Philip Santos completes 1 year of running daily

The list of everyday runners in the CNMI is ever growing as another runner, Philip Santos, completed his 365 straight days of running last May 25.

He celebrated his streak with a 3.65-mile run on the Beach Road Pathway starting at The Shack.

His journey of running everyday began last year after Typhoon Mawar swirled around the CNMI and Guam.

The 25-year-old wanted to challenge himself physically and proved that he was capable of doing hard things, so he started the streak.

As a Run Saipan member, he constantly joins Run Saipan races and said that his inspiration for the streak was Run Saipan president Edward Dela Cruz Jr., and his friends at Run Saipan, Aaron Pamintuan, Simon Necesito, and Sheila Mabutas, “who have been very encouraging and supportive throughout my running journey.”

What keeps him going is the want to constantly improve as a runner. “I used to run really slow, but over the course of the last 365 days, I’ve seen improvements in my pace and have hit several PRs in the 5K, 10K, and even ran my first full marathon. At the end of the day, streak running for me is about showing up for myself even when it’s hard.”

The lead family coordinator at the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. said that the toughest part of streak running is when he travels off-island and also the days after hard races.

“I’ve done runs around the Narita Airport to maintain my streak. Also, when the neighborhood I travel to isn’t that safe, I resort to treadmill running which I find to be more dragging and boring than running out on the streets,” he said. “The GPS also gets messed up in these areas, so it can be hard to track my actual pace and distance. Lastly, the day after my marathon, I had to run really slow as I was still recovering from the day before.”

As for his favorite route to run, it’s the beautiful and scenic Beach Road Pathway. Along with that, he’s been training with inclines at the Gov. Eloy S. Inos Peace Park, Suicide Cliff, and the Grotto.

On his recovery days, he runs at least one mile. “On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I do speed work for about 3-4 miles, and the weekends are reserved for long runs, which can go from 6 miles and beyond, but right now I haven’t been training for anything longer than 10K.”

What’s next after the one-year milestone? He wants to keep running and to be an inspiration for others. “I want to inspire other runners in the CNMI that anything is possible if we put our minds and bodies to it—we just need to be consistent and to show up and we will see those results come in. My goal is to run for the rest of my life, if I can,” said Santos.