El Nido Instagram Photos

Lifted a few photos from my Instagram account on the course of my El Nido video edit, and photos from the trip as well. Check them out below.


For more of my Instagram photos, follow me: @mikepenaranda.

Check out the video edit as well. Cheers!

El Nido, Palawan video edit

It sure has been awhile since I last came up with an edit. Found my mojo and here you go, a music video compilation of clips from our trip to El Nido, Palawan, with high school my barkada. Enjoy!

El Nido, Palawan 2014 from Mike Peñaranda on Vimeo.

If you don't feel it's worth your time, trust me you'll enjoy at least the music. It's entitled Kids, by The New Division. Cheers!

10K After a Long While

Last week I was so excited to be home for the weekend that I didn't get to run for the entire week. After work I just wanted to head home and get the day over with, Thursday (my travel date) couldn't come too soon. After coming back from Surigao for my son's birthday party, to head out for a run was at the top of my list. It rained the other day so I called it off and headed straight home after work. Last night however the sky was clear and I was able to head out to UP Diliman campus. Plan was to do a 10, which I did. But for the first 5K I tried a different stride where I would like to call a runner's stride. This is when you land with your mid-foot instead of the usual jog where you land with your heel. I've read this lessens the impact on your knees since you land with more cussion as compared to landing with your heel.

It was a first for me to make this distance with this stride. I've also read this improves speed, well runners run this way, which is the ideal stride. True enough, I was able to improve my 5K time at UP Diliman by a minute and nine seconds. Out of the three previous 5K runs I did there I averaged 31:31, last night I did it at 30:22 -- close to my target of doing 5K at UP in less than 30 minutes. I was able to achieve this once but that was in an oval track where, completely different than in UP oval -- elevation wise. See illustrations below.

UP Oval

Tagaytay Oval Track

After 5K mark I switched back to heel landing, felt awkward at first but fulfilled somehow to have done a full 5K with mid-foot landing. At 7K mark I found myself struggling, pace was down to around seven minutes per kilometer, went up as I went on. I couldn't switch back to mid-foot landing as I could barely contain the impact, my calves had enough. I thought about calling it off by 8K. But what's another 2K, right? Well at this state 2K meant eternity. Haha. I had to dig deep to make it through. 

It might take me awhile to switch strides, but if I could I know this will dramatically improve my time. But I have to take it easy as now I'm really feeling the pain in my calf area. But this will pass, this only tells me I've broken through another perceived limit with my body, and when this heals I'll be at it again. 

My Son is 1 Year Old

A week back I made this invite for my son's birthday party. He just turned one; how time flies indeed. But we were both there to witness him grow. All those early morning wake-up calls when he cries out for milk, the changing of diapers (Fern did most of the changing, hehe), and yet there I was at my son's party still absorbing the fact that I already have a son. I never found meaning for my existence until we had him in the family. Truly it is exciting to see him grow, there's that sense of being a proud father each time he reaches a milestone. He's a big kid, at one year old he's advanced in terms of his growth. We couldn't wish for anything more than him to grow up healthy and a God-fearing human being. Cheers! To the best of days ahead with Caleb in our lives. Thank You, Lord.

The 21-Km

Today was supposed to be something -- the past couple of weeks I had in my mind that I will be doing a 21-Km run. Today came, felt prepared, got up early, and with my mom and wife in the car we drove to UP Diliman campus. Ma went ahead while I was still preparing my gear as my wife idly waited for me to get set. I had with me my Timberland hiking daypack for my hydration, it has a comparment that accommodates my hydration pack that I normally use when hiking. 'twas actually a first time to be running with a 23L pack on your back. Feels a bit odd and funny, but I got used to it after a while. It wasn't packed, just the hydration pack inside it. So I went running, with my wife behind me. We were supposed to do part of the route together. I kept looking back and she was lagging behind. Waited for her while I kept jogging in place to keep myself moving and in rhythm. Asked her what the problem was and it was her legs -- a few days prior to this day we did leg workouts, and the other day we did boxing. Boxing may be seen as an upper body workout but it's actually a full-body workout and your entire body gets worked out, like really worked out. During that session I sweated loads, like I was literally dripping sweat where ever I stood. I feel now that had I done the 21-Km run that day I would've made it. Maybe. Oh! So ya, I just spoiled this for you. I failed with my goal to do 21 today. Why? I don't know. I felt good physically. Had I done something wrong along the way? Maybe. Found myself grimicing to a pain in my mid-section. I asked my wife what happened, she couldn't tell for it was in my stomach area. Supposedly when you lack air in your system your liver reacts. When your muscles lack oxygen, it creates (???) but before that that, your liver gets overworked to create (???) to compensate. I can't really explain it well so here's the explanation from my wife. Haha.

When you workout like when you run, your leg muscles need energy (in the form of ATP) which only oxygen can carry. But since kapos ka sa oxygen, so no ATP (energy). What your leg muscles do is it produces lactic acid (this is the one responsible for the leg pain sometimes cramps you feel), now the liver comes to the rescue. It tries to provide your leg muscles with the energy it needs (in the form of ATP) kaya ma overwork cya and it produces enzymes in excess of what it can get rid of. Thats why magsakit imu kilid kay in a way ma-expand imo liver capsule from all the work (but this is transient).

But that's not what happened as I could feel the pain in my stomach area. Could it have been the 500-mL Gatorade I downed around 10Km when I felt burned? Maybe. But now I couldn't really put the blame on downing that Gatorade.


Had I gone further, could I have made it? Did I actually quit on my set goal today? If I went on with the pain and just walked it through until it dissipated, could I have gotten myself into trouble like collapsing? Yes, I could've have. So was it the wise decision to stop? I guess so. Is this justifying my failure? Yes, maybe.

Earlier today was the NatGeo Run 2014, an event I saw as I was walking in the mall one day. That day I thought it was interesting as I had just read this book by Dean Karnazes, Ultramarathon Man (a must read). Gave it a few days of thinking -- finally came to a decision and it's to give it a go and register. So I googled the event -- results, great! My first running event and.. . . REGISTRATION CLOSED! Just great! I could do 10-Km easy, so 21-Km was my goal. But since registration was closed for the event, I came up with this idea to run 21 Kilometers today to simulate. I preapred for this day, one time I did 16.70 Kilometers so I thought to myself I got this in the bag. I got a mild blister that day -- not that you needed to know, it was a first so, ya.

I feel this is the beginning of my journey in running marathons, and like any success stories, failure is part of it. Maybe that 16.70 Kilometers was not a good thing. Maybe I pushed myself beyond my limits. Yes, that's good. But in the process I got way ahead of myself and in return got complacent in my preparation for my first 21-Km. Ten kilometers to me may be easy, but without preparation like a good sleep or enough calories to burn, it could feel like running for a lifetime. I've tried it. Anyway this looks to be a promising journey, but I still got a lot to learn. I don't know when I can do my first 42-Km, or my 21-Km even, but that will just be the beginning, and this is the prelude.

Cheers! To being able to run, many can't anymore, and some actually cannot. Be thankful. :)

Instagram Short Films: Breakfast

First Sunrise of 2014

A last minute project. Good thing I got to it before sunrise. :)