It has really been a while since I ran on the road.  The last one was La Salle’s Run two weeks ago.  Maybe because I got drenched in the rain and got colds and cough that I was sluggish ever since.  I managed to do mtb trails though last saturday and sunday

Went on a business trip to Cebu last wednesday and made a commitment to run prior to breakfast.  Parklane hotel’s gym looks old.  I booked there thinking it is a newer hotel compared to Marriott and facilities should be better.  I was disappointed because all the treadmills look old.   I don’t know how to describe it but the best analogy I can think of for the treadmills is comparing a PC running MS-DOS vs one with Windows XP or Vista.  Uuuy plugging!

Enough of the whining though,  I was happy I managed to run a few kilometers the past 3 days.  Would have wished to run on the road but I’m unfamiliar with cebu streets so I didn’t risk it.  It also gave me a good excuse to eat a hearty breakfast every single day! Sarap ng danggit bai!

Now that I’m back in Manila,  I’m itching to go to Manila Memorial tomorrow! Tsi and I will do an early morning run and in the afternoon, we’ll sign up for the Milo Marathon 10k race in greenhills.  I was supposed to be Tsi’s bike support for her first 21k but this Milo Marathon only offers a full marathon and 10k. 

Good luck to all of us running next sunday at the Milo Marathon!

I didn’t mind the rain. In fact I welcomed it. It was my first time to run under heavy downpour and I was surprised that I enjoyed it. Yes your clothes become heavy and you hear the squish-squash of your rubber shoes but the feeling of going for it under any condition is a pleasant feeling. The sky cleared up towards the end of the race which was good.

I was disappointed with the management of the race though. There were no road marshalls (I saw one traffic enforcer that I had to ask for directions) and too few signages. A 5km lady runner accidentally joined us during our second loop of the 10-miler and when she realized she ran more than she should, I do not dare write here the words that came out from her. Best part is when my friend who shall remain nameless told me that people refused his entry to 38^th street (ISM) on his 2^ndround of the 10-miler! A bunch of them apparently are at the tail end of the pack and when they tried to enter 38^th street, some people (unknown if they are from the race or taguig road officials) told them that they are clearing already the street and they can’t go in anymore. They were forced to proceed to 32^nd street instead. I am not sure how long that stretch of road that was skipped but in the end, he finished 2 minutes behind me! Can’t blame him for that!

This is also the race where we arrived late. So we were still outside the holding pen when the gun started for the 10-miler. We couldn’t squeeze in between all the excited 5k runners who wanted to go inside the holding pen as well. Haaay! Ang dami ko nang “Excuse us! Excuse us!”, hirap sumingit pa rin. Can’t find the guys who are supposed to mark your bib number too. We haven’t even started, taas na ng heart rate ko he he. We are partly to blame, we should have arrived early at the Fort. And I remember on my 2^nd loop near Mc Donald’s I felt hunger pangs. Siguro I was imagining longanisa with rice. Good thing there is a water station along rizal drive. Daanin ko na lang sa malamig na water

As for my performance, I finished at 1:42 which is better than my 1:38 last Mizuno’s 15k run, right? Math is my waterloo so I couldn’t figure out if my average pace is better now than Mizuno. Anyways, my Polar registered a shorter route by a few hundreds of meters. I would have to check the exact distance it registered later tonight.

Seems like it rains every weekend now. Not sure if there are more races lined up. This is probably the last scheduled so better check the Philrunner’s site later.

So if there’s no run this weekend,  will probably use my mountain bike and do the sabak trail or daang hari on saturday.  Yayain ko na lang my cousin and si myquest2shine to run around Manila Memorial on Sunday too.  Oberenaaawt!

This will be my last run for the month. Usually, I only join fun runs once a month. But the long runs attracted me lately. There was the 15KMizuno Infinity run and the 21K Manila Half Marathon Challenge. This time it’s a 10 miler (16kms) at my favorite running destination, The Fort.

One Run, One Family, One La Salle (OROFOLS) is organized by the De La Salle Alumni Association for its scholarship projects and other charitable projects. They had a great website to provide the information needed for the event. They even had a preview of the singlet on the website and locations of the different registrations centers. Since this was mainly a La Sallian family event, I expected the venue to be dominated by green and white.

Where’s the Animo?
I am a full green-blooded La Sallian. I had my education from elementary (Gr 1-7), High School (Gr. 8-11) and 5 years of Engineering at La Salle Bacolod. That’s 16 years of La Sallian education but I am not sure what Animo really means. But for me, Animo stands for that La Sallian stardard of excellence, and its quest for that excellence. However, the running event fall short of my expectation on excellence. It was a disaster for several reasons.

For starters, there was poor crowd control. When we arrived, there a long line of people at the baggage area. It was only manned by two people. One writing the numbers on the tape. And another receiving the bags and taping them. After the race, Quennie saw that there was no one assisting in the baggage area and she had to page for someone to take care of the baggage.

When the 3K and 5K runners (and a lot of walkers…) converged, the road got really crowded. It started to look like a lovapalooza event with the lovers walking hand in hand. Some of the 16K runners were already shouting at those who are walking to give way since the walkers are slowing them down. This is one of the disadvantage of having similar routes for all race events.

The worst part is the lack of marshals at the corners and intersections. The organizers expects us to watch for the markers or to have memorized the map posted in the website. But the markers were not there all the time. We even got confused at the very first turn for the 16K. The lead pack took a right turn while the others took the left turn. Thus, from the very start, some runners were running on a different course. There were even 3K runners following the 5K route. And 5K runners, following the 3K route.

They should learn that runners are spoiled superior life forms. We want to be pampered with our needs for water, security, and direction. It’s not easy running these distances and these basic things should be the least of our problem. Besides, it’s not the Amazing Race where we should ask people for directions on which way to go to in order to arrive first at the pit stop.

Water and Freebies Galore
If it’s any consolation, the event was overflowing with water and freebies. There was plenty of water stations at the route serving ice cold bottled water. I wasn’t even starting to sweat yet when a water station was already in sight.

At the finish line, a lot of freebies were given away. There were loot bags for the runners. Quennie and I got a Men’s Health and T3 magazine. I thought they were giving away FHM too. There was a booth giving away free Milo, Krispy Kreme and Gatorade.

Did I mention that there were a lot of pretty girls too? No, they are not freebies. But imagine: girls, white shirt, rain. Hmmm…

Another good finish


It started to rain a few minutes before the race started. And then, a longer downpour after 30 minutes. This caused my shoes and feet to be soaked. I should have used the other shoe that I reserved for this kind of weather.

I started slow this time so that I don’t get easily tired. The route was mostly flat so I thought I should make it at around 1hr and 30 mins. After an hour of running, I started to compute my possible finish time. That’s when I realized I was running slow to meet my target time and had to catch up. I run faster at the last 5 kms. I reached the finish line at 1hr and 37 minutes. Quennie finished her 5K at 30mins.

One Family

It was really a La Sallian event since we got to sing the Alma Mater song. Hey, it has been a long time since I last sung that song. And when the last Hail, Hail, Hail was sung, the La Salle brothers who were in stage started to leave. I got the chance to have some pictures with them.

I got to see one of my teachers in high school, Bro. Dennis Magbanua. He was my religious studies teacher during 3rd Year. He joined the 16K run also. I was glad he still remembers me.

A big photo ops was with Bro. Roly Dizon. He was our University President then. I got the chance to take my picture with him. After all this time, this was the closest I can get.

I never got the chance to get a picture with Bro Felipe Belleza. He was my class adviser during 2nd year high school. He just got lost in the crowd. Too bad… Bro. Dennis said he was trying to hide since he never joined any of the event. And to think he was the athletic one.

By the way, I realized that when the brothers are not wearing their white uniforms, they bring a white towel instead.

The Aftermath
Since, my shoe got wet, I cleaned it up upon arriving home. Then, I had the usual long sleep after the long run. And since I reached my 200km mileage last week, I rewarded myself with a pizza at Yellow Cab. No strained muscle. No injuries.

If your shoes got wet yesterday, you might want to read my other blog entry on cleaning and taking care of those shoes. You wouldn’t want them to smell afterwards, would you?
Read it here: Taking Care of Wet Running Shoes

Next race
Because of this picture, I am convinced that I should join the Men’s Health Miracle Run on August 17. Next week, I will take a rest from my long runs while maintaining my 5K or 10K run during weekdays. I’ll spend sometime for myself other than run and sleep next Sunday. Then, Id be back for my marathon practices. I might join the 10K event during the Milo Marathon – Manila on August 3.

I wasn’t able to have a closer pose because (1) I was still wet from the sweat and rain, and (2) Quennie was the one taking the shot.

I won’t be joining the TNF North Face Ultra Marathon. The venue is a bit far for me. I’ll stick on the runs in the city for a while. I hope I can get a carpool though. To those who are joining this event next week, good luck and enjoy.

The overcast sky and 4-5 raindrops didn’t stop Vicky and I from running yesterday.

I needed to run a bit to shake out my stiff legs. Vicky was a woman with a mission. She wanted to try out the One La Salle 16K route. We agreed to do one loop and if we still felt like running we can finish off our kms at BHS.

We headed out with the 16K route print out. We have been running around TheFort but the markers in the map were not familiar.

We headed to the road near NBC Tent and followed the map to the best of our abilities. hehe

We figured that 11th Ave is the street between Serendra and BHS so we went there and into the inner loop of BHS passing by Honda, Nike and Anta and out again heading towards Market!Market! It was a bit tricky because it was getting dark already.

EveryNation is the place with the waterfalls just across the Market!Market Playground and before the ISM compound. We ended up running on the footpath on the opposite side of IS. We didn’t want to be roadkill. We were not sure where the turn around point was and where summit school was … but we headed towards a tall building which we later found out was the Hanjin building. The route is relatively flat until you reach Hanjin then expect a very slight slope down and of course when you do your turn around its also a very gentle slope up. No biggie. If you ran last weekend, you won’t even notice this bit. 

Back to 32nd St again … i think this will be a very tricky part for runners specially during the second loop. This is a relatively busy road. When we ran Pinay in Action, a lot of cars were passing us in this area. The goodnews is you will be running facing majority of the traffic. I just hope the organizers are able to control this area and manage traffic. Last night, this was our speed workout sector. We could not find a footpath or a sidewalk haha but I was running with Vicky-Woman with a Mission so I turned around and said … tara speed work! Hair raising! We were running facing the traffic and all I could think of was … do not go towards the light! We had cars passing about 2 feet from us. They probably thought we were crazy runners. Sorry po!

The next turnoff is the Jollibee/Chowking area then its straight all the way to McDonalds and the turnoff at 26th St is at One Mckinley condo. Then onto 5th Ave the main road which connects to Lawton. This is the second rolling bit up and down will be interesting on your 2nd loop but just ride the downhill and smile. Uturn is somewhere after Essensa. We found 2 slots but one had a no Uturn sign so we figured  the Uturn will be on the second slot.

Then its back towards NBC tent. I ran with my polar and measured it at 8.1km for one loop but ohwell … we ran a lot of footpaths so not an accurate measurement. I have made my peace with distances. +/-500 is tolerable for me.

After our 8Ks we decided to cool down and walk around BHS. We finished off the day with a yummy dinner at Zong.

So it looks like its going to be a very fast 16K for you all. Very gentle slopes. Watch out for the cars. Oh and very little shade in the 1st 5Ks so don’t forget to put sunblock and hydrate before the race.  The course has a lot of turns so keep your wits about you and don’t get lost.

Have fun!