Running is often about breaking mental barriers. Training can get you past that 42k, 100k, or even that ridiculous 100mi mark. That’s what I would want myself to believe. But being innately de-motivated, I rarely run.
I only run because running is the only real life-saving athletic discipline. Running and swimming (in some cases). As Zombieland has led me to believe, the people who will get infected last during a zombie apocalypse are those who can finish 21k in less than two hours.
So I make it a point to run once a week. And even if I don’t run a lot, I like going to places where it is fun to run at. This is what my post is all about for this month: the best places to run in Liloan. Because that’s where I am from and because running within Cebu City is too much for my asthmatic lungs.
Here are the best places to run in Liloan. Click on the hyperlinks to view those places on Google Maps. I’ve made up names for those places because I don’t know what they’re really called. I use those names as reference points for my mountain biking routes.
At the end of this short route is an MCWD water reservoir that holds 2000 cubic meters of water. Hence, the cheesy name “Tank Top.” It’s only 300 meters with an elevation of about 110 feet. There are concrete tables on the side where it is very convenient to collapse or rest, depending on how tired you are. There are barely any vehicle traffic and if there are it is mostly motorbikes.
Just a couple of hundred meters from the Tank Top is another running route. It’s a concrete stair that people built to get to the chapel on that hill. I can it “All the Single Ladies” because I once saw a whole bunch of nuns there. I consider it a separate route from Tank Top because I’d never do both routes on the same day. Not even on the same week. People will think you’re crazy running up and down these steps but they can really give you a cardio boost.
The Old Xterra route has very short climbs and some moderately technical tracks. But the best part about them: no vehicle pollution and the tracks branch out so often that you can make a whole lot of route combinations with them. One of the most scenic stretches is the one that runs from Pangea Beach to the Light House.
There’s a blue chapel at the beginning of this route, right where the hyperlink leads you to. It’s not really a wedding chapel. I just call it that because “blue chapel” is too flat. This is a trail route that can be connected to the “Great Wall of China” in Consolacion. The Blue Wedding Chapel route is just half a kilometer but if you run it all the way from the highway and connect it with the Great Wall, you got yourself a solid 21k and a whole bunch of elevation gains and losses. The trail can be annoyingly slippery in the morning so it’s best to run in the afternoon when the night dew is already whisked off by the sun. There are lots of shrubs but barely any trees in the area so never run on it on mid-day.
The New Xterra route is right around the same area where the Tank Top is. It has longer climbs than the old Xterra route so it is more fun. Like most routes in Liloan (or anywhere else in Cebu), there are barely any trees so it is best to run the route early in the morning or late in the afternoon. The area has been cleared recently of tall grasses and crisscrossing shrubs because Xterra 2014 is on its way. Probably the best time of the year to go there.
No comments yet.