I think today was the second time I ran a race on a Saturday. The first was the Adidas KOTR. It’s unfortunate though that my performance wasn’t that good but I guess a run is still a run and no matter how bad it was, I should be happy that I finished… and still finished ahead of the others.

READING ALL NIGHT BEFORE A RACE

I’ve got exams one after the other… Transportation and Public Utilties Law (Monday), Public International Law (Tuesday), Negotiable Instruments (Thursday) and Tax 1 (Sunday). Next week will surely be hell so I decided to stay up reading. Though this time around I did not have trouble sleeping, I still ended up sleeping at around 1am. I should’ve learned my lesson and slept early for the race.

I woke up at 5am feeling lazy and was thinking of texting the organizer to let go of my reserved race kit. Haha! But I then forced myself out of bed, took a quick shower and left for Alabang.

THE RUSH TO ALABANG… LATE AGAIN?

Alabang is around 15kms away from my house and I figured I could get there in 15 minnutes or less, considering that there shouldn’t be any traffic along SLEX. Lo and behold, I WAS WRONG. There was a long queue of cars from the mid bicutan all the way to Alabang, or so it seemed. I took the Sucat exit to take the service road only to find out that there was a huge vehicle holding up traffic. I should have stayed on SLEX. I was weaving through tricycles, jeeps and cyclists and other slow moving vehicles along the Service Road. Uh-oh. It was 5:50am already and I was just about to enter Alabang-Zapote road. I felt I was definitely going to be late.

JUST IN THE NICK OF TIME

I got to the Cuenca Community Center at around 6am… and I heard the good news! We were starting in 15 more minutes since the organizers got a wind of the pile up along SLEX. Whew! Though I was not able to properly warmup nor stretch, I felt it was better than starting late AGAIN.

FAMILIAR FACES

As soon as I got out of the car, the first runner I saw was Jaymie aka the Bull Runner, followed by Mark and Tiffin Parco, Joe aka The Looney Runner, Dindo aka DATC, Sir Ipe, and JunC. I guess everyone else was either running at Manila (Run Against Pain) or resting for tomorrow’s Botak Paa-Bilisan. Oh, I almost forgot. Upon entering Madrigal Avenue, I saw Patrick Concepcion running in his blue singlet. I guess he wasn’t joining this race.

RACE PROPER

The organizers were honest enough to tell the runners that the course was short. Around “4.5″ for the 5k and a little over 8.5k for the “10k”… so I guess no PRs here. The nice things about the route were the rolling hills and the huge houses. Though it wasn’t that hot at the beginning, I could feel the temperature rising on the second loop.

There were 6 water stations for the 5k route, which I think is more than adequate, but I wish they had served cold water. What I loved was the race finish where they handed out 1L bottles of water. I think that was a first. Other than that, the race was handled well. There were only a handful of runners but not bad. I think there were roughly around a hundred of us.

ELITE RUNNER IN THE MAKING

Though I didn’t catch his name, there was this kid of around 5 or 6 years old who ran 10k and would have probably beat me had he not waited for his dad. Gee, I guess his dad got pressured to go faster. This kid was running without any effort. Amazing! I ran alongside him then he would overtake me, if not for his glances to check whether his dad was still behind him. This kid is definitely an elite runner in the making.

OTHER RUNNERS PUSH THEMSELVES

I am so proud of my “running classmate” JunC who did an amazing 46 something for the 8.8k. He beat me by almost 5 whole minutes. I realize I need to get back on track, literally. After the race, I saw JunC, Bull Runner (Jaymie) and DATC (Dindo) still running after the race. I guess they’re preparing for Singapore? Also, Joe the LoonyRunner had his CamelBak on as he’s training for the Bataan102 Ultramarathon this April. To all you runners out there who are going the extra mile, I salute you!

BUFFET BREAKFAST

After the race, I rewarded myself with a buffet breakfast at Palms Country Club. At first I was thinking of just eating tapsilog or something of the sort but then I decided, “ah, what the heck… enjoy the buffet!” My breakfast consisted of garlic rice, with 2 different kinds of sausages, bangus, corned beef, tocino, bacon, hashbrowns, spanish omelet, and a serving of raspberry yogurt. I didn’t have room for pancakes anymore. Haha!

WHAT MY NEXT RACE?

I’m already looking forward to my next race, I’m wondering when that will be. It would most probably be during the Halloween run… but I’m still thinking of what to wear. A lot of ideas have come to mind already but… let’s just see