Et al.

Haven't blog anything since Thursday as I have been quite busy for the past 4 days. After my novena to St. Jude, I decided to buy some stuff for my Bella. She was running out of stock already. There were quite a few ones that should not be missing from her personal fridge. One would be the different flavors of Quaker oatmeal. We usually alternate every morning the Chocolate, Strawberry, Apple, Hazelnut and honey, Banana and the original flavor. Personally, I wouldn't recommend it because of the added sugar. Nevertheless, to lessen the sweetness, we mixed it with fresh milk. Yes still fresh milk, because eventhough her pedia instructed me to give her powdered milk, I am still keen on giving her only fresh milk. However, instead of buying her pasteurized milk every 4-5 days, I alternate it with Anchor UHT freshmilk. Aside from oatmeal, she also love eating Nestle fruit selection yogurt and DutchMill yogurt drink.

Friday was uneventful for Bella and yours truly since her lola decided to take the day off and went to Quiapo church to hear mass. I actually plan on attending a free Running clinic by 8-time Ironman Finisher Arland Macasieb at 6:30 PM in RUNNR, Bldg. B3, Activity area as posted by Jaymie of The Bull Runner. I must say after a long time of hybernating from running, I am unfit for a long run and really needed to be in shape again to have my endurance and stamina back. I miss my Far-ouT most of the time especially during this time as he is usually the one who will more likely to attend this event. Unfortunately, the topic that I missed were the basic exercise physiology, heart rate zone training and racing and running biomechanics. I still went to market! market! though to get a B done and a waxing on some other places.

Saturday was a fun day since your truly met with former colleagues of Sari-Sari Group of Companies and catch up on gossips. We had buffet lunch at Cabalen located at the 3rd level of SM Megamall. It was a feast of Filipino dishes and was indeed a gastronomic binge. What I just didn't like is that, they were slow in refilling the empty food trays and there were also times when their waiters were no where to be found. But other than that, we still enjoyed their food. We still had a lot of catching up to do so we decided to have some coffee at Seattle Best. I wasn't impressed with Mocha Javalava, their version of Mocha Frappuccino of Starbucks, I still prefer the latter over the former. I can't really describe it that much, one thing I remembered though, its as if I was drinking tiny bubbles of coffee. Even Bo's coffee wasn't able to live up to my expectation. Nothing can beat my favorite Mocha Frapp as yet. After a lot of chatting and picture taking, we parted our ways and decided to meet up again within the year for another reunion.

I couldn't recall anymore how much I have eaten during the buffet, it must be a lot since I was not feeling hungry at dinner time until the early morning of Sunday. Well, just to be sure that I will not go hungry before my brunch, I grab a sandwich and coffee for breakfast while I was on my way for dragon boat training.

I still haven't blog much about it but yours truly is an avid fun of Dragon Boat. I was an active member of Sea Dragons way back 2003 but became inactive for quite awhile when I left to work in Dubai in 2005. This is also where I met my better half (that's another story). Anyway, dragon boat rowing is one thing that I just couldn't leave behind. Aside from swimming, I also started to come back to rowing slowly since May. I learned that the team already made a lot of changes, from warm up exercises to the different strokes. I am still trying to adapt to the new forms that they are introducing introduced during my absence and honestly, it was quite difficult to adjust since I am used to the old ones. It was indeed a hard habit to break. Nevertheless, I am making an effort to correct my form during trainings. The team is already preparing for the 3rd Leg Regatta which will be held on Sunday, September 26. After the boat training, there was also an individual run and sprint for each member. As I have mentioned earlier, I was having a hard time running again so I was slow and really feeling the pain of stomach cramps. It was my first to timed my sprint as I usually beg off to do this with Far-ouT before. I am not confident to do a fast run, but was satisfied with 15.36 recorded time. I was quite tired already from the activites but decided to join the team for another boat training. It was exhausting but the body pain was surprisingly nice to feel again.

I wanted to increase my activities in the days to come as I was aiming to make myself comfortable with running before the Avon walk and run on October 3 at SM Mall of Asia open ground. For the record, my Bella is still on breastmilk at 14 months even with the number of activities I am doing right now.  I am actually trying to wean her already from "Dede" but I just couldn't get the heart yet to deny her of it totally.

But sooner than later, I may have to make an extra effort to do this eventually. Let's see. I just want to make it slowly and surely.