- Bench singlet design for Run BGC -

1) Attack of the Mountain Bikers. Where did they all come from? There were over 50 mountain bikers circling the BHS loop when we arrived. There were double the usual number of runners, but we were still outnumbered by the biking peeps. Hubby and I decided to leave the loop and run the roads behind S&R, near British School instead.

2) Early Breakfast. Early into the run, I was chatting with hubby when something—was it a baby fly or a tiny rock?—flew into my mouth and slid down my throat! I attempted to cough it out, but to no avail. Took a big gulp of water to flush it down. Eew.

3) The Bratty Knee. The dry needling last Thursday completely healed my minor shin splints. But, as expected, the Runner’s Knee continued to rear its ugly head. My PT had told me that the knee would only recover through my own efforts (read: strengthening exercises) and with time. So, at 8km, I slowed down and eventually stopped.

4) No Sweat. No, I don’t mean the run was easy. I literally mean, I didn’t sweat at all! It was so cool and breezy this morning that my sweat glands kicked up their feet and slept through the run. I felt like I didn’t even work out.

5) PMS. Nothing is ever fine nor positive for a woman who is PMS-ing. To tell you the truth, I may be exaggerating with Nos. 1 to 4 because my hubby seemed completely satisfied with his run (although that may be due to the fact that he didn’t swallow a rock nor suffer any injuries.)

Good thing I found this video on youtube to cheer me up.  It’s called THE DAY AFTER THE MARATHON, a commercial from the Flora London Marathon…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-hCuYjvw2I]

After my warm up and stretching, I waited just a few minutes—with winning triathletes and showbiz celebrities Drew Arellano and Paolo Abrera right behind me and my favorite reader Cougcat right outside the barrier—before the 10k gun went off at exactly 5:55 a.m. My secret goal (sorry, I couldn’t share with you) was simply to run a sub-55 hour 10k, a very conservative goal, which I knew I could achieve in this fast course after two consecutive weekend races at hilly Ayala Alabang.

What can I say? The course was awesome! I enjoyed running so much (or was it because I saw super funny and witty Rovilson Fernandez pass by me?) that I snobbed my Garmin throughout the race. I disregarded time and pace and focused on simply giving my best. I didn’t even feel the need to compete against other runners. I just ran, and ran, and ran.

As we climbed the Buendia flyover, I was still in high spirits and it was a delight to see friends who joined the 21k making their way back towards Bonifacio Global City. When the first few running friends passed, I would yell “Go, Glenn” then “Go Joms” then “Go Ben” then “Go Annnnniiiiie” but then, after a while, I thought I would lose my mind (and breath) just cheering for them. To conserve energy, I waved at others to show my support.

Once we hit the flat roads of Buendia, I stopped watching the 21k runners on the other side of the street and looked straight ahead. It was time to get going. After all, flat means fast (hey, I’m talking about the roads, not chests). So, I ran to my heart’s delight.  I only stopped to glance at my watch during the 5k turnaround at Reposo then I went on again.

Before I knew it, it was time to climb back up the steep Buendia flyover, which was a lot tougher than the 1st half. With the intense heat, most of the runners before me had began to walk while I slowed down to a 5:50 pace. Wow, it felt like forever trekking up that road but, with a little patience and perseverance, we survived. As I made my way back to Bonifacio Global City, I wanted to yell “Freedom! Woohooo!” as I rolled down the flyover towards flat roads but decided otherwise as the troop of PNP’s I was running with would have to cuff me and send me to Crame.

I ran towards the finish at a comfortably hard pace, again, enjoying every minute. I found my rhythm somewhere in between passing the Pinoy Ultra Runners who ran 21k and the finish line.  It was pure fun!

According to my Garmin, I finished 10.02 km (hey perfect race distance!) at 52:44 minutes with an average pace of 5:16 min/km. 

- Did you get to sign here? I didn’t. Maybe next year. Thanks to future elite runner Naombi for pointing it out to us -

- BWK united! -

I reached my sub-55 hour goal. CHECK (with minutes to spare)

Ended the race injury-free. CHECK (Actually, I did have an injury after the race. Silly me. I bumped my head against the bathroom door hanger as I was changing. Forehead was bleeding and now it’s black & blue)

I felt I could’ve pushed harder, gone faster, and broken my PR, but hey I’m happy. It was a great race. Adidas KOTR currently tops my list of favorite races this year.

- Aaaw, highschool classmates Tin U. and Jennie Bau! -

- with running bloggers, The Changeling Child, RunningDATcom, & Loonyrunner -

 - Pinoy Ultra Runners Hector, Neville and Jeremy -

– BAGAY…ang shades ni Marga sa kanya. Diba Neville? -

- Congrats to Annie for placing 9th, even after coming in late, for 21k -

- Congrats to Queen of the Road Jo-Ann Banayag -

All participants in the previous Mizuno Infinity Run will be treated to a discount in registration fee. The organizer will accept new registrants but I believe priority will be given to those who joined before.

I’m looking forward to this race for the following reasons:

1. We will be definitely swimming in pools of water and sports drinks. They haven’t confirmed this, but after what happened last time, Mizuno will definitely make this top priority.
2. Singlets are different for men and women (thanks in part to Rush).   The women’s singlets are racer back…niiice! (I just hope it’s not as see-through as the previous singlet!)
3. Rewards MIGHT (read: not confirmed yet) be given to those who beat their time in the previous race. How exciting is that, eh?
4. I can probably join the 10 or 15k by this time! Crossing my fingers!

Hope to see you all there!

The wait was well worth it. I got the surprise of my life when I saw my time for 5k: 26.13 mins. 22nd for females and 162nd overall.

This isn’t a great time compared to all the other faster runners out there. But, I am ecstatic over it because I wasn’t even in race mode! I arrived at the run with the mindset that I would absolutely not run race pace, just 80% effort. While waiting for the gun to fire, I even stayed at the back with hubby without a strategy in mind nor a target time. All I was concerned about was running a wee bit faster to satisfy my race craving.

Oooh, these are exciting times for The Bull Runner…

BUT… and this is a big BUT…I do have my concerns over the accuracy of the results.

I checked out the time of my friend, Annie, who according to race results finished at 18.38 mins. Passing the finish line, Annie recounts that she trailed Jenny Guerrero by a few seconds. My question is: Why are the times of Jenny G. (#30), Annie A. (#31), and Ma. Alice de la Cruz (#32) all the same at 18.38? Race organizers awarded them correctly—Jenny won 3rd place while Annie won 4th—but still the time recorded was inaccurate. How do they time us anyway? Can we trust the next results that come out?

Here’s why:

[ POSITIVES ]
1. Race started on time – 6 a.m. on the dot. Thank God my alarm clock rang this time…and my back up cellphone too!
2. Water was overflowing – In my 5k run, I passed three water stations. Three! Now that’s how to treat us hardworking runners. Pour on the agua!
3. Lots of marshals – There were marshals at every turn. If you lost your way here, you would have no one else to blame but yourself for drinking too much last night.
4. Clean restrooms – No need for those sucky, yucky, stinky, and hell on earth portalets. Bonifacio High Street’s restrooms were free to use…without the long lines too.
5. Food was being served – I didn’t line up for this, but hey I’m sure a lot of those runners who skipped breakfast appreciated it.
6. “Entertainment” – A number of celebrities showed up to run for charity…even more than the Kapuso race!

PLUS:
7. Hubby and I arrived a good 30 minutes in advance. I had enough time to warm up, stretch, and run to the restroom.
8. My best running buddy, Annie, claimed 4th place overall and 1st place in her age category. Congrats again Annie!
9. Hubby boasted of a faster time too.
10. As for me, I ran at a faster pace with much more confidence and less paranoia over my knee. It felt great to once again try to outpace some men (heehee) and break away from the walking crowd. I still didn’t go full blast; in fact, I kind of burned out at 4km due to my lack of training but oh it was awesome. I fell in love with races again! As for my time, errr was it around 29 minutes? Or 27? I’m afraid I’ll have to wait for the official results for that. Now, you must be scratching your head asking “Hmm…didn’t TBR time herself?” which leads me then to this…

The only bad experience of the Global City Run for me was…

[ NEGATIVE ]
Someone here forgot to charge her Garmin! (Ah, that’s me by the way.) Argh! It died on me while waiting for the starting gun to fire! The race was this close to being perfect were it not for my little booboo. No worries. The positives far outweighed the negative.

– Celebrities who ran for charity took centerstage. Hats off to them! -

- Athletes and hosts Drew Arellano (nice seeing you again, Drew!) and Paolo Abrera -

- Jackie Castillejo and popular fashion models ran too…or did they really? I’m not so sure since, again, there’s not an ounce of sweat on them. Plus, I can’t imagine running with my hair down and bangs covering my eyes! -

– Me with Annie, Jenny (another fast runner) and her sis. Next time, please remind me to lose 10 lbs before posing with athletes like these. I look huge beside them! -

- Patrick C. and Annie A. -

- I wish I had taken more photos of real runners like these cool guys above. Next time I promise…less celebrities, more runners -

As much as I love my alma mater, the hubby and I registered for the Global Run during On Your Mark last Sunday. (Ateneo is just way too far for me.) We received our singlets and race bibs for Global Run. But, there was no route map.

Thanks to Genevieve for emailing! (Thanks too to those of you who offered to send it.)

I am not that excited about this race. This is the 3rd one I’m joining as I recover from my injury (I don’t think I’m completely out of the woods just yet) and now that the thrill of racing again is slowly dying down, running a 5k at an imposed slow pace is turning out to be a bittersweet experience. On the one hand, I’m happy to run without the pain, but at the same time it’s also difficult (even painful) to stop myself from going all out. Half the time during a race I’m wishing I could just run without worries again.

Okay, I’ll stop with all this negativity; if I stay in this realm any longer my bull horns might start popping out.

See you at Global Run! Assembly is in front of Anta store at High Street.

Ah, there were so many reasons why I wanted to be at this race:

1) It’s my namesake.

2) My first job was as a research analyst at the stockmarket. This was my chance to be a part of it again in some way.

3) “Takbo Para sa Ekonomiya”…Oh sure, I am more than willing to contribute to the growth of our economy. If running could somehow help propel the stockmarket (where I’m losing money as we speak) then that would have been a win-win situation for me.

4) I love races. Big or small. Organized or chaotic. I’m in.

Too bad then that my injury is showing little signs of improvement. The past two weeks, I have run 0 kilometers and biked a depressing 20 mins (total of all my warm ups) and yet there is still some soreness in the knee and tightness in the muscles. I’ve been strength training, stretching, praying and whining yet nothing seems to work. Worst of all, I feel bloated and cranky. It irks me that I have to eat so much less now and still my jeans feel a bit too snug. I just have to have my cardio soon or my kids will see me as their favorite dessert: jello.

Tomorrow I hope to visit the doctor again and beg him to give me a magic antidote to this way too long injury. If he does have one, I’ll let you know. I’ll probably sell it for a million a piece.

I’ve browsed through the website and, in all honesty, I know I can run the 10km comfortably but it’s The Wall that gets me. I detest climbing and climbing loathes me back. Let’s leave it at that.

So, as much as I would like to partake of the festivities on that day, I will beg off for my own pride (I can’t bear the thought of seeing all other participants pass me by as I scramble half-way up and slide down that wall a hundred times over.)

For those who are planning to join, you may be interested in joining Fitness First’s clinic on how to effectively prepare for Urbanathlon. This will be held on:

Nov 10 (First session was today, Nov. 3)
1:00pm
Fort Bonifacio Branch

Selected Fitness First Instructors will give a 45-minute lecture/clinic for the first 40 people to confirm.

Those interested may email or text Edmund Mangaser (Elite Multi Sport Resources) at 0910 2135073.

Coach Ige comforted us by saying this was all in the spirit of fun. (No, they wouldn’t post a list in front of the Mizuno Store for the viewing public to laugh at our time way down at the bottom.) We were running against ourselves and no one else. Weeks from now we would time ourselves again and astound ourselves with our improvements. Okay, I was up for it.

We were to run 3 laps around High Street, six runners at a time. Men were going first. As we watched the first group of runners speed away, I laughed nervously. I needed a warm up.

We asked Coach if we could run along with the other group for a warm up and he says to go ahead and time ourselves already. Oh okay, this was going to be it. I ran with Gelo, a regular run club participant, and Marga. We started off slow then gradually found our own pace and separated.

I ran the 3 laps (4.10 km) at 20.19 minutes with a 4:57 min/km pace. Not my fastest as I didn’t hear Lance congratulating me on my nano, but it was still a good time for me. I ran another two laps at a slower pace just to get a little bit more mileage in for the day.

After the run, I saw Jujet de Asis and asked his time; it was 11 minutes. Then, I met other athletes, Liza Yambao, who won the Milo Marathon at age 21 and held its record for a while, and Barz, another young athlete, who both enthusiastically shared their tips on training for a marathon. We all agreed to meet up one time for a training run in the future. Little ol’ me running with these super athletes?! I was bewildered, amused, and oh so excited!

Running with elite runners could significantly improve my runs. I look forward to learning the technical aspects of running and other aspects that should help me modify my training program and show some results. But, more than that, I’m looking forward to just being around people who love running as much as I do (or perhaps a little bit more!) They’re energy alone is intoxicating.

For starters, Jujet shared a little tip that can help ease pre-race jitters: Drink a bottle of beer before hitting the sack. Hmmm… I’m not sure if that’s one tip that will work for me, but I’m pretty sure some of you guys are looking forward to trying that out.