Fair Play: Getting fit and getting old

I’M glad the Cebu City Government decided to cancel a membership to an expensive gym for its officials because it may be just a waste of money.

One of the things I learned in this business is that getting fitting is not about signing up in a gym. Getting fit is all about determination.

Even if you get the most expensive package to the most expensive gym in the city, if you’re not determined to get fit, you won’t!
 

It’s as simple as that.

Besides, for our government officials, there’s a simple exercise that’s cheap and  highly-recommended for them.  Walking.

They can do that at the Cebu City Sports Center oval, once, of course, the repairs are finished.

I used to see a councilor regularly there, and curiously it was during the time when he made the news regularly for fighting with the mayor. Did he wisely walk away the stress of politics?

I no longer see him now, just as when he’s rarely in the news. But perhaps he just changed his routine or time at the tracks?

I’ve always admired guys like him—politicians who try to get fit without bringing in the whole newsbeat to cover their “getting fit.”

It means that despite the pressure and their hectic schedule, they find time for themselves. And it is what they need. Not a gym membership.

OVAL REPAIR. Now finally, two years and nine months after attending a a forum with a group that was planning to start a petition to have the CCSC track oval repaired, it is being repaired.

It is understood, of course, that the government operates at a different timeframe, but I hope the government, the private sector and the public will be of the same “frame” when it comes to taking care of the new track oval once it is opened to the public in 2012.

The oval won’t be in place before the 2012 Sinulog but I hope that before the next Sinulog, the CCSC will come up with protective measures for the track so it won’t get damaged. I hope, too, that whoever uses the oval—the companies that hold their sportsfests there, the groups that hold their races, or the joggers, or even the ANS students who make it their  extended classroom—will take care of it.

It’s not the only track oval in Cebu City but I guess it’s safe to assume for the thousands of folks who exercise regularly, it’s the only track oval in the city.

And we’d like to have the new one look new, longer.

OLD FOTOS. While sifting through old photos accumulated over the years, I came upon a grainy photo taken after the Regional Schools Press Conference in the early 90s in faraway Mati, Davao.

It was taken after the awarding ceremony and after getting a couple of second places in editorial and sportswriting, I and some schoolmates were whooping it up.

That press conference always stood out for me. Not because I won, but because years later, I learned that not only was my wife a participant in that contest, or that we had the same event but because she said she remembered seeing a KSP boy, kissing a cut-out of a lady during the picture-taking sessions.

Unfortunately, I’ve never seen a copy of my pic doing that stunt.

I was a third year high school student and I think it was in that year when I decided that if I couldn’t make it as a sportswriter, I’d be an engineer since I was comfortable with numbers.

And I did take up BS ECE in college in 1996, but somehow, wound up with an AB Sociology degree in 2005. Yet, here I am now, 17 years removed from kissing the cut-out of an impossibly-slim lady after the closing ceremony, writing this.

Life sure has its funny twists, right?

I often get asked how I ended up in sportswriting and I always say my laziness during enrollment was the reason.
Back in 1997, after putting up enrollment at USC for the umpteenth time, I found myself with only four subjects and plenty of free time.

Two months later, at 18, I was covering sports events.  That was over 15 years ago.
But don’t call me an old-timer. No sir, not me. The old-timers in this business are the ones who remember the time of the typewriters and I wasn’t a part of that time.

Makes you wonder what sort of fotos—and their stories—these old-timers have, don’t you?

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