For Maricel Laxa-Pangilinan, actress, author, and parenting advocate, fitness is a family affair.
It’s always been that way, from the time she was a young girl doing Jane Fonda exercises with her mom.
Kieran Punay
Today, for Laxa-Pangilinan, her husband Anthony and their five kids Ella, Donny, Hannah, Benjamin, and Solana, fitness is a bonding activity. “We’re called Team Pangilinan—we ‘tri’ together,” she tells Allure Philippines.
Seventeen years ago, Anthony started doing triathlons and asked her if he could bring their kids. She would go with them too, not to race but to take photos and cheer them on. “I became their official photographer, documenter, and then manager.”
But eventually, she caved and joined them in competing. “I was the last convert because I got so tired of waiting at the finish line.”
Laxa-Pangilinan calls swimming her first love. She was part of the swim team at Palisades High School in California. “Swimming for me is like therapy.”
It was also in high school that her best friend, who was the star runner on campus, got her into cross country and track. “That’s when I started to realize how wonderful it is to run.” I learned to run without any music. I just zone out and enjoy nature. There have been times where I’m running and I forget I’m running. I get lost in it. I’m brainstorming.”
Even when she became busy with her career and motherhood, Laxa-Pangilinan never stopped moving. She swims, runs, does yoga and jumps rope. “I have to do something every day. It doesn’t have to be a 3K or a 5K or a 10K. It just has to be movement.”
But training for triathlons was something else. “It was ruthless and brutal. People were really into it and they were not there to just finish, they were in for the numbers. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m not into that.’”
“I realized running for me is not finishing to gain or break a world record, it’s finishing well and enjoying the run. I do marathons because one, I can do it with my husband, and two, I can tour the whole city and meet people along the way. I’m not gonna cruise through it so fast that I don’t experience the heart of the city,” Laxa-Pangilinan says.
Laxa-Pangilinan can no longer count how many triathlons she’s done. At 42, she ran her first marathon and has since completed the six most prestigious marathons in the World Marathon Majors: Tokyo, London, Berlin, Chicago, New York CIty, and Boston.
In Tokyo, she made sure to enjoy the treats being offered to runners along the course. “I ate every single Japanese thing that they had—all the teas, the mochi, the sushi, the fruits. Whatever they had there, I said ‘yes, thank you.’”
During the Berlin Marathon, she didn’t want to use the porta potty so she stopped by a cafe. “My husband was like, ‘Where have you been?’ And I said, ‘The cafe was so nice with all its pillars…’ In fairness naman, I run fast enough so that I can afford to lounge around.”
Laxa-Pangilinan, who has been a lacto-ovo vegetarian for 25 years, tests her limits in other ways. “In the London Marathon, would you believe my nutrition was just four bananas? I wanted to stretch myself. If I can finish a 10K with one banana, I can finish a marathon with four bananas. And I did.”
Boston has been her favorite. “I thought I’d never run it until I’m maybe 85 years old when I could qualify. The qualifying time for Boston is crazy fast,” she says. “The other ways to get in are through a charity—which requires raising a ton of money—or by being a sponsored athlete. So I said, ‘I’m not going to run Boston. I’ll be happy with just the five.”
But then, she got a message. “Boston writes [to] me and says, ‘We noticed you already have five and you’re only missing Boston. We would like to invite you for a special lottery.”
Laxa-Pangilinan thought she wouldn’t get the slot but she did. And Team Pangilinan’s long-time partner Adidas also offered them a slot so daughter Hannah was able to run with her. Hannah, who has started a run club called Just One and organizes her own fun runs, helped her mom train. “She said, we’re going to do this together. I just went for it.”
Another one of her proudest finishes would be a triathlon in Laiya, Batangas. As they were about to start swimming, there was a 12-foot wave in the ocean. “It was huge. And I thought it was so nice. I didn’t know everybody else wanted to quit. There were only a handful of us who went in. I just kept swimming. I was the first-place finisher. I finished first not because I was fast, but because I was brave and I was having fun.”
Laxa-Pangilinan and her husband Anthony, who have been married for 32 years now, have chronicled everything they’ve learned from their relationship and races in a book called Marriage Is a Marathon. “It’s our gift and our legacy to our children. We developed a kind of culture in our family where being fit is fun, being healthy is the way to go, and that healthy is wealthy.”
Kieran Punay
Laxa-Pangilinan, now 55, doesn’t think it’s time to slow down. “Age is just a number. My grandmother did fun runs with me until she was 83. My mom, she’s 77 and she walks 10,000 steps a day. And we just did the Camino de Santiago [pilgrimage] for 100 kilometers.”
She shares, “My kids really inspire me to keep going. They assure me every day that the best is yet to come for me. They’re like, ‘Mom, this is the time to shine because you’ve really taken care of all of us. It’s your time now.’”
Laxa-Pangilinan said she’s retired from marathons. “But if I get a slot in Sydney, I will run.”
Photographer: Kieran Punay. Art Direction: Vince Uy. Makeup: Booya. Hair: Patty Inojales. Styling: Zia Dela Rosa. Clothing: Layout 1: H&M top. Lotus Activewear Shorts. Our Recess Hoodie. Layout 2: Lotus Activewear Set. H&M top.
