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I set my alarm for 5:00 this morning with the intention of running for 45 minutes on my treadmill for the scheduled V-Run today.  I was to run a bit earlier than my virtual friends hoping to run my last kilometer with them as they started at 6:00 a.m. Manila time. (Mommy duties beckon for me at the strike of 6.)

So, the alarm did ring. And, I swear I heard E-rod drop his martini on the white sands of the Bahamas just to free his hands and holler out to me “Get up, sleepy bull-headed runneeeeer!”

Unfortunately, it didn’t work.  I got up only to turn off the alarm and get back to bed to get my much-needed shut eye.

I should be excused.  I was a bit tired from last night.  I ran a total of 8km at Bonifacio High Street, my farthest since recovering from my shin splints. Woohooo! First, I ran 4.5k with Happy Feet peeps Ben, Aljo, and Tin (welcome to HF, Tin!) then another 3.5k with Ben and Marga. I also bumped into ultimate race organizer Coach Rio, Unang Hirit’s Drew A., Active Achiever Vince, and Eds Ochoa of OneSport. Phew, a full night of running and chatting with running friends, plus an hour of traffic on the way home, made The Bull Runner sleep like a log.

But, I know…there is no excuse.  Sorry to disappoint you fellow V-runners.  I promise to make it up to you in our next V-Run. I’ll provide everyone’s virtual water or preferred sports drink, hand out virtual bananas and peanut butter after the run, and even give virtual foot massages for your tired feet. Until the next V-Run!

Read about fellow V-Runners’ experiences here:

1. DATC – Philippines
2. Caloy – Davao, Philippines
3. E-rod – Freeport, USA
4. Stephanie – NY, USA
5. Hitme – QC, Philippines
6. Nora – England
7. Jinoe – Makati, Philippines
8. Chefsy – Philippines
9. Chaia – Australia

It’s back.  The Virtual Training Run that a few of us crazies so happily took part in last year.  (Search for “Virtual Run” in my archives if you want to read V-Runs 1 through 5).  Now, the headmaster of our V-runs, E-rod, is back from hibernation and is raring to go again.  

This is how it works:

Runners separated by geography do a training run “together” wherever they may be in the world. We set a distance (more or less) and meet at a specific time, so 6:00 am Manila time makes it 6:00pm US East Coast a day before.

DATE: 30 July 2008, Wednesday (Manila time)
TIME: 6:00 A.M. (Manila time)
DISTANCE: 10 km/6 miles (or whatever you wish)

The following are past participants and most of them have already committed to joining us. After the training session, each participant writes a quick recap of the session so that each of us benefits from this collective effort. If you don’t have a blog, fret not, just comment on one of our blogs about your experience.

1. E-rod – Newport Beach, USA/Freeport, Bahamas
2. HitMe – Quezon City, Philippines
3. Banggi – Makati, Philippines/Saigon, Viet Nam
4. Ben – Manila to Makati, Philippines
5. Renz – Metro Manila, Philippines
6. Marga – Parañaque, Philippines
7. Caloy – Davao, Philippines
8. TRF – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
9. Gretchen – Truckee, USA
10. Rick – San Francisco, USA
11. Nora – Kent County, UK
12. Steph – San Diego/New York, USA
13. Runningmom – Philippines
14. Doc Oknoy – Philippines
15. Bartlby – Philippines
16. DATC – Alabang, Philippines
17. Jinoe – Philippines
18. Bobby – Philippines
19. Caloy – Philippines
20. TBR – Paranaque, Philippines

So what are you waiting for? Lace up those shoes and come join us.  Comment on this post with your city/country to let us know you want in.  

*If you have an injury that keeps you from running, participate by cycling, swimming, blading or anything that involves self-propelled constant motion.

For weeks, I was mourning the loss of the opportunity to join The North Face 100.  In fact, as I’ve said, I ran the Robinson’s Buddy Wellness thinking of how much fun all the other runners were having at TNF in Batangas.  Little did I know that I should’ve been glad I didn’t join (only because I’m not a mud-loving, rock climbing type of girl.)

Word is out that it was a tremendously tough course reserved for the more experienced runners.  There were four river crossings, dilapidated bridges and snakes!  They say it was more of an adventure race than a marathon.  For the 100km, of the 90 teams (including relay) that joined, I heard that only 30-40 crossed the finishline.  An HK runner who finished the Gobi Desert Ultra Marathon didn’t finish either.

But, despite the toughness of the course, there were runners that did finish and conquer the trails. All of them deserve a big congratulations and a warm cup of hot chocolate: 

– The first runner for 100km crossed in at 13 hours male and 15 hours female.   

– A Singaporean couple joined for the relay.  The first was the man who arrived late in the afternoon.  The woman should have been next, but it was too dark already and the course was dangerous.  So, the man ran another 50km loop to accompany his partner. 

– Jeremy Go, my unofficial editor in this blog, who I met only a few weeks back and came across as an unassuming guy (who I thought at that time was a newbie runner) finished the 100km beating the 30 hour cut off time by 10mins.  While other runners had quit and gone to sleep, he trekked throughout the night without anyone to accompany him.  

– My friend Annie won the 20km despite it being her 1st trail run.  She split four times and ran through slippery, narrow trails yet came out unscathed.  Congrats again Annie!  I’m so proud of you.

How about you?  What’s your story?  Would you do this again?

We almost didn’t show up for this one.  I woke up at 4:30 a.m. to the sound of rain outside so I immediately consulted my team mate a.k.a. The Hubby who was quite conveniently half awake on the other side of my bed.  “Do we go?”  (Yawn)  I wasn’t particularly excited about this race as, I’ve said before, I had TNF thoughts on my mind.  “Do you want to go?” he asked although I knew he didn’t want to run under the rain again. I told him we should go on two points: 1) The rain could stop by 6 a.m. and 2) We spent a whopping P1000 for race registration.  Sayang naman diba?!  So, with that, we decided to get dressed and show up at NBC Tent.

– TBR and Team Mate aka Hubby –

The assembly area was a welcome sight from the overwhelming OROFOLS crowd.  By this time, the rain had stopped and there were a few hundred runners waiting for the race to begin.  Before that, we were treated to uhm a dance warm up courtesy of Regine Tolentino who seemed to be the only one wide awake during that time of day.  (Yawn) Oops, sorry there I go again.  I just wasn’t into this race for some reason.

When the gun went off, “Team Pizarro” ran together at too fast a pace at around 5 min/km.  I sort of knew that we couldn’t keep this up together.  By km2, we slowed down a bit to 5:30.  By km3, we slowed down even more.  And, you don’t have to guess what happened at km4 and 5.  

We finished the race side-by-side, a strict rule imposed by organizers, at a ho-hum time of around 32 minutes for 5.4 km. 

This was, suprisingly, fine by me.  It was not a big deal that I couldn’t ran faster, beat my PR, or we didn’t win that trip to Cebu (although a suprise win wouldn’t have hurt).  It did matter that we didn’t argue at all, we didn’t leave each other behind, and he got me my own water to drink at the station.  (I wished he could wipe the sweat off my face too but that may have been asking for too much.)   

After crossing the finish line, I ran another 2km around Bonifacio High Street and met my bestest team mate in the car. Then, we went straight home eager to meet the rest of the team, the two kids who were still fast asleep.

– Our lootbags can feed our family of four –

I texted Neville Manaois of Pinoy Ultra Runners last night wishing him a great run for tomorrow’s TNF (which I am still moping over since I forbade myself from joining due to the risk of re-injury).  He replied from Batangas with this SMS:

“Raining hard here. River rising daw. Winds picking up.  And temperature dropping.  This will be fun.”

Followed an hour or so after with this update:

“River is rising really fast.  Really cold.  Good luck to us. hehe.”

Neville added that there are 90 runners joining the 100km (that’s a lot eh?), 100+ for 21km, and 210 for 10km.  It sure sounds like these 400+ runners are going to have the time of their lives tomorrow.  Good luck to you if you’re running at TNF…especially my friends Annie, Coach Jo-Ar, Taki, and highschool buddies Bau and Tin.  (Who else is joining?)  Stay safe!

As for me, I’ll be at light, easy and wholesome Robinsons Wellness Buddy run with the hubby with thoughts of TNF on my mind.