A new PR for PR at Runnex@25!

Amazing! My fastest race ever! COACH RIO, *high five*! Two weeks worth of training shaved 10mins from my previous time. I still can’t get over it. I finished the 10k in less than an hour. My previous times are:

Subic Marathon was 1:15:26
AISEC: Rundezvous was 1:10:53
Mizuno Infinity Race was 1:10:09.

Hopefully the Official Results will reflect the same thing, hehe! [Official Results will be posted at http://runrio.com%5D. “Coach, ang laki ng epekto ng training natin, sobra!” A new PR for PR… a new personal record for Passion Runner.

There were a lot of things that I like about this race. First, there were 3 separate clocks for the 3 distances: 2.2k, 5k and 10k. The different distance categories started at different times. 10k at 6:00am, then 5k 2-3 minutes after and then followed by the 2.2k runners. This is how races should be done. People don’t like running with all the other distance categories since they run at different paces and there are just too many people trying to get through.

There were water stations that were placed at different areas. I think there were 3 or 4 (in front of Law, University Ave, near the 10k turn-around and I could’ve sworn there was 1 more. I can’t really recall. Well, the drinks were not cold though, but better than nothing. At least there was a lot of water and rush at the finish line.

The 5k and the 10k routes were not confusing and at least there was less repetition in the route, meaning, having to go through the Academic Oval more than 3 or 4 times (like AISEC’s Rundezvous). I was surprised at first though since it wasn’t indicated in the map but, it was a pleasant surprise for me.

I hated the slow incline that starts from the front of the College of Architecture and the UP Diliman Police and goes up to the Executive House and turns into the road behind AS aka Palma Hall (I think it’s Roxas St?). Good thing though I was able to overcome this incline. The last 2 times I tried to run here, I ended up walking (ICTUS Century Run and the Runnex@25 dry run the weekend prior).

What are other highlights of this run? I got to meet Bald Runner aka MGen Jovenal Narcise.

What I enjoyed most about this was that Coach Rio called out said… “Uy! Picture tayo! Runrio, Passion Runner and Bald Runner! Asan si Bull Runner? Paging ‘The Bull Runner’ ” Hehe… my 15 minutes of fame. Other than that, may nakipag-picture pa sa ‘kin (or maybe feeling ko lang yun, actually si BR ang gusto nila kunan! hahaha). But I was able to meet this nice lady and her boyfriend. I forget her name but she said that she visits and reads my site. I told them “we got a new domain name! Run4Change.com”. Hehe, proud 🙂

There are some things that I shouldn’t do. Be late. I wasn’t able to warm up as I had originally planned. I was supposed to run around 1-2km before the race and do some stretching so that I don’t warm up during the race itself. Well, I did get to do some stretching but warming up was already out of the question. I arrived and it was 15 minutes before race start.

I wasn’t also able to eat breakfast nor have coffee (or RedBull) like I normally do. All I got to eat was a banana before leaving. Ias had come by 15 minutes earlier so I was rushing out of the house, and I just crammed everything into my bag.

WEAR RED SHORTS WITH A GREEN SINGLET!!! Hahaha! I felt that I was several seasons too early to a season too late. I was dressed for Christmas! I mean, c’mon! red shorts and a green singlet? And to top it all off… a blue cap. Such terrible color coordination. Unbelievable. I was expecting a black and orange singlet since that’s what I told Coach to reserve for me. Well, they ran out of large… Hahaha, so that’s why I put on my UP LAW hoodie right after the race. At least that made me look cooler! hehe… Uy, UP LAW pala siya? haha

All in all, it was a great race! I loved it! There may be things to improve on, but it was definitely one of the better races I’ve joined 😀 Well done Coach! And thanks again to Runnex!