I was already at the Fort 35  minutes before 5:00am start time for 21km runners. After parking my car (and Rodel leaving his stuff behind), I went straight to the road and proceed with an easy jog for 15 minutes. This was followed by stretching and some simple drills. My plan for this race was to finish the race by 2:17 or below as stated from my previous blog post. It was just a 10 minutes improvement from my previous 21km race. Then come Rota Run, I will target 2:07 then New Balance, do a sub 2 hours or 1:57. The plan was simple, gradually improve each race by 10 minutes. But this particular race proves to be a surprise. More on that later.

I was already inside the corral 10 minutes before start time and was happily chatting with fellow takbo.ph 21km runners. I went to the starting line to ask the marshall guy assigned to “check” my bib as I noticed mine wasn’t checked yet. On my way back to my team, Sir Jonel and Sir Jovie saw me and asked me to join them to help me with my evil plan of conquering sub 2 hour. Honestly, I was dying to inform them that my plan was just a conservative 2:17 finish time. I guess they concentrated more on the 2nd portion of my post about my Men’s Health picture and just scanned the first portion which described my finish time plan. *laughs* Few minutes later, the gun was fired and the adventure begins.

For the first 2 minutes of the race, I was running comfortably but also checking on various parts of my running form. Body leaning forward. Check. Elbow at right angle and not swaying infront of my body. Check. Shoulders comfortable. Check. Backfoot strike higher (but not hitting my butt). Check. Cute girls running around me. Check check check!! I was looking for my target Wilson Tan who eats 21km for breakfast and usually finishes it at sub 1:50. Just a tip, if you want to run faster, then join faster runners!  I finally saw him and stayed 10 meters away from him. I didn’t tell him of my presence as it might affect his performance, although I’m sure he knew I’m looking for him hehehehe. Here’s my observation of him, everytime a runner reaches him, he would look at the runner’s face and surge ahead. This happened several times and I thought I might suffer the same fate if I do!*laughs*. I tried to pace with him but he was slowly increasing his pace near the Kalayaan Flyover..then disappeared. I also saw Sir Jonel in the uphill climb of Kalayaan flyover and noticed he was attacking that section of the road, he slowly disappeared too. Sir Jovie would have me eat his dust as we turned left after Kalayaan Flyover. I observed that his leg turnover is way too fast as compared to mine. I.M.U.S.T.L.E.A.R.N.A.N.D.P.R.A.C.T.I.C.E.T.H.I.S!  All runners I personally knew, I made sure to greet them to give them that extra boost. This is something I can’t unlearn

The race route was enjoyable. It passed the streets of Makati Business District, Paseo, Makati Ave and Shangrila.  The road marshalls are helpful and effective in controlling vehicle traffic EXCEPT for a small portion in  Bayani Road going back to Lawton Ave where I find myself running between a van and several jeepneys. There were plenty of water/gatorade stations however, with the rainy season around I wish they should have covered the area well. I remember getting several cups of water with the assigned guy trying to cover it with his hand so that rain won’t pour directly to it. With rains pouring in his hand, then some going straight to my water, it wasn’t a pleasant experience drinking it

As I reached the finish line, I checked my watch and realized that I ran way too fast from my expected finish time. Yup I finished the race by 2 hours,4 minutes and 16 seconds. If I didn’t stop because of cramp attacks on my stomach (I just realized that HammerGel and Gatorade don’t mix) and calf plus visits to water/gatorade stations I think I could have finished it 2 minutes less. I’m happy with the result as I was able to improve my race time by 23 minutes and in doing so, busted my target time for this race and ROTA. I now plan to improve more and hit sub 2 hours come ROTA run on Sunday. No pressure this time hehehehe, I’ll be happy if I’ll be able to finish ROTA by 1hour:59min:59sec.

See you all and lets keep on improving!

Race Bib # 6481 finish time 02h:04m:16s

Photos from Carlo’s Flickr account: