The Epic Adventure of Snail Runners Alabang

Few weeks ago, I threw a contest for Epic Relay 250k and the prize, a free slot for a group of 10, was snagged by Snail Runners Alabang.

It was nice to hear from them about their Epic Relay 250k adventure held last June 9 to 10, 2012. Hannah Pua, one of the members, recounts their experience…

It was the last week of April when the registration for Epic Relay 250K popped out. We were all thrilled and started to make our team line up. Weeks passed by and noticed that it wasn’t pushing through. As the date come closer, we decided to let go seeing that there were other priorities in line. But then, June 2 came and we saw a contest on thebullrunner.com and it says “EPIC RELAY 250: WIN A SLOT FOR YOUR TEAM NOW!” without hesitation I joined and tested my luck while following the 4-steps of the mechanics. I sent my entry, without even thinking of who will be joining me along and how we will get to prepare for a span of a week. After attending a running clinic, I opened my Facebook account and email account, hoping to see that we won the slot. I slowly scrolled down and started to shout out of joy seeing that Ms.Jaymie Pizarro emailed me on how to claim our prize. We got Ms.Arleen Lindo of Chris Sports on contact and she was very accommodating. As instructed, our captain attended the meeting and echoed to us the meat of the briefing the day after. We formed and passed the line up 6 days prior to race day. Run over meetings and carbo-loading with the team.

Then BOOM..! June 8 came. At around 8:00pm we had our meet-up, ate dinner and our very supportive team, Snail Runners Alabang gave us a simple “Send off” as they won’t be able to go with us, having another annual team run set for that weekend. We left by 10:00pm and arrived 3:00am in the race venue. Checked in our crew and the rest became HISTORY!

I was the first runner on deck and was very excited yet nervous on what that 11.4K route will feed me. Guided by two, helpful bike marshals, I sped off at 4:50am. With a little pressure, we all tried our very best to run, and outpace the unusual levels of difficulty that the route has to offer. With the cut-off in mind, giving us 40-hours to finish the race with no proper sleep, and bathing. How fortunate we are that there are hospitable neighborhood and gasoline stations along the way for us to freshen up. Nighttime get ahead of, we made sure that we were all wearing reflector vests, headlamps and blinkers for us to be safe on the road and good thing our bike marshals did not leave us alone. The experience itself was superb; running on sizzling, angry sun beaming through our skin and on dark roads with barking dogs, leaping frogs, open drainage, and singing drunk by-standers. How insane could it be for others, but we were able to outstand it! We finished the race in 27:37:00, the 14th team to cross the finish line, placing 4th in the mixed category and even awarded with the “Hassle-Free Team” It was an amazing expedition, running while viewing the scenic routes of Subic, Zambales and Bataan. Passing mountains to mountains of uphills and downhill roads, each runner made their way, outrun, outpace, outlast on this Epic adventure of 250 kilometers of fun. This exploration will always remain with us. Thank you TBR for giving us the opportunity to experience this EPIC journey!