The father and daughter duo reflect on a life shaped by the lessons they’ve learned from their shared love of running.
Hannah Pangilinan ran her first full marathon around the hilly streets of her neighborhood. No official starting line, no touristy scenery, no hordes of spectators cheering — it was just her and her accountability partner running a route that they mapped themselves.
It was in the middle of the pandemic, and as Hannah shares in a conversation with The GAME, “I was really unfit, and running was the easiest way to get back into [shape]. I had this one neighbor who wanted to get fit also, so we were keeping each other accountable. And then a random day, she was like, ‘Wanna sign up for a marathon?’
“So I did the virtual Boston Marathon in the pandemic with her.”
The decision to go for it was simple. At the time, Hannah was looking for more opportunities to get back into the athletic lifestyle that she grew up with, but let go of during her college days, so saying yes to a new challenge was easy; the hardest part came after. When she was 16 kilometers away from finishing her first 42.2-kilometer race, she felt herself hitting her ‘wall’, a term runners use to describe the point where they think the exhaustion catches up to them.
“In the actual virtual race,” she recalls, “[my dad] paced me because I was crying na. I was like, ‘Dad, I can’t finish this.’”
Through the last 16 kilometers, Hannah had her dad, Anthony, running by her side. Anthony is a marathon runner himself who has finished all six World Marathon Majors.
Hannah continues, “He didn’t know that he was going to run that much with me…But in the last kilometer, I was like, ‘I’m never, ever going to finish.’”
However, Anthony was there to keep her feet moving: “Just keep running, just keep running,” he would tell her. They sang praise songs together on their route, too. And many mental battles later, Hannah crossed the proverbial finish line of her first-ever marathon.
Hannah makes sure to note that she would not have finished the run if not for her ever-supportive father, who was there to get her over the wall. “That’s one major thing: it’s very grueling to do it alone. If there’s no one waiting for you at the finish line…I’m not going to finish. Knowing that someone is going to meet me — it changes everything.”
Anthony was, of course, incredibly proud of how Hannah overcame the doubt, as he knows from experience that finishing a marathon is anything but easy.
“Their [the Pangilinan kids’] accountability is inspiring,” he says. “The fact that she’s running every week with this run club at 5:30 in the morning. We used to be the ones who would repeat it: ‘Get up, do your training.’ Now, they’re the ones who ask us: ‘Dad, join us tomorrow?’
“So, full circle.”
A family affair
Fitness has always been one of the touchstones of the Pangilinan family. Anthony, who was inspired by the movie Rocky in childhood, learned the value of sports from an early age through boxing and track and field. “Running became not my sport, but my lifestyle talaga,” he emphasizes.
“Although I stopped at my mid-twenties and went back in my forties.”
Like many other Filipinos who had been bitten by the triathlon bug in the early 2010s, Anthony was encouraged to register for his first race by his business connections, though he admits that he dove into it blindly. “When I registered, doon ko lang nalaman, kaya pala tinawag na triathlon, kasi tatlo siya,” he says with a smile.
And yet, he got hooked, and even ended up joining five 70.30 IRONMAN races, some of the longest races in the country. But it wasn’t just because of the rewarding feeling of crossing the finish line. More than that, it was because of the community.
“You get hooked because of the community, because of the coaches, because they’re there. They make you accountable,” he adds.
Hannah, sitting next to her dad, recounts her own foray into triathlon: “For me, it would be embarrassing if I wasn’t the only kid that didn’t do it…You didn’t want to be left at home while everybody was training.”
“Yes, they went with us, me and Maricel,” Anthony explains. “The kids would watch at first, then they joined us eventually.”
The Pangilinan kids went from waiting by the finish line to crossing the finish line themselves, and triathlon became a knot that tied them closer together. They would train, travel, and compete as a family.
OG members of the Philippines’ triathlon community may remember an old magazine that featured the Pangilinans, dressed in matching triathlon suits, on the cover as ‘Team Pangilinan’. Hannah and Anthony both smile, conjuring the image in their minds after years. This is one of Hannah’s fondest memories of her childhood.
“I loved that we were matching. We would get matching outfits, and we’d all be color coordinated. It was just so cute,” she says, a smile across her face. “And in triathlons, we were all at the airport, for example, heading to Cebu. We have six big bags of bikes. And we’re all black and red because those are our colors. It was like — this is my team!”
It was always a family affair for the Pangilinans, which is exactly what Hannah loved about it, as she admits that she didn’t ever really enjoy racing in triathlon events. And funnily enough, once upon a time, Hannah also didn’t like running.
“I didn’t actually enjoy running in the context of a triathlon. Because it’s the last leg,” she reveals. When asked which of the three legs was her favorite, she paused and smiled shyly. “Just being there with you guys,” she says to her dad.
For the Pangilinans, that has always been the most rewarding part: that the sport (and a sport that demands long hours, at that) gave them something to bond over.
But over time, Hannah started to realize that taking after her parents — learning the value of fitness and growing up with an athletic lifestyle — would go beyond this, and provide her with a lifelong passion and purpose.
Looking back in her early triathlon days, she reminisces, “Especially when we got our first tri suits, we felt so professional. Super homemade, my mom just slapped on logos there, the brands she wanted us to work with. They weren’t even our logos. Eventually, all of these brands we started to work with, and I still work with them. In my fun run, they’re still my sponsors.
“We’re still reaping the benefits of what my parents started years ago.”
Runs in the family
The hours that Anthony and Hannah spent swimming, biking, and running ultimately laid the foundations for what would become an even bigger part of their fitness journeys: running.
After five IRONMAN 70.3 races — what Anthony refers to as “a season in my life” — he realized he had proven himself as a triathlete. “I decided to go back to running,” he says. And it was at this point that he decided to train for his first marathon.
Hannah turns to her dad and asks, “What was your first marathon?”
“New York,” Anthony replies. As he recalls, well-known running coach Rio de la Cruz approached him one day and asked if he wanted to join the New York Marathon. Who could say no to that opportunity?
And thus began Anthony’s newfound love for long-distance running. His wife, Maricel, also became his running partner, and the two embarked on a journey to complete each of the six World Marathon Majors.
“After you do one world marathon major, yan na. You want to do all of them,” he says. “And again, the kids would go with us traveling [to the races].”
As with triathlon, Anthony and Maricel had set a precedent for Hannah. Watching them take on a big physical and mental challenge — and multiple times, at that — was all the proof she needed to believe that she could do it, too.
“The reason why I was able to say yes to doing [my first marathon] is because my parents showed me that it wasn’t impossible. It’s just something that you do. I think that was the most influential thing for me — that it’s possible.”
Hannah recalls finishing her first 42.2-kilometer race and thinks of it as her jumping off the deep end. She admits she was not as prepared as she should have been, particularly for the mental aspect of running that kind of distance. But the experience, as painful and tear-inducing as it was, only made her want to do better next time around.
In 2024, Hannah ran the Boston Marathon alongside her mom, Maricel, who was finishing her sixth World Marathon Major. And this time, it was a lot easier, not just because she trained harder physically, but she also put in the work mentally.
“The second time around, I really focused on mental toughness,” she shares. “So I read a lot of books, I watched a lot of interviews with runners, just for the runner’s mindset. So I think that’s what changed. I was like, okay, this is not just like a physical challenge, it’s a mental, spiritual battle also. And with yourself — you have to be friends with yourself.”
Indeed, marathon running requires preparation all around, but this is also what makes it the most fulfilling.
“It’s the person you become when you’re training. And really, the habits that you build, and the attention to your physical and mental health. When I’m running, I’m super in tune with how I’m feeling. You can’t run away from that when you’re running. You’ll feel it, say, if you didn’t sleep well the night before, you’ll feel it. Your body will tell you.”
Anthony admires Hannah’s outlook on running. He is reminded of a quote: “It’s not what you do, it’s what others will do after you. Because today they’re watching you.”
“That for me is so real,” Anthony reflects. “Because it’s not what I did, it’s what they are doing now, because they were watching me when I did it. And the amazing this is, they do it even better than you. So that’s such a fulfilling thing.”
One of the most humbling moments Anthony experienced as a father was when, during one particularly difficult triathlon race, it was his eldest daughter, Ella, who urged him to keep going.
“‘Don’t quit,’ she said. She even said, ‘You’re still not the last.’ Can you imagine? What a motivation…But then, when it was her turn to want to quit, because she fell three times on the bike, I said, ‘Ella, are you sure you want to continue?’ She said, ‘Dad, just like you, I won’t quit.’
“And then she won the gold…Then it hit me: it’s not about me. It’s what my kids will do after me because they’ve been watching me.”
It takes a village
Anthony and Hannah have gained countless life lessons from their lifelong love of fitness: discipline, hard work, mental fortitude, and so much more. But when asked which among them stands out, they shared the same conclusion: you can’t do it alone.
“It takes a village to complete a race,” Anthony stresses.
Hannah agrees: “That’s one major thing. It’s very grueling to do it alone. If there’s no one cheering for you or waiting for you at the finish line…I’m not going to finish. Knowing that my mom is there, or somebody’s going to meet me at the 10K to encourage me, or seeing a friend during the route, it changes everything.”
This frame of mind is what inspired Hannah to start her own run club, Just One, in 2024 alongside running coach Ani de Leon; and what began as just a group of friends meeting up on a weekly basis quickly transformed into a larger community driven by a fervor for self-improvement.
“Just One is the perfect place to kickstart or rekindle your running journey,” Hannah shares. “The reality is that for a lot of athletes — and I mean, everybody — the journey is not linear. You start, then you stop. And when you stop, you don’t want to start because you’re scared.”
Hannah understands this on a personal level, and drawing from her experiences, she is guided by a certain Bible verse: “Do not despise these small beginnings.”
Now, she leads a community of hundreds — and up to thousands if you count the participants of her first Just One Fun Run, and the thousands already signed up for her second iteration happening in July — made up of both beginners and advanced runners, and every runner in between.
“That’s the whole concept of it. It’s removing the intimidation factor, making it for everyone…We cater to many different people. And we can all run together even if we’re all doing different pace groups.
“And the good thing about that is you learn from the other people around you. You learn from the beginners if you’re an elite because you see how much they love getting into it, so you’re reminded of the joy. Beginners learn so much from the elites. What are the best shoes to use? Where do you have hydration? So, that was the point. That’s how it all started.”
She is sending an inspiring message that clearly resonates with the country’s thriving fitness community — and it’s easy to see where she gets it from. Having grown up with a family that has long emboldened her to push her boundaries and stretch her capabilities, at 25 years old, she is now spreading that same message even further.
As Anthony likes to call it, “Root fruit.”
For the Pangilinans, fitness has truly been the gift that continues to keep giving, and they hope that more people can experience that same gift, too.
“I think that’s what’s so addicting about running,” Hannah concludes. “[One of my favorite books is by] Haruki Murakami, called What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, and he says, ‘I run, therefore I am.’ Because running is a reminder of us as beings. It’s a reminder that we’re alive, that we can breathe, that we can move…
“There must be something in the experience of running that taps into your divine purpose.”
Anthony tilts his head in thought. “I think I can show you my diary when I was 19,” he says to Hannah.
“I had just completed a run and I told myself then I am worthy of living the rest of this life because I’ve done it. It’s a sense of completion. Wholeness. It’s a sense of fulfillment. I’m called to run — so if I run, I fulfill the call…I run therefore I am.”
Like father, like daughter.
Text ANNIKA CANIZA
Photography GRANT BABIA
Creative Direction CAS ASEOCHE
Hair and Makeup CATS DEL ROSARIO
Styled by JM GUMATAY
Sittings Editor ANNIKA CANIZA
Production Coordination ANTHONY MENDOZA