Rain or shine, night or day, one sees a group of familiar faces here in the community happily doing their routine.
Among them are government employees, doctors, entrepreneurs; you can also spot bank officers, swim coaches, university professors, students, fitness trainors, nurses, engineers, road builders, restaurant owners, stay-at-home moms, IT specialists, journalists, beauty consultants, a fireman….
This is a group of health buffs who religiously run the streets of Dumaguete — and into the neighboring towns of Negros Oriental. They call themselves the Dumaguete Amateur Runners & Striders (DARS).
“We’re an infant group; we only started as ordinary walkers at the Perdices Memorial Stadium Oval,” said Maripol Rotea-Tecson, 40, who has been doing her regimen each morning for the last three years before she realized there must be something more challenging than simply doing 18 rounds on the rubberized tracks.
By October 2010, Tecson hooked up with other regular oval walkers Rowena Zerna, Dr. Don Rene Catada, her cousin Dr. Santiago Tiongson, and Dr. Franklin Paraiso, and challenged themselves to head out of the oval and weave themselves into the concrete streets of Dumaguete.
“We were running one Sunday morning and the rain started pouring but we didn’t want to stop; as we passed by the Cathedral, some churchgoers asked if we were training as the City’s police recruits,” remembers Tecson with a chuckle, who has since been able to recruit her husband Albert and their three sons aged 16 to 21 to join her in the sport as well.
Before they even planned it, word spread to other health buffs who happened to join the Milo Fun Run in September 2010. What followed in November that year was a more intense “networking” through text brigade about when the next run would be — sent to kabsi (townmates), former schoolmates back in grade school, distant relatives, other medical practitioners, bikers, and to doting parents who would otherwise be waiting on the bleachers while their children trained with the Silliman varsity swim team.
The next race was sponsored by St. Paul University, followed by a bigger one in November 2010, called the Dumaguete Adventure Marathon, organized by Foundation University in celebration of Negros Oriental’s Buglasan Festival. The Adventure Marathon had about 3,000 participants who started off with the blast of a howitzer canon, courtesy of the Philippine Army.
Soon after, the regular runners encouraged their spouses to join. It has not been without difficulty for some couples like Paultom & Rose Paras or Richie & Iris Armogenia who are still rearing toddlers who would sometimes “catch” their parents “sneaking out” of the house trying to make it to a 5am or 8pm run start.
Eleanor Barrios, 46, an officer of one of the banks in the City, recalls how she and husband Tristan, who works at the Negros Oriental Provincial Hospital, have been able to consciously make an effort towards a healthy lifestyle. “We watch what we eat, we’ve been able to lower our weight and body mass index, my husband has lessened his drinking habit with friends; and we now have common health-conscious friends,” she proudly said.
Today, more than a quarter of the 148 regular runners — whose ages range from 16 to 62 years old — are couples who have no qualms about donning terno (uniform) jerseys. The others who are not able to run as regularly as the couples could only gamely contend with being teased that their “visa” [to run] “may have been denied” [by the spouse].
The impact of joining a running group has also meant the need to be technology-savvy. In the case of Michael Chua, 39, a retail store owner, he was compelled early this year to open a Facebook account to be able to get regular updates from DARS about running schedules.
Chua is usually one of the last to join the runners at the start line during night runs as he has yet to close his grocery store. And most often, is among the first ones — together with the government doctors on duty by 8am — to rush back home upon reaching the finish line during morning runs to be able to open the gates of his store.
For Bobbin and Vivian Sy, both medical doctors in their 40s, walking-running has changed their lifestyle “a thousand-fold, giving us the chance to see our daughter walk down the aisle,” said Vivian, who teaches physiology at the Silliman University Institute of Rehabilitative Sciences & Physical Therapy. At 46, Dr. Bobbin is a post-myocardial infarction patient who went through an emergency angioplasty two years ago while in a medical conference abroad.
“What sealed the group is our desire to have totally clean fun while running early morning or at night,” said Tecson. “We’ve also shown interest in being educated about running as we have realized we tend to perform better.”
One of DARS’ resources of running techniques is Paultom Paras of the Metro Dumaguete Roadrunners Club who, together with former Philippine Sports Commission chairperson Dr. Aparicio Pequi, started the walking-running habit in the City some three years ago.
Paras continues to share with DARS road running rules, techniques, and etiquette for the runners’ safety. “Paultom would give us brief lectures like doing Fartlek (“speed play”) interval training so we understand what we’re actually going through,” noted Tecson.
Other sources of expert advice and techniques have come from Cebu-based ultramarathoner Richie Al Villagante, New York marathoner Dario Endozo, and most recently, international ultramarathoner Simon Sandoval, who shared his experience in Europe’s most difficult hundred-plus-kilometer race which is held in France, and who gave several tips to the local runners here.
“The DARS runners are full of infectious energetic enthusiasm that inspires and motivates. Warm, friendly, and full of laughter, they are a joy to run with,” Sandoval noted, after he joined the regular night run while in Dumaguete last week.
Night runs with DARS — even during a storm — usually attract about 35 fitness buffs — quite a big number for a City whose businesses start calling it a day by 6 pm. “We simply post these announcements on FB and people just come,” noted Tecson.
“Last week, however, was a surprise: the group swelled to 74 runners,” recalls Barrios. The runners were pounding on the road noisily and excitedly, that a patrol police car took the initiative of marshalling the runners throughout its 10K route.
Thus far, DARS has participated in several other runs that advocate certain causes, including Run for your Heart organized by SUHS Class ‘81, Run for 350 Trees, Run for Japan (to help the earthquake victims).
So what keeps the group highly-motivated? “I think it’s the runners’ pure interest to be fit, and the feeling that each runner is genuinely concerned for the leveling-up of each other,” said Tecson, who can rattle off the exact finish time even of her fellow runners down to the last second. “I remind them about their times to help push them. We share information and advice we read in magazines and the Internet. We talk about the benefits of eating corn grits instead of well-milled rice, or wheat bread instead of white bread, or that we cannot live on salads alone….”
Another factor that keeps the DARS driven is their excitement to experiment on a sporty fashion sense. Tecson said that text messages about availability of discounts or new arrivals on branded sporting attires and gear are usually met with an instant wild rush for the local stores.
The perception that running is one of the cheapest sports may just not be true.
Road and mountain bikers from two local groups called ONeBikers and the Negros Oriental Bikers Association have been cross-training with DARS, and in fact, have demonstrated to be some of the fastest sprinters.
On the other hand, runners cross-train in mountain biking, zumba (Latin-inspired dance fitness program) or muay thai (Thai combat sport composed of kicks, elbow and knee strikes). “We need to incorporate strength training for the upper body into our regimen,” Tecson said.
A typical schedule would see some of the runners swimming 1,500 meters at the Lorenzo Teves Aqua Center at lunch break three times a week, biking 60K at dusk two times a week, immediately followed by the 10K night run on Thursdays. A long & slow distance run to one of the nearby towns on the weekend caps this “rigid but fun” regimen.
“It’s simply fun to be running with old friends, with familiar faces we grew up with,” she added. Afterall, there’s nothing like running in a small town where anybody is somehow connected with almost everybody.
Meanwhile, the running calendar for DARS is briskly filling up. A run to celebrate Tanjay City fiesta on July 17; a fun run on July 24 organized by the Philippine Academy of Rehabilitation Medicine; another run on July 30 from Dumaguete up to the town of Amlan, about 21 kms. north; another half marathon on Aug. 14, and an opportunity for a couple, Jeremy and Ylang-Ylang Jordan to compete in the international IronMan 113K triathlon in August at CamSur. (Irma Faith B. Pal)
FORERUNNERS. Dr. Paraiso, Dr. Santiago, Puying Tecson, Dr. Catada, Weng Zerna in one of their morning roadruns around the streets of Dumaguete. (Photo by Albert Tecson) 
Happy faces after finishing the 16K Run to Celebrate Life to Balili, Valencia, organized by runners Bernabe & Grace Bustillo. (Photo by Eleanor Barrios) 
Biggest yet night run Thursday last week in Dumaguete. (Photo by Joel Balajadia)
DARS upon reaching Tierra Alta in Valencia after running 12K. (Photo by Maripol Tecson) 
Running up to Valencia to plant 350 trees (Photo by Aura Punay)