No athlete performs the same sport twice

From “being the best” to “being better than yesterday,” one “casual” athlete shares various motivations over the years for one sport

Photos courtesy of Pao Vergara

I never really liked running.

It was more of a maintenance regimen for other sports. Conditioning. Training. Not the sport.

In grade school, the glory I chased was the striker shooting the game’s only goal. During that era, I had the same mindset for other sports I’d pick up, even if it was just Team B in Grade 4 intramural basketball, or when the semi-honors section went toe-to-toe with the honors section in high school Ultimate Frisbee.

I followed the same playbook: Look good, bring home glory even if it was one defense, one assist, one field goal or even one glorious, well-played near-goal. Perhaps this can be chalked up to the understandable tendency for people at that age to want to fit in, to want to be popular, to dominate even.

For many adults, some motivations to take up a sport have a familiar flavor from childhood: glory, albeit tempered; bling, but also shared

“I want to be the very best,” goes the Pokemon anime opening theme song.

Eventually, adulthood and all its humbling realizations and responsibilities would hit. At this period of life, choosing a sport, just like maintaining a friendship, is more intentional than incidental.

For many adults, some motivations to take up a sport have a familiar flavor from childhood: glory, albeit tempered; bling, but also shared. Other motivations meanwhile are an entirely new room to paint, and some are replaced by their seeming opposites or otherwise coexist with them: rivalry evolves into community, and this too becomes friendly competition (the best pulutan if you ask me).

In the 21st century, advertising often bombards us with messages about training, nutrition, and recovery that tickles those childhood glory nerves: “Be the best,” “emerge number one,” we’re told. And while we’re less outwardly competitive at this age, the pressure becomes internal: Best time, heaviest lift, personal best, personal record.

Don’t get me wrong, pressure is very helpful, a good push, and healthy even: Just ask a writer with deadlines. But as we know, a diet can have too much of a good thing, like too much protein influencing calcium loss.

I rediscovered (and learned to like!) running in the middle of the pandemic with new motivations.

More confident, I decided to seek a community of like-minded friends, and my local running club provided it, populated not just by LGBTQIA+ allies but also by fellow queerfolk

For one, the extended periods indoors opened space for self-reflection, and here, a so-called “gender journey.” I realized that even before the outbreak, I had long been repressing parts of myself, and running allowed me to express myself more in a way that felt aligned.

More confident, I decided to seek a community of like-minded friends, and my local running club provided it, populated not just by LGBTQIA+ allies but also by fellow queerfolk. I recall an easy run by the Marikina River Park where my buddy introduced me to the concept of “queer age,” that is, the age where you first came out to yourself. I found out many middle-aged LGBTQIA+ friends are still queer “babies.”

I fell further into the sport, joining virtual races then local races then World Athletics-recognized and qualifier races like the annual Rock n’ Roll Manila race. Terms like “VO2 max” and “carbo loading” became part of my vocabulary. And I started being more competitive: with myself!

I saw friends post run finish times that I wanted to emulate: 10 kilometers in less than an hour, 21 kilometers in less than two. I even compared how I looked to fitness influencers and ended up with shoes not fit for my feet.

Eventually I overtrained and hit the wall, running a bad one in what was supposed to be my first international race, a supposedly easy 5K. All my months of gym time and dieting for this?

It hit me that, much as we prioritize an egalitarian ethos in our socio-political life, in sports at least, some people will always be better than others even if opportunities and circumstances are equal

My running vocabulary grew, but now with a more holistic focus on the overall lifestyle, putting attention to aspects of training once neglected: sleep, recovery training, non-running training. Half a year passed, I raced again, a local 7K, and finished on a good note.

That feeling of wholeness was short-lived, however, when I opened Strava and found out that athletes I admired still performed better than me. One of them even ran at a SEA Games-level pace, and still looked cute after!

Now was the time to once again re-evaluate my motivations.

It hit me that, much as we prioritize an egalitarian ethos in our socio-political life, in sports at least, some people will always be better than others even if opportunities and circumstances are equal.

Some people just have the right bodies for certain finish times, even if you have the same caliber of training and recovery.

We know this on an intellectual, head-knowledge level, but the cliché becomes visceral, urgent when experienced directly.

Did I still have a reason to lace up?

And I remembered one run where I never checked my watch. It was with an older woman at home with herself, who used to compete in Milo Marathons and Palarong Pambansa with names like Lydia de Vega.

We didn’t feel the distance covered—21 kilometers—I remember more the camaraderie born of jokes and stories, the breeze tempered by the early sunrise, the fragrance from bakeries up ahead, and respectfully being called pretty not just by runners and cyclists but by neighbors.

My fitspos helped me embrace my whole identity while simultaneously helping me realize that some people really are more talented than others, and that this didn’t have to be a bad thing

My fitspos helped me embrace my whole identity while simultaneously helping me realize that some people really are more talented than others, and that this didn’t have to be a bad thing.

It’s nice to realize what you don’t have and what’s not meant for you, it can, with the right attitude (often fostered by healthy friendships) become an avenue for you to realize what is actually meant for you.

Being filtered out of the potential SEA Games candidates channeled my energy to what I already had: a community worth nurturing.

Today, I lace up with more intentionality and less impulse, and taglines like “just do it” (sponsor me maybe?) have taken on more dimensions. The pangs of missed finish times never truly leave, but hey, doesn’t caramel taste better when salted?