06/04/2026
I was certain I was going to die.
Too dramatic? Hehe. For real, it was somewhere in Argao, midday, summer solstice, in the middle of our Cebu Highlands Trail cross-country hike, with a heavy pack, on white newly-paved concrete road that's reflecting the bright summer sunlight back into our eyes, a long uphill road. I was certain I was going to pass out or collapse or even die. I was just waiting for it to happen.
I was walking head down, the sun was just right above me, I dare not look ahead and see the endless uphill road, looking up will forfeit my will to live, so looking down was the right move at that moment. But I had to look, I just have to know where I was, or how long do I have to endure; I took a glimpse and saw a tiny "sari-sari store". I stopped trying to solve the whole problem. I stopped thinking of when will it end. I just told myself:
"Just get there. Get to that store and you will live."
That was the entire plan. And it worked.
There's something about endurance sports or activities that mimics life so closely that it's almost unfair. You know it's going to be hard before you start. You plan for it, prepare, and show up anyway. And somewhere in the suffering you start asking questions only suffering can unlock.
Will I finish? What happens if I don't? Who am I when there's nothing left?
Then it becomes a mirror. And what it shows you isn't always what you expect. It doesn't show you how strong you are, or how prepared, or how disciplined. It shows you something simpler and more important than all of that.
That you're still here. Alive.
It's not over yet. The suffering itself is proof. You are alive. You are moving. And as long as it hurts, you have not quit. Most people see pain as a signal to stop. I learned to see it differently. Pain means I'm still in it. Pain means there's still a race to finish.
I noticed that the people most comfortable in that suffering didn't grow up comfortable. I grew up in a middle-class household. Enough to get by, not enough to stop worrying. And somewhere in that, without anyone teaching it formally, I learned that hard things are just... things. You get through them. Move on. Next please.
So 35km in a marathon, or in the middle of a forest, during a trail race, when everything hurts, something in me just shrugs it off and says, "yeah we've been here before.โ
That's what endurance sports reveals in you, that suffering is temporary, that hard things end, and that you are more capable than you think.
Not the medal. Not the Strava kudos. Just the quiet knowledge, earned one hard kilometer at a time, that you can do hard things.
Because you always had to.
Photo credits: Silverio Jr Tolitol Tolits