Balesin Gladiator Run 2019: Preparing for the Event
"Couples that train together, remain together."
I'd like to think that quote is true considering that my husband and I met through Dragon Boat Paddling. We've done a lot of fitness activities together
including running, powerlifting, and CrossFit. I believe it's what glued us
together and made us truly compatible. But ever since we've had our kids, working
out especially together had been challenging... Let alone just going on a
simple date, except when we try to escape during office hours for a quick
lunch.
Signing up for Balesin Gladiator Run
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| Conquering Gladiator Obstacle Run together |
How I found out about the event
The first steps on our road together towards joining the Balesin Gladiator
Run had a bit of a drama. One night on our way home from work, he said he's
joining this certain running event and I just shrugged it off since I thought it would be just somewhere nearby like in Mall of Asia or BGC. So I was expecting that all he had to do was wake up early in the morning while we're still asleep and then he'll be back home after the event once we're awake... Only to find out later on that this run was a 3-DAY event and in order to get to this "Balesin" location, you need to ride a plane. PLUS, the fee is at
P17,000. When I've learned about it, I was fuming especially when I found out
that the dates fell within our boyfriend/girlfriend anniversary (Yeah, I know.
Big deal?) AND our son's monthsary: June 22. When he mentioned it to me, it
seemed like an FYI and I felt really hurt and left out. I couldn't understand why he would make an out of town trip during a special day and wouldn't even bother inviting his family.
I think the guilt got to him and he eventually invited me to come along. Apparently, it's a
team event and they still lack one member. He even offered that it would be his anniversary treat to me.
After doing much research, I finally understood what and where Balesin was and why it
mattered to be able to get there with an amount of P17,000. I WAS SO IN.
Balesin Island Club,
a private island in Polillo, Quezon, is a flagship project of Alphaland
Corporation. It has been known for its exclusivity and availing membership is
worth millions of pesos. The Balesin Gladiator Run is an event organized by
RUNRIO Events, Inc. in partnership with Balesin Island Club and
Aegle Wellness Center.
The Balesin Gladiator Run had two categories: 5K with 10 obstacles and 10K
with 4 obstacles. In order to participate, you would need to be part of a
team of 4. If you can't form the team on your own, the organizers would be the ones to include you in the group. We paid a package rate of P17,000 per pax regardless of the category for the early bird
rate inclusive of the following:
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Photo grabbed from the Aegle Wellness Center FB Page |
The team of 4 can be a Male Group, a Female Group or a Mixed Group. Ruel already had a team and they've registered for the 5K category. They needed one more member and he convinced them for me to join. Since I was the only girl, we qualified for the Mixed Team. More details can be found at the Runrio
website and/or the Aegle Wellness Center
FB Page.
Signing up for the event was quick and easy. We made sure to avail the early bird rate as it was cheaper than the regular rate by P2,000. Also, knowing the usual rates on how to get to Balesin even by invitation, the package rate offered for the Gladiator Run was already good to grab even if you won't join the actual event.
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| Registration Confirmation from Runrio |
Other things considered...
Initially, we were considering if there's a way for us to bring our two kids there. We inquired from the organizers of the possibility and their advice was that we'd just need to pay the same amount for any additional person who would be coming with us. We also need to consider that the only way for us to be able to bring our kids and get to participate is if we bring someone else who could take care of the little ones while we compete. That meant we would have to shell out three times more of the P17,000 amount. I even considered not joining anymore but that meant that our team will be one member short again.
After some thought, we came to an agreement that this may be the best time for us to finally have our "US" time. Luckily, my mother also had plans to go to our province in Isabela and wanted to bring the babies so having someone take care of them was not a problem. It was a bit of a bittersweet decision for me since it's our first time going out of town without the kids. I've always felt clingy with my babies and I knew I was going to miss them. I also felt guilty that we would be missing Cael's monthsary, plus, it was a bit harder to be away from him since I was still breastfeeding him.
Another one of my concerns was as a breastfeeding mom, I needed to
express my milk while I was away from my baby. Fortunately, it wasn't the
first time that I've had to pump while away and I know I wanted to be
prepared. So I contacted the organizers again how to go about it, especially
if they will allow me to bring the pumped milk into the plane. It took a while
for them to respond but they finally confirmed that it would be allowed.
Expressing milk really wasn't a hassle for me since I just hand express so I
didn't have to bring too much stuff. Of course, I also need to leave behind some breast milk stash for my exclusively breastfed infant.
Getting back to my postpartum fitness
When I finally signed up and paid for my slot, I knew I needed to get back into shape. Weighing at around 61 kg at that time (if I remember correctly), I was at my heaviest and unhealthiest point of my life. Finding the time to work out was such a struggle as a working mom of two boys and I didn't mind my nutrition that much. I had to take it seriously since I would be competing in a team and I didn't want to be the one to let them down for being so unfit. I had more than a month to prepare and I had to make the most out of the time left. Thankfully, it wasn't all from scratch.
Training my way to Balesin
We've always had our home gym and working out shouldn't have been that difficult but usually, when I get home from work, I just felt too tired and too lazy to do anything. I would also rather lie down in bed with my babies so our gym stuff remained to be untouched for quite some time. To mitigate this, I joined my husband who had been a member of Gold's Gym BGC. He had always been the more dedicated one between the two of us in terms of his fitness. Then again, his work gives him more time for such. This is where he actually met Leans, who invited him to join the run.
Availing Gold's Gym's 3-month membership via Metrodeal only costed me around 3,000+ so it was really sulit for me. Though it was hard to squeeze in some gym time during office hours, I really had to make my lunch time available as much as possible so I could work out. It may be a bit of a bad habit but I usually do working lunch so I could take my breaks as my gym time. There were also times when I would bring my laptop to the gym so I could work while doing my lifts. But I believe it paid off as I was able to kick start my fitness journey again.
Our gym time at Gold's Gym also served as our couple time so this decision to join the Balesin Gladiator Run brought a lot of good things for us.
My training mainly involved my usual strength training/weight lifting program: back squats, deadlift, bench press, some pull ups and some olympic lifting. However, I knew had to do some kind of cardio/metabolic conditioning since we're joining a running event. I hate cardio and I'd avoid it as much as I could but not this time. I tried to do bodyweight work outs, usually 100 burpees per day trying to be always improve my time. I was also advised to do a workout
Eating my way to Balesin
My postpartum fitness wouldn't be complete without doing a 360 on my diet. I hate using the word "diet" because it often has this negative notation of doing something unhealthy since it sounds so short-term but it mainly pertains to the kind of food you'd eat based on the nutrition you'd want to get. And the way to a healthier lifestyle is better choices of food for a balanced diet.
We initially subscribed for healthy meal plans from PrepEat, co-owned by one of our teammates, Leans. They were offering a discounted rated and we thought it was perfect for us to begin with our healthier eating habits with less hassle. In addition this, we can get more ideas on what kind of food we should be preparing for ourselves.
We got three meals from PrepEat: a salad, a rice meala and sandwich with fruits. Based on our caloric needs since we were training,
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| Meals ordered from PrepEat |
Eventually, we stopped with the subscription and started preparing the meals ourselves with the help of our househelp, Ate Gemma. We just do some research on what kind of food we want to eat and she prepared them. It was really fun thinking about our meals that time since everything was new.
The kind of food you take is an even more important factor than training itself. You need the right fuel in order to perform better and that was my goal, along with losing weight. I know that by heart and I've made it to be on point with my nutrition during our Balesin Run prep.
In the real life, I just can't help indulging with all the tempting sweets! It really took some serious commitment from me at that time that I went from 61 KG to around 55 KG. At my height of 5'2, that was already some progress. My midsection shrunk and I felt lighter and could even move faster. In all honesty, I hate running so I know I would need to make up for going through all those obstacles.
A few days before the event, I was able to do a test run on what I am capable of. The combined training and proper nutrition helped my overall fitness. Not like how it was before but I felt stronger and faster. I was leaner. The fact that I decided to join the Balesin Gladiator Run really helped me slowly get back into shape.
Want to know the outcome of the event? Will be posting a separate blog on the things we did in Balesin and on the actual event.
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Check out my other blog posts related to our Balesin Adventure:
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