Running smoothly

While we were sleeping the prices of fuel went up by at least one peso per liter and this gives the people more reason to bike or run instead of take their cars where they want to go.

Every weekend, without fail for many months now, there are running events around Metro Cebu and even as far as Balamban on the western side of the province, which gives the enthusiasts a lot of events to participate in.

Everyday, I see pictures of my friends on their Facebook pages showing them and others in various running events.

Compared to the badminton boom several years ago, I believe that the interest in running is so much easier to sustain. First, you don’t need to buy a racket and lots of shuttlecocks and pay for use of a court.

Second, you don’t need to do the ranking before a competition as everybody has his personal best to beat and not an opponent across the court.

Running is a group sport, you can run with your friends and family and share light banter while doing so, which you can’t do in badminton. Well, you can talk with your partner but it’s difficult to probably exchange more than a few words each time.

I hope that the runners can themselves help sustain the popularity of the sport by not allowing themselves to be used by unscrupulous organizers. I am not saying that there are such now, but we will never know what schemes some people have in mind.

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I would like to congratulate the Cebu Eastern College Dragons for winning the secondary crown of the Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation Inc. (CESAFI) basketball tournament via a sweep over Sacred Heart School-Ateneo de Cebu.

Although I would have wanted to see a much more exciting match-up, but the result of this year’s tournament proves that the smaller schools have a chance to play against the ‘big boys’ of Cebu inter-school basketball.

The win of CEC also proved how important is the support of the alumni in making things happen for the school.

In the case of CEC, it has been Chester Cokaliong, who spent for the team’s upkeep.

In Manila, the alumni play a key role in the development of the varsity teams of the different universities. I hope that this will also happen in Cebu after the example shown by CEC and also SHS-AdC.

I hope to see the same thing happen for other sports like football and volleyball.

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MILESTONES: Belated happy birthday greetings to Atty. Francisco Noel Fernandez III, my mistah Lt. Col. Dodjie Belloga, and Tao brother Mar Steven Reyes, who all turned a year older last Monday.

Belated greetings also go to yesterday’s celebrants like Taiheiyo Cement’s Nilo Yap, who is also an active member of the PMA-Cebu Squad, Sarita Arsua-Matabilas, Jojo Dunglao, Regina Aguilar, and Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia.

Today’s greetings go to Kym Angelo Limgenco, Rafael ‘Paeng’ Encarnacion, Cheryl Borlasa, Daniel Abelarde, Malou Borja-Caballes, Patty Rivera, and my fellow PTA board member Jeanne Yu-Teh.

More power to all of you!