Category Archives: Race Reports

BMO Vancouver Marathon is the city’s one and only marathon.  My Vancouverite cousin says it’s because May is the only time the weather is perfect to stage one!

For the 45th BMO Vancouver Marathon, total number of participants reached its record high this year with 16,500 runners.  This would be for all categories: 2.5k walk, kids’ run, 8k, 21k, 42k relay and 42k. The BMO Vancouver Marathon is a relatively small race compared to any of the World Marathon Majors which have 42k runners alone reaching over 40,000 in number.  With only around 5,000 runners participating in this marathon, I actually looked forward to experiencing a smaller race with less of the foot traffic and craziness that goes with the bigger races.

I came to this marathon as I have done with my past races lately.  I just wanted to have fun.  Turning 40 was a huge milestone in my life and I just needed to celebrate it in a big way.  I didn’t need to prove to myself that I was fit at 40, or that I could break a PR I hit a few years ago when I was younger.  In fact, I didn’t feel the need to prove myself to anything or anyone.

At 40, I just wanted to celebrate the life I have now.  A life that is my own, independent, honest, peaceful, content, free, and hopeful.

I finished with a time of 4:54.  Not that great a time, but I did have a great time! Hah!

Here goes my race review for BMO Vancouver Marathon:

EVENT: 45^th BMO Vancouver Marathon 2016
DATE: May 1, 2016
START: Queen Elizabeth Park
FINISH: West Pender St. 
CUT OFF TIME: 7hrs (more…)

I chose Vancouver Marathon for the simple reason that I wanted to run a marathon for my 40^th birthday. This was one of the races on the first weekend of May that popped up on Google. With a number of relatives who call Vancouver home, Vancouver was perfect. I registered for the race without batting an eyelash and booked our flights.

Discovering that Forbes.com named it as a top destination marathon in the world and CNN Travel calling it one of the world’s most “exotic” marathons (don’t ask me why!) a couple of weeks after registering was a wonderful bonus. (more…)

Last February 21, 2016, 619 runners became marathoners at TBR Smart Dream Marathon 2016!  After 22 weeks of training since August, attending our monthly Bull Sessions and Bull Circles together, and bonding as batch mates, our runners experienced the culmination of all their hard work when they crossed the finish line of their first 42k at Nuvali.  After 7 years of organizing this event, I will never tire of taking runners on this marathon journey and seeing the look of triumph and joy when they conquer their dream.

Here are just some of the photos from TBR Smart Dream Marathon 2016.  To follow are photos from our inaugural TBR Dream Half Marathon held on the same day.  All images courtesy of our official photographers: Photo-Ops.

42k race start of our Dreamers!

Our volunteer Dream Chasers go all out supporting our Dreamers! Are they blessing her or imparting more energy upon this runner? Your guess is a good as mine lol

So proud to be working with these guys!  Host Ton Gatmaitan along with TBR Dream Team: Mike Janeo, myself, Coach Francis Diano, Jun Cruz, Macel Janeo, Coach Lit Onrubia.  Missing: Jim Lafferty whose flight was delayed from Egypt so he missed the race and Neville Manaois who was busy checking our course.

Our Dream Chasers: the real heroes of this event

Our last runner who makes it before the cut off with the Dream Chasers behind her

TBR Smart Dream Marathon wouldn’t have been possible without the support of a great number of people.  I would like to thank our Dream Chasers who are the real heroes of this event, TBR Dream Team who work tirelessly to ensure we put out a great event, family and friends of our runners who went out there to cheer for our runners, and, last but not the least, our sponsors who provided the generous support to make the entire event possible…Thank you!

– with Piolo Pascual and Chris Everingham at SunPiology Run. Hay hirap ng trabaho! lol –

Last November 28, despite running two hours that morning for Bull Session 3, I braved nightmarish Saturday traffic from the South to Fort Bonifacio, for a romantic rendezvous with Piolo. Good thing I’m quite generous so I shared him with, uhm, close to 3,000 other runners who showed up for the annual event of Sun Life with Piolo, SunPiology Run. (Too bad Piolo had no idea about our plans! Lol) (more…)

Photo courtesy of Gatorade

Everyone knows I’m a big Gatorade dork. I was a loyal Gatorade fan (I’d drink it for breakfast when I was a newbie runner) even before TBR was born. So, when I heard that Gatorade was having its first running event for the community I was thrilled. Finally! I thought. I blocked my schedule for this run even if I wasn’t planning on joining any races anymore for the rest of the year after Osaka Marathon. (more…)