I RECEIVED my last text message from Max Telford, one of the world’s great ultramarathoners, February of last year.

“Lito, Lito, How are you,” his exact words, and I did not know that it would really be the last ever message I would get from him.

You see, yesterday, Saturday, I got shocked when I saw a post from our common friend Dilip Budhrani, who was also into running in the 80’s and all our paths crossed because of running.

Max passed away at the age of 88 in Cebu where he has settled down for a long time and even as he has ended up running for a long time, he and wife Jo were running several David’s Salons there with founder David Charlton as partner.

The sad part, David , who was also in the running world orbit at that time, had also gone to the Great Beyond about two months ahead of Max. Now the two buddies will be together up there as they were a pair of good guys.

Max first came here I believe in 1982 upon the invitation of the late PAL Manila Marathon organizer Elpi Dorotheo together with a host of other international runners that included Bill Rodgers.

On my part, I was a relatively young sports writer and running was my beat as I was also into the sport, same with Dilip who went into race organizing.

Elpi organized a Manila Bay cruise, if you can call a Navy landing boat a cruise ship, but then the fun was being with the invited runners and the opportunity to meet and interview them.

Dilip and I, both single at that time, arranged a double date for the two of us for the cruise, and guess who was supposed to be my date that night, none other than Jojing Murillo, who became Max’s better half after I “sacrificed” my date and introduced her to Max with the two hitting it off early. And we became friends.

Max started returning back to the Philippines from his base in Hawaii though he, for a long time was in New Zealand where he made a name for himself in the early 70s with his ultra running exploits.

At one time, he used to run 3x a day, everyday, averaging 200 miles a week, can you beat that?

Among others, he has ran California’s Death Valley desert twice, a distance of 222 miles, first one in winter and when it did not impress people, he decided to run it again, this time in summer when the temperature was so high you can literally fry an egg on the rocks, which he claimed his wife then, did.

But perhaps his greatest accomplishment as an elite ultramarathoner was when he ran from Anchorage in Alaska all the way to Halifax, Nova Scotia in Canada where he was even chased by a bear in the Yukon along the way.

That was in 1977 and he did a distance of 8200 kilometers in 106 days for which he landed in the Guinness Book of Records, he has several records in fact as he claimed to have held at one time or another more than 20 world records. In his estimate, he has ran 180,000 lifetime miles.

Here in the Philippines, he gained fame when he completed the Bataan Death March route not once but twice, I was with the support group from Century Park Sheraton that accompanied Max , and I ended up walking too from Angeles to Capas, Tarlac.

But Max felt bad about the fact that he finished it walking so he decided to do it again a second time and cane up with a more impressive time. Sorry I cannot remember the finishing times in both events anymore.

I did manage to see him and Jojing in Cebu but that was a long time ago but remained in contact with him on line, and that is why I felt bad upon hearing the news of his demise.

Goodbye Max, say hello to David for me.

Talking of death, this time in the family, by the time you read this piece, my brother in law Pete Velasco, hubby of my sister Marichu, would have been cremated already after a three-night wake in Marikina.

Again at this age, news of people passing away is not uncommon but when it happens to family members or circle of friends, it jolts and hurts.

My condolences to Jojing and to my sister.

AUTHOR PROFILE

Lito Cinco