Before I left Manila, I had a chance to meet up with high school BFF, Marmie De Jesus (a.k.a. Marmaduke, a.k.a. The Duke). I hadn’t seen her in months and she looked fitter than she had ever been. She told me she had taken up running and now runs 5 km. four to five times a week (- her time is less than 30 minutes).

Inspired by her, I thought I’d ditch my biases against running and give it a try. So, last Monday, on my first day back in Siargao, I ran 4.3 km. in about 36 minutes. Not bad for someone who doesn’t run.

Except that I didn’t warm up.

I know. Stupid, stupid, stupid. You’d think I had never worked out a day in my life. And it wasn’t that I didn’t think about it. I did. Except that I was more concerned about measuring how far I could run than I was with injury.

Sure enough, after the run, I could feel some of my muscles seize up but, it wasn’t until the end of the evening, as I was getting up from the dinner table, that I felt pain tear through my left hip. You know how stretch marks look? Well, this felt the way stretch marks look, like flesh being ripped apart. I had never felt pain like that before. I texted Rosan. She has, after all, competed in marathons and triathlons and has had so many injuries and been to so many traditional and alternative medical practitioners that she is practically an expert on all matters related to healing. “Your body is in shock,” she said. “4.3 km. is far for someone who doesn’t run and didn’t warm up.” She told me that, next time, I should walk, stretch, run, walk, stretch. In the meantime, I had to do RICE – Rest Ice Compress Elevate.

Right. Is that raw?

Since it was rather late in the evening when Rosan had gotten back to me, I didn’t get to follow her advice until the next morning.

I found out that we are not in the habit of using ice in Siargao and the maid had to go out and buy some. And I wasn’t sure if “Ice” and “Compress” went together as in an ice compress or separately and, in any case, I had no idea how to compress a hip. So I raised my legs, held a towel full of ice against various leg parts, and rested for two days.

Mikey Mason, whom you may remember from my first interview, weighed in later with this article: http://www.mobilitywod.com/2012/08/people-weve-got-to-stop-icing-we-were-sooo-wrong.html – but I had already iced twice, still had no idea how to compress a hip, and was getting restless resting.

I finally went biking with Susan on Thursday and, for the first time, made it all the way from the house to Sagana Resort (about 8 to 9 km.) on my cheap, rickety push bike. I didn’t get to ride back the next day as planned, due to the freak rains that cancelled the only flight to the island.

Today, I went riding with Janette. According to her iPhone app, we biked 16.9 km. in one hour and 46 minutes. Yes, we took our time. I like leisurely bike rides. We also stopped a lot. Or, rather, I – and, consequently, we – stopped a lot. I was in pain! I had borrowed Pierre, Janette’s husband,’s bike and wasn’t used to its seat. (My butt requires more padding.)

So far, most of the muscles strained by the run have healed. Except for the hip. Is it too late to inquire about how to compress a hip?

I’m currently having problems running Typepad on my computer on account of the maddeningly slow connection here in Siargao. So my posts will have to remain image-free until I can get to a faster connection and re-edit accordingly. It’s strange because it was working just fine when I got here and I was even able to upload a post. I’ve since been in touch with Typepad Support and have deleted cookies, cleared the cache, freed 24 GB of memory and tried my luck with Sagana’s connection, and still nothing.

This post, by the way, is brought to you by my Typepad iPhone app, which sucks balls but is better than nothing.