Philam Vitality Active App

A few years ago, I was into running. I would run 3k every other day. Occasionally, on weekends I'd join a 10k race. My time wasn't that bad either. Sub-40 for 5k, 1 hour 30 minutes PR for 10k. Not bad, di ba?

running with our friends

A Sports Mom's Survival Guide

More than half of the 16 years that I'm a mom, I've been a sports mom.

I've taken them to soccer trainings, scrimmages and tournaments.

I've been with them through several aquathlons... I even ran alongside my oldest when she did her first aquathlon when she was 9 years old because she was so scared she couldn't finish the 3k run. 

I've chaperoned them to different provinces when they qualified for the national championships for Palarong Pambansa and Batang Pinoy.

I am currently a swim mom, and enjoying it so much!

August 2008 when they were all going to Futbol Fanatics during the weekends,
years before the Azkals was even formed

Ateneo Aquathlon 2011

Like the previous year, J's swimming team supported this year's Ateneo Aquathlon as well.  But unlike last year, the 12 and under participants are to bear the brunt of the unforgiving summer sun, with their wave the last to start at 8:30am. 

With some of her team-mates from CAL Swimming

Thank goodness!  She managed to remember to put herself in front of the crowd of swimmers...

She performed well in the water, and was the fifth girl out of the pool.  She is to face what is the hardest part of the race for her - the run leg.  I remember, I ran alongside her last year...

This year, I was contemplating on running with her again, but C put his foot down and decided that J should run her own race this year.

Heading straight to the official's table to check her time after crossing the finish line.  (Notice a veteran tri-kid with her own personailized tri-suit behind J)

For future reference, her race stats are:  400m swim: 6min 28 sec, 3km run: 19min 06sec, total race time:  25min 34sec. 

She is obviously pleased with her finish!

 

 Read how she handled her first aquathlon here.

Nutrition Guidelines for Young Athletes

There are days when my kids have soccer tournaments and swim meets that are just days apart from each other.  The fast-paced schedule can take its toll on me as I bring them from one meet to the other.  What more the exhaustion it can result to in their active bodies. 

I try to take a more active part in their nutrition as I know it helps restore and properly nourish their fatigued body.  I try to follow whatever nutrition tips their coach gives, and do some more research on the Net on my own.  But the operative word is really TRY.  It is a struggle as I take on so many different roles…  

Far be it that proper nutrition can assure you that your young athlete will turn into a champion - No!  For only proper training and self-discipline can do that.  Taking care of your kids' nutritional needs mean, however, that you are raising a healthy child who has the FULL potential to develop into a confident and winning athlete.

With the team's trophy after her team was declared overall champion in the girls category

With some of her team mates

Here are some of the nutrition guidelines that I try to follow for my kids, which might also be useful for you: 

1.  Carbo load one week or least three days before the event. 

Carbohydrates are the starches and sugars that provide the energy our bodies need to function and grow.  There are two types of carbohydrates:  Simple and Complex. 

SIMPLE CARBOHYDRATES are commonly referred to as sugars.  Examples of these include fruits, honey, candies, and other processed sugars.  They are very easy to digest and get into the blood stream very quickly. This enables the body to benefit from a burst of energy as the body breaks down the sugar and pulls the nutrients out of it.  Athletes can benefit from moderate amounts of honey and fruits DURING the event day itself.

COMPLEX CARBOHYDRATES are most commonly referred to as starch and fiber.  They are more difficult for the body to break down rapidly, which ensures a longer, more sustained supply of energy to the body.  For the purpose of Carbo-loading before an event, what we need to stock on is the COMPLEX kind. 

Our muscles normally store only small amounts of glycogen, and usually, this isn’t a problem. But if your kids start exercising at high intensity, such as when running or swimming, their muscles run out of glycogen which can result to diminished stamina and performance.

Taking in extra doses of carbo 3-5 days before the tournament will enable your kids to super-maximize the storage of glycogen muscle fuel prior to the competition. Indeed a pasta dinner the night before a competition is still a great idea, but it takes extra carbs for a few days before the tournament to effectively carbo load.

2.  Make them go to bed as early as possible, especially if they are getting up early. 

The night before a meet, my kids always sleep early.  If it means checking up on your kids' room constantly to make sure that they are asleep, then that's what you have to do.  No partying or movies the night before a big event.

3.  Eat well the morning of the event

The general advice for eating breakfast before a competition is to consume a carbohydrate-rich meal about 2–4 hours before the action begins. This will help top off the glycogen stores and ensure a steady supply of blood glucose during competition. 

4.  Recovery between events

After every event, your first priority is your kids’ recovery. Your window of opportunity for recovery starts as soon as their first event is over. Glycogen stores in their bodies need reloading, and fluid and sodium losses need to be replaced.

The waiting time between competitions will vary, so it’s wise to be prepared for any possibility. In addition, tournament and meet venues sometimes have limited access to food and fluids.  What could be worse than knowing that the food concessionares have ran out of food to serve.  So don’t just hope for the best: Plan ahead. That means packing your bag and cooler with the types of fluids and foods your kid will need to keep hydrated and fueled throughout the day.

If the competition happen to extend to lunch, a carbohydrate-rich meal with some lean protein is appropriate. Steer clear of slower-to-digest fried, fatty, or high-fiber foods.  A  few of the good choices are sandwiches, pastas, rice with a viand of lean meat.

If the interval between competitions is just short or uncertain, “grazing” is the best recovery strategy. Grazing involves consuming smaller portions of foods and beverages that are quickly and easily digested. Again, the focus should be mostly on carbs with some lean protein.   Examples are energy bars, sports drinks, yogurts, fruits.

In our case, I usually bring sports drinks, bananas, and honey.  You can experiment and try to come up with a combination on what works for your kids.  It is a general rule however to avoid products that are high in sugar during competition day.  The kids will get the sugar rush, followed by a second half crash! I find that using honey works well if they need that sugar pick me up.

5.  Maintain hydration

It’s also wise to make sure that they are well-hydrated.  I do this by reminding them to drink fluids as soon as they wake up and continuing to drink regularly during the course of the tournament - even if they do not feel thirsty.

Alaska Football Cup at the Ayala Alabang Football Field

here is what we usually have in our snack bag:

For snacking:  sports drink (Blue Bolt by Gatorade, but any brand will do), honey, banana

For Lunch: pasta salad

I will share with you our favorite pasta salad recipe.  My kids love it for the flavor, and I love it because it is nutritious and more importantly VERY EASY to prepare.  This is what I also usually serve them for breakfast on the day of a competition, since it is already a given that I do not favor waking up a minute earlier than necessary, and competitions usually require us to be at the event early in the morning.   I purposely steered clear of tomato-based sauce for fear of food spoilage. 

What you need:

• Fusilli (but you can use any pasta of your choice)
• 1 can of brined tuna chunks, drained
• 3 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
• Several pieces of sliced Italian sausage

Toppings:

• Sour cream or unflavored yogurt *
• Japanese mayo
• chunks of cheese torta (the fusion of tomato and the basil pesto makes ALL the difference in taste.  If you do not have this, fret not, just buy a bottled pesto sauce; it’ll do)

*the addition of sour cream or yogurt is totally optional.  I only put it in mine to make sure the salad stays hydrated without adding of too much of the fattening mayo; it's a PLUS that they get the benefits of the yogurt, too.

Layer all the ingredients in this order:  pasta, tuna, egg, sausage, cheese torta (click here for the recipe).  Bring the yogurt and Japanese mayo in their original container and pour when your child is ready to eat.  Pack everything inside a cooler.

As you can see, it is fuss-free and a complete meal in itself.  Pasta provides the carbo; eggs, tuna, cheese torta and yogurt gives protein; the Italian sausage could weakly pass for protein, I guess, but I added it primarily for flavor; Japanese mayo packs a ton of flavor and comes in a very handy transportable container.

Hope this post helps! 

You can also read up an earlier post with a similar topic, Nutrition and the Young Athlete.


reference materials:
Sports Nutrition For Young Athletes:  Vital to Victory
Fuel Your Young Athlete for Peak Performance
Eating Before & Between Athletic Events
U.S. Youth Soccer:  Athletic Nutrition for Young Athletes





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Adidas King of the Road 2010

The Adidas King Of The Road is always one of the most anticipated races year after year.  Not only are the race singlet the best in terms of quality and design, the race itself is also very well-organized.  The yellow race bib from last year's race has been worn numerous times, shared by myself and J, when she does land training. 

I haven't been joining a lot of races this year, preferring instead to just run solo.  Alternatively, when I feel like it I do an hour of tae-bo early in morning after dropping off the kids at school.    The registration fee is absurd these days... gone are the days when you just have to fork out P250.  I do not think I can find myself handing out P850 for a race.  Yeah, that's me - cheapo! :)

So while, I am still contemplating about joining, you should consider signing up ASAP if you are determined to join this race.  There is always a mad dash for the Adidas race singlets.  Hurry because singlets are on a first come first serve basis. Once they run out of shirts, the P850 race kit will contain everything else except the singlet.

Here is the press release:

 

It’s time for the biggest run once again! Adidas Philippines is inviting everyone to participate in the Adidas King of the Road (KOTR) happening on October 24, 2010  at the Fort Bonifacio Global City. Register for 5k, 10k or 21k for 850PHP. It’s a first come, first serve basis.

Enjoy side activities and mini events prepared exclusively for all participants during the race -foot scans, an adidas photo wall, massage and stretching areas, adidas sale and mini programs and concert. Buffet breakfast meals will be served.

Each race kit will contain a unique black singlet that comes with a timing chip that will help you improve your run, a race bib, a reflective slap strap, race routes/ maps, a timing band and guidelines. Be faster and level UP to your game.

You may register at the following participating stores:

RUNNR, RUNNR Cebu, adidas Trinoma, adidas Greenbelt, adidas Rockwell, adidas Ayala Center Cebu, adidas Gateway, adidas Glorietta, adidas Shangri-la, adidas Eastwood, adidas Alabang Town Center and adidas Newport City.

Soccer, Swim, Run

Last Saturday the girls had their first soccer festival for this school year.    As you can see, the team is complete with de rigueur accessories.

 Soccer bag?  Check.

Umbrella?  Check.

Sadly, what they didn't bring to the tournament is their own soccer ball to use during warm-up.  Hence, instead of doing foot drills.....

The kids went their own way during summer with only a few handful continuing with soccer training.   J herself was immersed with swimming training the whole of summer.  The team only had a few days worth of practice since the start of school and it showed in their performance.  It was funny looking at how they all dodged the ball during penalty kick.

It is also B's first time to join a competition with the school team.  She is excited as can be.  Coach fielded her for a few minutes, but like most of the girls in Team 2003, she stayed at the sidelines most of the time - chit-chatting up a storm.

The day after, J is back doing the Alaska IronKids again.  This time around, she participated with her soccer friends.  All the girls went to the aquathlon tired from the day before because of the back to back timing of the race with the St. Ignatius Soccer Tournament.  Nonetheless, no one minded the body and muscle aches since everyone only felt excitement on doing the race together.  

The are a lot of familiar faces in the pool due to the lack of a swimming competition for the month of July.  You can feel the self-assured vibe these highly-spirited kids were giving off.  The presence of competitive swimmers made J comment that the felt she was in the Nuvali koi pond during feeding time.

Scary?  Yikes!  Everyone wanted to get ahead, with some of the kids swimming on top of the others in the mad scramble to get ahead.  Naturally, the fast swimmers left the rest trailing behind.

Like the previous event, she did a 200m swim and a 1.5k run.  She was the 5th girl out of the water, but she lost her lead in the run split.  Nevertheless, congratulations is in order as she has managed to improve her time by a good two minutes.  She finished 15th out of 36 girls.

Her race statisticss this time around:

swim split: 4:10.7

transition and run split:  10:32.3

total race time:  14:43.0

Just to make sure she doesn't stay longer in the transition any more than necessary, her race bib was attached to her tri-belt.  Clearly, not tying her shoelaces was not one of the things we talked about when we went through how to improve her transition time.  :) 

Nature Valley Run 2010

The Nature Valley Run was one of the most organized and one of the most crowded of all the races I have joined, and undoubtedly, the hottest race that I have ran.  I have decided to run the 5k as I felt that my body could not take running a 10k distance under the humid summer heat.  As I was running, my thoughts turned to the half-marathoners.  How I pitied them!  How could anyone endure more than one hour of running under the scorching, burning, insufferable sun!

It's a good thing I moved down too; the heat was so, so unbearable that I had to stop at ALL the water station to hydrate myself; and all of those water stops showed in my finish time.  Still, it's something to smile about as the achievement statistics show I was ahead of 80% of the women runners.  Pwede na din! 

Here is my race analysis from the Nature Valley Run. 

Nuvali: A Visit and A Trail Run

New Balance is organizing a trail run at Nuvali in celebration of Father’s Day.  I have never ran on a trail course and have been wanting to try it for the longest time.  They say that running a trail is more demanding than doing a road race.  It is to my advantage that New Balance opened a 5k/Pair Run category.  That would be the perfect distance for a first-timer.

I remember joining the Greenfield City Run last 2009.  The route covered the roads of Sta. Rosa-Tagaytay-Greenfield.   Nuvali was just in the early stages of its development.  We passed by the same road during our labor day weekend trip to Tagaytay, and saw a flourishing community in Nuvali.

That Nuvali share the same developer as Anvaya Cove is no wonder, given that the area shows some smart urban planning.  Nuvali is the first large-scale development in the country that proposes a mixed use eco-community committed to nurturing an environmentally and socially thriving locality. 

 Going on a tour around Nuvali by cruising the man made lake.

It encourages alternative means of transportation and has built the appropriate infrastructure conducive for it. In this community, bikes are given the same importance as cars.  Road structures in the developments are built in a way that would encourage residents to bike instead of drive, highlighted by its bike lanes to encourage human dwellers to leave their cars at home for short-distance travel.

Water taxis are provided as an alternate means of transport to move residents around, decreasing air pollution by saving on diesel fuel consumption.

Even the guards patrolling the area are on bikes.

Some of the inclined roofs are oriented to the south, opening up the possibility of using renewable energy sources in the future.

We enjoyed our brief stopover at Nuvali en route to Tagaytay with a hearty breakfast; through it all, B's new friend, Berry summarized what eco-living is all about as she hitches a ride in someone's back-pocket. :)

Click here if you want to know more about the New Balance Trail Adventure:  A Father's Day Run.

Alaska IronKids Aquathlon 2010 - 1st Leg

I edited this post May 25, 2010 to include the race results.

It’s eight o’clock on a Sunday morning and the house is devoid of any commotion and sound, save for the whirring sound of the fan blades meant to take away some of the intense summer heat and the clicking of the keyboard as I type away.  It would seem like any other lazy Sunday, except that today we have already come back from the Alaska IronKids Aquathlon. The Phillipine edition of the IronKids is a much awaited event, and here we are just done with it.  We have all gone back home to rest a bit before we catch the ten am service.  C and J have both gone back to sleep, and I do what I find most relaxing, writing...

We arrived at the Manila Polo Club at six o’clock, a good one hour before J’s age group gun start, to give ample time for any pre-race preparation.

Body marking with her race number

Timing chip and swim cap collection. 

Transition check-in

Her age group is to do a 200meter swim and a 1.5kilometer run.  Straightforwardly, it is easier that the Ateneo Aquathlon she participated in a few months back where she swam 400 meters and ran a 3k route. 

The participants start at lane 1 and flow to the next lane per age category.  

The 1.5k run course is a 2-lap run around the Enrique Zobel Polo Field.

Taking a sip and letting it all sink in after the race.

As with anything in life, there are mistakes made.   Allow me as I take time to congratulate J and discuss with her some of the things that she can improve on….

We are both so proud of the determination you showed in the race.  What comes next is by no means a lecture, but think of it instead as a one-sided conversation to address on how you can further improve your performance.

Always, always bear in mind that mistakes are opportunities to learn something new, something you did not know before.  All mistakes that are made have a lesson in them. It is up to us to find that lesson and apply it. Here are some tips to help you avoid making the same mistakes again.

1.  Always position yourself to swim on the left side of the lane.   

That is you at the end of the lane, clearly ahead of the others.  However, you were slowed down as you navigated to move to the next lane flow.

2.  This is a race, it is perfectly acceptable for bodies to get too close to each other as you all struggle to get ahead in the crowded pool.  Do not let yourself be distracted by a hand pulling on your leg, nor be hesitant to bump into other swimmers.  This IS a race - it WILL happen.

3.  One way you can improve your time in transition is to start taking off your goggles and swimming cap as you move to the transition area.  I have seen several participants with shoe laces already tied loosely allowing for their sockless feet to be slipped in without delay.

 4.  Just do your best!  You are already a WINNER just by finishing the race!

“Mommy and Daddy are so pleased on the event of your finishing the aquathlon.  We saw how you gave your best, and we are pleased with your finish.  While you were doing the race, we catch a glimpse of  your determination and we also witness the satisfaction in your lips as you run past the finish line.  

Her official race results:

Swim split:  4:37.5

Transition Split: 1:32.0

Run Split: 10:47.4

Total Race Time: 16:56.9