I was competitive in badminton. And by competitive, I mean I competed and won tournaments. So when pickleball became a thing, my ego couldn't bring myself to try it. It felt like a downgrade to my first racket sport (table tennis is the second, by the way). Hyped, slower ball, and it …

I love dancing. It's just that, I haven't danced ever since my immune system went haywire and started attacking my joints.  As one friend would put it, " wala na lagi ka nagasayaw, Sar? " (How come you don't dance anymore?) I do have my reasons: 1. My joints are pain…

When I was still a student nurse, about twenty years ago, we were taught that a very low heart rate could be a cause for concern because it might mean the heart isn’t pumping enough oxygen-rich blood to the body. A normal resting heart rate for adults ranges from 60-100 beats per minute (…

When I was young (and by young, I mean in my 30s), I used to join fun runs just for... fun.  Even without proper training, I’d just show up whenever there's a race, run the distance, get the free banana, and go home. I wasn't running regularly.  But in 2019,  I was sponsored a 50k…

I wasn’t planning to post a progress update this soon because it’s only been three months since I started running again. But I just wanted to share because I'm pretty proud of how things are going. When I first hit the road after years of being inactive, I could barely manage 3k witho…

I just submitted an 18-page essay for my Palanca entry. Yep, eighteen pages. Exactly 4,986 words I agonized over, paragraphs I rewrote a hundred times, and countless moments of dread in front of a blinking cursor when the thoughts in my head refused to make it to the screen. Now it’s done…