Eighteen-time marathoner and 2025 Manila Marathon champion Christine Hallasgo opens up about the unglamorous realities of training and racing through monthly cycles and the long road back from pregnancy.
If you’ve ever trained hard for something—a race, a game, a climb—you know the discipline it takes. But if you’re a woman, there’s another layer people don’t always see.It’s not just “that time of the month.”
It’s the week before, when your legs feel heavier no matter how light the workout is. When your shoes feel half a size tighter from the bloat. When you’re halfway through a drill and your brain suddenly whispers, why am I so tired? It’s the sudden waves of irritability, the soreness you can’t trace back to yesterday’s training.
And yet, you still show up. You still train.
Christine Hallasgo knows this grind intimately.
The 18-time marathoner just won the women’s division at the Manila Marathon with a 2:55:34 finish—but her path to the podium is lined with days she had to run through the hormonal fog.
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“Bilang atleta, hindi mo maiwasang datnan ka sa araw ng laro,” she says. “Kaya sinasanay ko ‘yong katawan ko na kahit meron ako, tuloy pa rin. Kasi paano na lang kung laro na at ilang buwan kang nag-prepare?”
And then there’s motherhood.
In 2016, Christine gave birth, pressing pause on her running dreams. Pregnancy didn’t just change her schedule—it rewired her body.
The return wasn’t instant. Muscles that used to obey felt different. Breathing patterns shifted. Every stride had to be relearned.
“Hindi ganun kadali galing sa panganganak,” she says.
“Pero kailangan mong maging positibo. Hindi na lang para sa sarili mo, may anak ka na. Kailangan mong maging pursigido.”
This is the part of sports we don’t put on posters: the runs you do when your body feels foreign, the games you play when your energy is low but your commitment is high, the quiet negotiations you have with yourself to just keep going.
It’s learning to work with your cycle instead of fighting it. Adjusting pace when the luteal phase steals your speed. Eating and resting in ways that make the hard weeks just a little softer.
For Christine—and for every active girl—victory isn’t just measured in time or points.
Sometimes it’s in the fact that you laced up on the day you least wanted to. That you ran the race despite cramps, or despite a sleepless night with your kid. That you listened to your body, honored its changes, and still found a way to move.
Because the female body carries more than muscle—it carries cycles, changes, and whole new lives. And still, it can carry you to the finish line.
That’s what we run with. And that’s what makes us strong.
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