And the Winner of the Grand Prize for 5 to 5/5 is…

First of all, thank you to everyone who participated in the TBR 5 to 5/5 Contest the past several days. It makes this birthday / anniversary week even more special for me by making a few of you a little bit happier. Now you winners just better make sure you use those shoes and other running items well (read: minimum of 3x a week for training sessions) or else I will take them back. (Kidding!)

Anyway, on to the finalists for the Grand Prize.  Below are the 20 entries I picked out from all the submissions.  ALL of them were touching and meaningful, but I really did have to shortlist the entries since I don’t have 186 pairs of shoes to give away.

1 – allyn: I will give it to a running teammate, doc yruma, in his 70s I think, who has done all milo marathons and a total of 80 marathons to date.

2 – Joseph C. De Jesus: I will give the 2nd shoes to my cousin friend who motivated me to run and continues to support me.

3 – Prants: I will give the 2nd shoe to my brother who always look up on me on everything I do. After I got hook up into running, he’ll do drills around our village using only his old rubber shoe since high school just to keep the pace and his condition with me. Since currently unemployed, he can’t buy one on his own.

4 – Jhudann: I would give the second shoe to my grandmother she recently joined hyundai run and she did 5k in 1 hour at the age of 75. We saw a positive result of running to her health that’s why we encourage her to run every morning.

5 – charles: Who would you give the 2nd shoe to and why? I would give it to my 52yrs old running mate who is using a shoes he purchased from an ukay-ukay store. I know this will be a big help to him to reduce all the pain he is experiencing during our run using his old shoes and makes running more fun to him…

6 – Julio Judilla Jr: Who would you give the 2nd shoe to and why? I will igive it to one of my running mate in ANR Moa, to Mr. Pepper Rosales because at first he run bare foot All i know he likes to run without a shoes but the real reason he has no money to buy a running shoes that’s why he run barefoot.

7 – russell: I will give the 2nd shoes to my dad because I love him to see running again. Despite that I didn’t showed much of my concern from his diabetic condition, this shoe (if I win) will be a motivational factor to get him back to shape at least alleviates his worsening condition and hoping for a good and healthy life.

8 – richard loma: I want to give the 2nd shoe to blind runner,not sure his name ,richard seguia because he truly inspires a lot of people. A truly strong inspring guy.

9 – Terrence Joseph G. Dizon: I would like to give the 2nd shoe to John Onofre G. Dizon, who taught me to run and buy me a pair of running shoes. I want to show my appreciation and gratitude to him by sharing the prize if ever i will win this.

10 – heather cerezo: I would give the shoe to Kuya Nestor, a churchmate, who has to earn enough to send his two college kids, a 2nd grader and a preschooler to school, but still manages to run with us on weekends. With his hand-me-down rubber shoes, he never fails to join each Milo Marathon at Batangas and encourages his two kids to join him.

11 – Ed Calinao: My wife’s nephew, John Carlo, is a young runner with great enthusiasm in the sport, but due to financial constraints brought about by recent events and problems faced by his parents, nobody could afford to buy him a pair of running shoes. If I were to win in this contest, I’d like to give him the 2nd pair to help him develop his passion for running.

12 – paul ablaza: I would give the 2nd shoe to my girlfriend because I found the best running partner in her. I’ve seen that she’s been staring at running shoes whenever we go to a store but since she’s been supporting her family financially and helping her brother in his college studies that’s why she opted not to buy a new pair of running shoes and just continue using her old worn out pair.

13 – hadrian gabiola: I gave it to my ex-wife because she is the one who encourage me to run. Now I am a Marathon man!

14 – Noelito Castillo: I tend to share my winnings to my wife Nette for her Birthday this coming June. Because the last shoes I bought her was a second hand 30K used running shoes that is now also worn-out.

15 – Louie Bautista: I would give it to my father because he has just been buying shoes from the ukay-ukay. Maybe those kind of original shoes will earn him higher mileage and healthy lifestylfe to stay longer with us.

16 – Goldy: I would give the 2nd pair of shoes to Omar, a friend, an amateur runner, but rather a coach, not just to me, but to every runner he knew, because he never fail to share different running techniques, encourage everyone to train and run, or even remind us on what to do before and after the race. He’s running for more than 10 years and been winning in different local races (that’s when someone pay for his registration because he can’t afford to).

17 – Arnel Villanueva: I would like to give it to the most important person in my life, my inspiration and the one who wakes me up every time I have a race so I wont be late – my mom who just started to get infected by my passion for running last month.:)

18 – Conrado M. Angala: I will give the 2nd shoe to my brother because he’s running shoes now looks to old and dirty. He do not have enough money to buy new shoes because all of his salary goes to our parents.

19 – berniceruth: I choose to give them my husband Aaron, who always joins me in my morning runs even if he does not like to run and he has to sacrifice precious sleep time. He deserves a pair of shoes because, for months now, he has only been using his old pair of basketball shoes which he fixes and refixes every time they fall apart.

20 – Netzky: If I win, I’ll give the 2nd shoe to Jho Diaz, a 2012 TBRDM batchmate and a really determined, passionate runner. She actually deserves to win this contest (if she joined) because instead of buying a new running shoes, the soles of her shoes are kinda worn off na here & there and was detached during our last long run in Nuvali but she just took it to a Mr. Quickie & still used it last March 18th, she choose to still help her parents financially & sends her siblings to school. (sorry Jho, i really have to share your story.)

Of the top 20, I used random.org to choose the winner.  And the winner is…

CONGRATULATIONS TO NETZKY! (#20 above) I’ll be emailing you on how to claim your prize for yourself and Jho.