For most baby boomers like me, the question of getting old is not the issue anymore, particularly those born after WW II, which is why we are called that by the way.
But why am I writing on the subject of getting old in the first place?
You see, when I began writing sports and started covering running events in the late 1970s, I got hooked into it and started running almost everyday from our Paco residence to Roxas Blvd. and back, even joining competitive runs, but not being competitive at all except in our inter company mini-Olympics with the Marsteel Group.
After that, over at the Victoria Court Group, which I joined in 1988, I introduced running as an event for employees, even sponsoring A Run For Mother Earth. starting and ending at Spuds, The Potato Restaurant in Adriatico, which was also part of Archie King’s group together with Victoria Court and Hotel La Corona.
We built the our own low and high ropes team-building events in La Corona in Pagsanjan and had to do the scary high events myself, not knowing that in the future, I would be doing them again as a team-building facilitator myself.
We also had our first VC team-building for our management in Mt. Banahaw, which opened my eyes to mountain climbing as a weekend warrior, including going inside Banahaw’s tight caves like Husgado. Together with kayaking pioneers Val and Didi Camara, I also climbed Mt. Pinatubo, the long way, not the shorter climb nowadays. You can include Mt. Maculot and Mt. Manabu in Batangas, too, among the mountains I climbed.
Covering Didi’s out-of-town kayaking events, I also got into kayaking even if I didn’t know how to swim. Didi even sponsored me in the then emerging whitewater kayaking and rafting in Cagayan Valley in the North.
When I got into travel writing for Mirror Magazine and Manila Standard, I did a lot of adventure stories, canyoneering and whitewater rafting in Cagayan de Oro, trekking and caving in Sagada and even covered for several years the Mt. Kinabalu Climbathon in Sabah.
I got to know the tourism people in Sabah and was invited to go around the area. In fact, there was a time that I climbed Mt. Kinabalu myself together with my daughter Janis. It took me 8 hours of huffing and puffing, but we made it just before dark.
The longest I have ran though was maybe 15 kilometers without stopping, while the longest distance I have done was when I walked with a group of mostly Century Park Sheraton employees, who accompanied ultra runner Max Telford in his Death March Run, which ended in a walk (I think we walked from Angeles City to Capas, Tarlac then).
Does that convince you that I was indeed into sports?
But then these last two years, my body started sending me signals. I could not trek anymore without stopping more often and it took me a bit longer to get out of the Balon ni San Jacob cave in Banahaw .
Then came this pandemic and there went my Banahaw breaks and adventure team-building using this sacred mountain’s natural terrain. Among the teams I have brought there were Foton with Jaja Santiago and sister Dindin, and the women’s basketball teams of University of the East of Ai Lebornio and Centro Escolar University with Jay Cambarihan.
But what really showed me that I was ageing was last weekend’s family out-of-town trip to the San Rafael River Adventure Sports resort in Bulacan. The place was beautiful, situated right beside the river and we could fish right from the balcony of our villa.
The place also offered fun adventures like a bamboo bridge challenge over a small, man-made lake, plus free kayaking on the river.
And I passed up on both of them. Boy, that really emphasized the fact that even my weekend warrior softcore adventure days are nearing the end.
Well, the truth is, in less than a month from now, I will be celebrating my 52nd birthday (after being 51 the last 14 years).
