I’ve always been a physically active person; I’ve loved playing basketball since I was a kid, I played tennis in high school, I’ve been lifting weights since my freshman year of college, and all that good shhtuff. Running, though, I was never in love with; until recently.

Back in 2010, my grandmother (or “Lola” in Tagalog), had a minor stroke and was placed in the ICU at California Pacific Medical Center. I remember the call that I got from my mom who was obviously scared and in tears, “Lola, might be dying. She’s at CPMC.” I immediately dropped what I was doing and rushed over to the hospital. My Lola made it through the night, but was still in the ICU.

That next day, after I got off work, I headed over to CPMC again. When I got there, the nurse said that my Uncle had just left and that I was the only family member there at the moment. So I was at her bed side talking to her, letting her know that I was there and that I loved her. She was obviously not herself; the nurse said that the drugs were really strong and that she wasn’t “all there.” Although I wasn’t able to hold a conversation with her, she was still able to speak. And when she did speak, she would be counting out random, consecutive numbers: “78, 79, 80, 81, 82…” and after the last number she would say, “Continue.” She would say it in such a way as to have me continue counting on those numbers for her. As if she were back at her school in the Philippines, in front of the classroom, teaching all her students.

A few days later, my grandmother was allowed to leave the hospital and head back to St. Anne’s Home. After a few days back, she was back to her normal, talkative self. As the months passed though, her health started to slowly deteriorate just like the Doctor at CPMC had told us it would.

On February 5, 2012 my Lola passed away. It was def. hard for the whole family especially because it was the first death in our family since her husband (my Lolo) passed away on New Year’s Day ’95. I like to think that I went through the normal grieving process that everyone goes through when someone passes: lots of tears, lots of laughs as we reminisced about the past, a lot of praying and wondering where she was at that very moment, etc. As my cousins and I talked about our memories of Lola, I remembered that one day at the ICU at CPMC when my Lola told me to “Continue.”

This one word has taken on a different meaning ever since she passed. It’s stronger now. It means so much more now.

So how does this relate to Born to Run? Well, whenever I used to run, I would stop whenever I was tired and didn’t want to run anymore. I would set a limit to my runs: 1 mile, 2 miles, 20 minutes, etc., but not anymore. Whenever I’m on the treadmill, whenever I’m running Lake Merced, whenever I’m hiking up Mission Peak, I choose to hear my Lola telling me to continue. I hear her and I see her and she keeps me going; she helps me CONTINUE.

So this is the beginning of a new me, I want to “love” running. And I know that in order to “love” running, I have to do more than just run. And that’s why I bought “Born to Run” off of Amazon for $9.

My Lola

I want to learn as much as I can about running. I even went to Fleet Feet in SF to get my new pair of Brooks Ravenna 3s instead of just going to a Foot Locker and choosing the coolest looking Nikes.

“Born to Run” marks the beginning of my journey to fall in love with runnning.