there I go, I actually ran. I ran 12km at 6:30min/km-6:45min/km and my legs didn’t get tired after all. The first 6 km was a breeze, then I stopped at 711 to buy a php10 bottled water for my hydration. I asked the cashier to give me a whole 10 pesos change, but instead, she gave me  2 php5 coins, she closed the goddamn cash register so I ended up having 2 php5 coins. I hate it when I ran and I hear coins running with me, so I bought myself gummy bear which cost php5. I ran another 4 km and stopped again at the nearby 711 to buy another bottled water, the cashier was probably making fun of me that she forgot to give me again a whole php10 coin, so again, I bought another php5 gummy bear to get rid of having 2 coins. This happened again for the 3rd time, but this time, I actually bought a gummy bear myself and a bottled water. If you’re still doing some math how much money I have this morning, I actually have two php20 pesos paper bill. But going back to my run, I don’t know if the sugar content in gummy bear made my run so easy that I actually enjoyed going back for it. My legs are fine, thought I can feel some heaviness by I feel like my cardio was fine as well. I should start running again tomorrow morning, this time a bit faster to get back my old fitness.

But as for me, it looks like gummy bear is the new energy gel!

It was my wife’s bday yesterday and I wasn’t able to give anything to her. Being busy is a lousy excuse, plus I really couldn’t think of anything to give to her given that she’s not into gadgets,makeups,shoes,bags,clothes, furnitures, appliances (thank God I have such wife!) and what have you. And so for today, I decided to do something for her by doing some home maintenance (hihihihihi!). I decided to wipe the entire floor area (120sq meter of it!), 2 rooms,helper’s room (we don’t have a helper as of the moment), living room,kitchen,dining area, hall. I also tried my hand to one problem my wife have been bugging me for 3 weeks. The leaking shower head.

You know that scene in scary movies wherein everything is silent and all you could hear is a small, consistent droplets of water? Creepy yeah? It doesn’t disturb me but my wife is freaking out of it hahahahaha! We couldn’t find a tubero so I decided to fix it myself. Applying some methodology to identify the root-cause of the problem, I looked first at the shower-head. I then dismantled it like as if I know what I was doing, I noticed that small circle black rubber is already loose. I replaced it with new one and placed it back, turned the main water supply on and it was still leaking. Turned off the main water supply, removed the entire shower head such that the main water pipe was fully exposed and it was still leaking. So there you go, the goddamn shower-knob is the problem.  There was no way I could fix the shower-knob, my wife told me I need some sort of device to dismantle it. There was no way I’m gonna do a McGyver so I decided to leave it as it is for a while. One thing that bothered me though is if the leaking shower head is going to give us water bill head-ache. I noticed kse, I would put a huge bucket every-night and the next morning, it would be full. My calculation would be we could fill up 2 buckets overnight*laughs* but the bill’s going to kill us.

So what I did is, leaving the shower-head leaking some water, I checked the main water meter and I noticed it was not moving at all. Which means its been giving us some free water after all. And you know what I did next?………………..

Oh hai I’m back. I was just checking all my blog entries, and I must admit this blog started to look like the rest of the running blogs that suddenly popped up..it looks like a marketing tool for race organizers*laughs*. Seriously, not that its bad, but cmon, I started this blog to release my thoughts, rants and say whatever I want to say but alas, busyness from work, business and family matters took its toll on me that I only update this blog to copy and paste press materials for free race kit. God.Damn.It. Not that I cannot afford them, but cmon free is free! I see some blogs out there really exist just to promote races. I’m not going that direction, I believe there are running portals out there that does the job well (e.g takbo.ph, runswimbike.ph,pinoyfitness.com). So starting today, expect some mental masturbation every now and then from this blog! Har har har!!

So whats new with me? Well I’ve only been running once a week. I grew ridiculously fat, heavy and I feel like my fitness level went back to zero. I think I’m now 162lbs (was 145lbs several months ago!) and its bad. REALLY BAD. Starting next week, I will be serious. I will start blogging not just all about race, but about whats going on with me, thoughts and others. I will go to gym again three times a week, and do chillax run in between. Sat or Sun will be a minimum of 15-20km run. Then there’s this race I will be joining (QCIM 42km), I really hope I’ll have enough time to prepare for it. So help me God.

Guys I need your help. What’s the fastest way to get fitness level back?