Views of an Amateur Birder, Photographer and Yoga Teacher
It was a day filled with intense beach volleyball action, hotter than the scorching mid-day sun. Last years champs are back at the finals to surprisingly face different challenging teams this time. For the women’s University of Sto Tomas (UST) faced Adamson (ADU) with the former having a thrice to beat advantage for sweeping the elimination while on the men’s, Far Eastern University (FEU) faced National University (NU) in a best-of-three finale. Who came out the victor? Let’s find out.
I never thought Beach Volleyball can be so emotional, it is really a different atmosphere from indoor Volleyball. But I guess on every game when the championship is at stake, every player can feel the pressure and only having a pair on a team, it really shows on every winning point. I was able to watch the finals game match for UAAP Season 74 beach volleyball in UE Caloocan. For the Women’s it’s UST with main players Maru Banaticla and Judy Caballejo playing against Ateneo’s Alyssa Valdez and Bea Tan. Game 2 was a win from Ateneo forcing a deciding 3rd match. I was really surprised on how each player would react to each points they got and they sure show a lot of passion for the game.On Game 3, Maru had an injury but she showed how a trooper she was and continued playing despite the pain. In two sets, UST was able to get their first Beach Volleyball championship and it was a well deserved win. Lots of victory hugs here.
Earlier this morning I joined the 10k category for National Geographic’s Earth Day Run 2011 at Bonifacio Global City (BGC). There were more than 10,000 participants on this run under the collective category of 3k, 5k, 10k and 21k. Finished the 10k route in over an hour and 9 minutes which I think is good enough since I didn’t really have proper preparation prior the run. It was a well organized event with fireworks signaling the start of the run, marshall are in the right positions while water stations are there when you need them with enough water for everyone. The run would also help build the Mind Museum at Taguig. Here’s a quick shot I took during the run using my Nokia N8.
I haven’t been active in running for quite a while but I decided to go back at it recently and has been conditioning for some good runs. For the start of 2011, I decided to go with PSE Bull Run for a few reasons (1) it’s close to where I live (2) registration is relatively cheap. My objective also was to get a feel of going back into this kind of runs. Nothing really serious but just to have fun.
My Olympus E-3 DSLR has taken the back seat for a while since I had my Olympus PEN E-PL1. I thought I bring out for some much needed exercise. For speed, I would still prefer a DSLR for its faster frame rate. I must admit, it’s nice to hold this solid camera block again even for a while. While I still prefer the PEN for it’s weight and compactness, the E-3 is still a powerhouse for some serious work.
