Pinoy ultramarathoner Cesar Guarin poised to take on North America next

The father of ultramarathon in the Philippines Cesar Guarin will be back in action in October this year when he starts to conquer the North America leg of his Global Run.

According to a post on the Facebook page of the Global Run, Guarin will be greeted by a chilly climate as he traverses the northern territory during the winter season for 60 days.

Stage 8 of his Global Run will cover Alaska, Canada and the United States. His starting point is at Anchorage and Fairbanks in Alaska.

Guarin will then travel to Alberta, Canada where he will continue to Edmonton and Vacouver. He will then cross over to the US through Seattle, Portland, Sacramento and San Francisco.

He will conclude the North America challenge in Los Angeles and upon doing so will have covered 2,500 kilometers for the leg.

Middle East leg

Guarin recently completed stage 7 of his Global run which consisted of Middle Eastern countries like Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.

During his Middle eastern leg of the Global Run, he traversed a total of 932 kilometers in a span of 30 days.

At every stop, he was greeted by overseas Filipino workers to whom he offered his Global Run.

Various Philippine envoys and Arab hosts also welcomed Guarin in different parts of his desert conquest.

He mentioned that the Middle East run proved to be difficult due to the challenging terrain, hot weather and loneliness in running a seemingly endless stretch of road mostly by himself.

However, this was not enough to hamper Guarin in achieving his newfound dreams after being denied a shot at the Olympic gold medal twice due to unfortunate injuries.

Even so Guarin admits the mountainous terrain of Oman was the most challening part of his Middle Eastern leg wherein he covered 175 rocky kilometers in just six days.

An inspiration

For Global Run project head Joon Malicse, Guarin's achievement of conquering the Middle East just goes to show that he is ready to become an inspiration for more Filipinos abroad.

“His determination and stamina to run under the scorching heat of the sun in the Middle East from sunrise to sundown is unbelievable. And at the end of the day he can still manage to smile genuinely and still take time to wash his clothes and do other stuff,” Malicse said.

He also hopes that more people especially Filipinos get to see Guarin in action.

“I've seen Cesar ran in 14 countries already in three years but it still amazes me to see him every time he runs each day on the road,” Malicse said.

Guarin's Global Run initiative started in 1980 where he has conquered various legs in the Philippines, America and Europe.

At 56 years old, Guarin hopes to be the First Filipino and Asian and only the fourth person to have literally run the distance of the Earth.

The Global Run covers 42,897 kilometers in 42 countries and is estimated to take a total of 865 running days. - Andrei Medina, VVP, GMA News