AMID freezing cold at four degrees Celsius, Southeast Asian (SEA) Games 2019-bound Mary Pauline Fornea of Davao City clinched the female division gold medal of the 31st Annual Prospect Park Duathlon 2019 held in Brooklyn, New York over the weekend.
“It was my first time to race in Brooklyn po. It is also my coldest race so far with 4 degrees Celsius maam. I was literally freezing po from start to finish Maam. I cannot feel my body Maam. It was very hard to warm up, so to mitigate a little bit po, I did my warm up easy jog night before the race, then slept po,” the 25-year-old foreign schooling cadet of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) to the United States Naval Academy (USNA) told SunStar Davao via Facebook Messenger interview.
She checked in at one hour and 9.6 seconds in the 3.4 kilometer run-16.1K bike-3.4K run event.
The Dabawenya, who will be competing in her first ever SEA Games on December 5 in Subic, raced past Ester Maslaton of Lakewood, New Jersey (1:04:00.5) and Liz Mulligan-Ferry of Brooklyn, New York (1:05:28.6) who finished second and third, respectively.
She also landed 10th overall among 133 duathletes who competed.
She continued, “Sobrang manhid po ang buong katawan ko po sa sobrang lamig, lalo na po ang toes ko po pero nasa isip ko lang po na kakayanin ko po ito. My biggest adversary was the coldness of the temperature and weather.”
She only thought that she may not be the strongest nor the fastest but she was the most resilient and adaptable athlete since she can adapt to every harsh condition with her training in the PMA and USNA.
The Dabawenya, who will be competing in her first ever SEA Games on December 5 in Subic, raced past Ester Maslaton of Lakewood, New Jersey (1:04:00.5) and Liz Mulligan-Ferry of Brooklyn, New York (1:05:28.6) who finished second and third, respectively.
Her current SEA Games running coach Karen Boyle, a former Navy Cross Country Women’s Team head coach for 32 years, told her she improved a lot considering the cold weather condition in Brooklyn. She also was drained from a recent exam so she could maintain her grades and was competing on her first menstruation day. “Nagsabay-sabay po lahat Maam. Hehehe. We are really hoping for my good condition po leading to the SEA Games.” she added.
However, she said it would be a challenge for her to shift from standard distance duathlon to super sprint distance, which she will be doing on December 5.
She is set to arrive in the country on November 27.