Posts Tagged with: "Races"

Surprise surprise, I thoroughly enjoyed the Bonifacio Global City Run this morning. As I said in a previous post, I was NOT looking forward to this race at all, but it turned out that this was the best among all other 5ks I’ve joined the past couple of weeks.

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 –

There are two races coming up this weekend…the 4th Global City Fun Run and the Ateneo Big Blue Run (Go Blue Eagles!)

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.

Decisions decisions. What are you joining on April 13, Sunday? There’s the Gawad Kalinga Bayani Run in SM Mall of Asia and On Your Mark (GMA Kapuso) Run in Fort Bonifacio.

I’m leaning towards On Your Mark only because I’d rather run at The Fort than MOA. Oh, and also because I’d love to spot a few Kapuso celebrities all fresh and dandy while we humans sweat it out under the intense heat.

Check my List of Races for details on registration for both races.

For On Your Mark, below are more details and race routes for 5k and 10k. (Thanks Levy!)

For Mizuno Infinity Run race results, click here.

I spent over 10 minutes searching for my name only to find out that I’m #256, nameless, and a male.  Just perfect since my time was terrible anyway. It’s actually 32.17 here—slightly faster than my Garmin time!

Congratulation to my running buddy, Annie Agoncillo, for coming in 4th in the Women’s category at 15k with an incredible time of 1:06! Woohoo!

I arrived at the Mizuno Infinity Run at the Fort at around 6:15 am. Just in time to make a quick stop at the portalet (to see poop staring back at me from the hole! Blech!), teach hubby how my Nike kit worked, and do some (but certainly not enough) warm ups and stretching before the race started. In a blink of an eye, we were off.

This was one mad, hungry, chaotic, crowd. (Or have I just been away from races for too long?) I felt somewhat lost and confused in the traffic of 5k runners. Despite this, I stuck to my plan of maintaining a steady (read: boring) pace of 6:30 thereabouts. The hubby had the ipod on (so much for my dreams of marital bonding while running!) and he suffered pain behind his knee at around 2km, so soon after we crossed McKinley we parted ways.

Running alone, I focused on my form: landing on my midfoot, putting more power on my left leg, lifting my knees a bit higher, and tucking my tummy in. Going downhill, I would intentionally slow down to avoid aggravating my runner’s knee. I busied myself watching others—especially the elite who were returning from their 15ks on the opposite side of the road. Awesome! Sure, I wanted to run faster or outpace others, but I had to stick to what I knew was right. Well, I was “good” until the last half kilometer. I increased my pace to a 5 to 5:30 and slowed down again just before hitting the finish line.

According to my Garmin, my time was 33.42 for 5.07km. Ave pace was 6:39/km. Nothing to be proud of, but hey no pain so I’m a happy camper. Hubby came in, tired but happy, a few minutes after. I think I’ve just made a new recruit!