Sunstar essay: Feet for running

Sunday, October 2, 2011

YOU'RE running 10K?”

“I’m joining the Road Revolution.”

Have something to report? Tell us in text, photos or videos.

“What’s in the running calendar?”

It’s in the news. You’re getting used to it in your early morning reading of this paper—news like today’s 35th National Milo Marathon in Cebu—men and women’s 5K, 10K, 21K run. Last month, it was in Bacolod. After the run, Milo is giving children in 100 public schools 10,000 pairs of running shoes. Money for this, as in other runs, will come from the registration fee of the run, which Milo will double to buy the shoes.

The run itself has prizes for the runners.

The local runners hit it off with other runners in the run game—local or national runs, and others. The Milo Marathon popularized running events in the country after the successful first one in 1974.

I am Pinoy. Running Pinoy. “Takbo hangga’t may lupa!”

Next Sunday will be the Pink Run 2011 which is a dash for a cause at the the Ayala Terraces. On the 23rd, there will be PMAP People Run for a “Child’s Brighter Future.”

And more runs for several more causes, like for life, for children and for women.

Of course, in the beginning was the search for ways to keep healthy and inspire life.

“I started to run in December 2005,” says local runner Dr. Yong Larrazabal of the Cebu Doctors’ University Hospital who first ran in a 10K race. Now, he can eat whatever he wants in a healthier life and isn’t punished by an unwanted weight gain. Running is in his life.

Let’s not forget that the lead here is the human foot.

What you need to have to open a day is the foot—the hind foot, mid foot and the forefoot which has the five toes. It’s a nice feel, walking or running, in a pace most natural to the human being, the human bulk rocking in the rhythm of an exercise while the sweat comes out to cool the body that springs the distance.

A foot is the end part of a limb, which is the leg whose main function is to carry the whole human weight and enable a man to move in total. It’s “a huge mechanical structure,” according to researchers. Think of it as having 26 bones, 33 joints (20 of which are super-active) and more than a hundred muscles, tendons and ligaments, for that’s what it is, according to biologists and anthropologists.

For four million years, the foot undertook some kind of a close study and upgrading, you might say, in the hands of the Creator before we arrived at its reality today.

It’s strong enough, well-meaning and joy-giving to man.

If our ancestor was the ape, picture him walking heavily, his limbs not quite as useful as the human foot which the Creator later would come up with in completing his creation. He must have seen how man needed to hunt animals for food. The Creator, then, must have developed the creature’s feet and the ability to run, then to run in distances, and faster—for his food, or to get away from predators.

Running in ancient Egypt happened two thousand years before the first ancient Olympic Games in 776 B.C. in Olympia, Greece where running led. It’s said that the Egyptian King in the court yard ran out into the space outside as an act that symbolized his mastery over the land. (He even also shot arrows up in the open to show his power over the sky.)

Running these days has causes, like the Milo Marathon, for one. There is also Run 2 Plant 4 Greenin Philippines undertaken by the Cebu Provincial Government and the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc.

And the other causes have come about, even as there has been a Press Freedom Run, perhaps to lead the way to runs for all kinds of freedom belonging to the runners.

There’s even the World Harmony Run which is a global relay run for “international friendship and understanding” where in a country, runners carry a flaming torch which is passed from hand to hand and from country to country. The run which started in 1987 visits schools, the students meet the runners and can hold the torch while the leaders talk of harmony the world over.

A prayer it is for the world’s strides on strong feet.

(ecuizon@gmail.com)