LuntiRun - March 27 , 2011

If you are looking for a run with a different route, then this race is perfect for you as it will be held in Alabang Area.

Details below:

Distances:
1.5km (for 12 years old and below)/ 3km / 6km / 12km

Registration fee:
1.5km – 300php // 3km – 350php // 6km – 400php // 12km – 450php 
(RACE KIT includes: Event Singlet, Race bib and stub for 20% off on regular priced New Balance item)

UP Students may register at the UP IE Club Tambayan (3^rd flr, Melchor Hall)

You may also register online at http://runnersrunner.com/luntirun
Check out our FACEBOOK page at http://facebook.com/luntirun

Other registration sites are:
- SECONDWIND stores (45 Malingap St. Teachers Village, QC || Ortigas Home Depot, PASIG CITY) 
- NEW BALANCE shops (Festival Mall, Alabang || Shangri-la Plaza); Saturdays and Sundays
- BIKE KING PHILIPPINES (Bonifacio High Street)

- MJ46 Factory Outlet (Bicutan)

- The Village Sports Club (BF Homes Parañaque)


(Registration is until March 20 only!)

Personally, I am still deciding whether to do this (12km) vs. that of Globe Run for Home 2011, both held on the same day. Either way, both races should be a good excuse to burn the calories!

Rogin Last Man Standing - Feb 20th 2011

The Rogin-E Last Man Running was a one-of-a-kind event in that hard core runners have to run for 7 hours at McKinley Hills area and the winner after said 7 hours will be the one who covered the longest distance. To qualify for this event, a runner must be able to run at a certain pace (6min/km first two hours, 7min/kim next two hours, etc.) or face being eliminated by the various marshals posted along the route.

With this kind of restrictions, I expected only a few people to join this event given how hard it is to qualify inside (pace required, marathon proof, medical certificate). Little did I know about the abilities of the Filipino people (and some Kenyans) as they vie to be the Last Man (or Woman) Standing! It was definitely interesting to watch these people conquer their distances one step at a time and be inspired by their abilities!

But I didn't watch too long as I had my own race to do... and that is for the 10km race event. I was able to park at 5:35am and did a short jog to the starting line just in time for our 5:45am race to begin. My goal was only to finish this race as prior to arriving here, I already did a 4km run near my house as looking to do a total of 15km distance today.

Unlike all of the previous races I've done for this year, there were no finisher medals waiting for me after I have finished my running. These things were reserved for the people who competed on the 7-hour race and if you ask me, they all deserve to get their huge kick@$$ medals. What's good about this race was the nice singlet I got at the race packet claiming area some two days ago, the free Fitness magazines at the finish line and lots and lots of water scattered around the 10km course (but missed out on the free breakfast due to the long queue at the finish line).

First time I conquered the McKinley Hills (where McDonalds was) without stopping to walk! But I did walk at various parts of the race course AFTER doing the McK Hills. This, being my first McK Hills 10km run for the year, it gave me an okay-but-not-fantastic 2011 PR of 1:07++.

Here's to more races on the dreadful McK Hills. And great job for the organizers for making this unique survival-of-the-fittest race!

One more reason to love this race: Free Photos (there were about 3,000++) to be uploaded!

Inquirer 25 for 25 Run

Here is another race for the month of February:

Inquirer's 25 for 25 run:

Race categories are as follows:
3km - Php 400
5km - Php 500
10km - Php 600
25km (5 - member relay) - Php 2,500

Each race kit would include the following items:
Singlet, Race Bib, Route Map, and Chip Timer




There will be a lot of cash prizes with the 25km relay having P25,000 for the First Place!


Now, who wants to earn that P25k for 25k for (PDI's) 25?

Registration Areas can be found at various Mizuno stores, Made For U stores (Glorietta, Trinoma, Megamall), 360 Fitness Club, Yoga+ (Fort Bonifacio), and Philippine Daily Inquirer Satellite Offices

Condura Skyway Marathon 21k event

(At the starting line - 21km Wave A)

This serves as my first Half Marathon for 2011, and therefore an automatic PR for the year. I know it will take some time before I could be fast enough to ever beat my all time PR but decided instead to do yearly PR records to be able to push myself to improve but at the same time, not to push myself too much that would injure me some more.

Sadly, after doing this year's Condura race, I realize I am not yet fully healed but it is a big improvement from before as I hardly limped this time around when I finished the race. Just a few months ago, it will take me at least 24 hours to be able to walk properly again. So hopefully, I was able to get the right shoes (and shoe size) from Runnr Store in Fort Bonifacio.

But the foot pain was still there (from 10km onwards) and it gave me a hard time to be able to fully enjoy the race. I definitely need to do more stretching and use more weights for my legs this week.

Other than that, this was a great race! The route was different this time for the 21km runners as we started on Ayala Avenue and headed towards the Skyway, made the U turn there (after passing the U Turn areas for the 10km and 16km runners) before going down to Buendia Avenue, and going to Fort Bonifacio via Kalayaan Bridge for the finish line. A lot of hill (or bridge/skyway) climbs, which were painful for my knees but it was still a great experience.

There were so many runners! From what I read in the newspaper, they expected about 15,000 runners! And Per, who waited for me at the finish line, mentioned that the finish line resembled that of the STARTING LINE (in terms of the number of people crossing it)! Wow, how crazy is that?

There were a lot of sports drink and ice cold water and I even got a banana at one of the stations along Buendia Avenue (excuse to walk to as I happily gobbled it away). Takbo.ph members were there too in one of the support stations and Takbo.ph founder Jinoe screamed at the top of this lungs to make me run again!!!! Boy, I was scared so I had to run.... away from him.... before I stopped to walk again! Hahaha! But seriously, thanks for that push!

The Skyway route was longer that what I expected (as thought that we would go down the same way we came up from) but there were regular road markers indicating how far I am from the exit: Buendia Exit 2km; Buendia Exit 400 meters; so in a way, it's pretty cool that road signs meant for cars were used this day for the 15,000 runners!

Yes, we runners for one morning owned the SKYWAY!


Picture picture!!!!
21km finisher!

As evidenced by these photos, a good thing about running a race as popular as this one is that you would see a lot of familiar faces on the road. Whether they are your friends or family members, you all have one common goal: to meet the challenge of running a race and to finish it! A hearty congratulation to all runners!

Kudos to race organizers (TonTon and Patrick C.) for an awesome event! Can't wait for Condura Year 5!

3rd 2011 race = 3rd Finisher Medal!

Race results are out and can be found here: http://www.pinoyfitness.com

I ranked 1158th place out of 1,733 runners (top 66%) with a time of 2:43:51.

My Garmin time was at 2:43:26, a 2011 21km PR. Hahaha!!!

A Runner's Circle, Manila Branch

Some weeks ago, Per and I ventured to one of Manila's newest running store: A Runner's Circle (ARC) Philippines.

Not really expecting to buy anything (as I had just purchased a new New Balance running pair some weeks ago....more on this later) but ended up buying a lot of nice goodies:

First up: since we were there on a Friday, they had the TGIF promo, "Thank Gu It's Friday", where you get 1 free GU after buying 3 pieces. So many flavors to choose from that I ended up buying 8 pieces of GU that afternoon. At least I will be able to use one or two on this Sunday's Condura Race. Expiration for some of the GU is end of 2011 so I'm sure to finish it all by then.

Then, they had some pretty nice running socks for sale there. Being a cheapskate, I bought the ASICS three pack socks that had almost the same price as one pair of running socks (forgot the brand name). Seems good when I used it for a run and signal to throw away my old moth-chewed white socks away.

There were also stuffs that I can used for stretching like the Prostretch device and some elastic stretching band (for Php 300). Both items I used in last December's Physical therapy and can now do at the comforts of my own bedroom.

Some pretty nice ARC branded shirts and shorts (made by Asics) were for sale too but my wallet was already complaining so I just drooled over them and promised myself (to Per's consent) to buy the ARC Manila red bag once they have stock of it.

Perfect reason to come back again!


There were also insoles for sale, Saucony running shoes, Asics shoes, hydration belts, etc



I had my feet tested as well and surprisingly, I am still neutral arch! YAY! But heat zone were at my heel! Boo! But they checked my foot size and made me run back and forth as well. The verdict: I'm a "STABILITY" kind of guy, preferably New Balance for the big feet width and my left foot is bigger than my right.

We will definitely return to this store! Now, if only they would open a branch in Makati or Ortigas area....


DISCLOSURE: Everything we got from this store, we paid from our own money. We did not get anything free except for The Bullrunner's Magazine, which was free to begin with..

SJCS 10km Race - 2011 Race # 2

Per and I were privileged enough to be invited to the press conference of this event some weeks ago at ROX and got for ourselves some race kits from the event organizers.

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This was the perfect race for me for the weekend given I had to do a long run before my first 21km for the year (Condura) and I knew I had to be somewhat ready for it in terms of the distance I had to conquer and the lack of mileage that I had been doing this month.

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I was optimistic to finish a total distance of 18km with a lot of walk breaks involved and I started that by first doing a slow 5km jog around my house, went back home to change into drier clothes (and bugging Per in the process) and driving myself to MOA for the 6:00am Gun Start for the 10km race. (Per decided to back out from the race at the last minute.)

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I wasn't sure where the race start was but opted to look for a parking space first and to figure out the starting line later. Just my luck that I parked some 500meters away and I had some three minutes to go to get to the starting line. Oh Crap! This will definitely be included in my 18km target distance for the day!

ddd

I heard the emcee speak "last one minute to go before race starts... last 30 seconds...", which lead me to run faster. Double Crap! This is sooo wrong: speed running even before the race starts! But what would be worse for me was starting the race late.

ddd

I made it on time (for a measly 2 seconds) before the race began and I ran off again, this time with all the 10km runners.

ddd

I thought right then how everything was wrong from the start - how could I run fast when I was already tired doing my 5km jog + 500 meters sprint before the race? Ordinarily, that was fine for this RUNNING FATBOY but this was called Race for Place for a reason! And although I didn't really believe I could make it to the top 500 finishers to get the medal, I was secretly hoping that I would come in 490th (or thereabouts) place to be able to bag it. Of course, this secret hope came about at the time I thought I would just run 10km for the day!

ddd

At the first water station, I gladly stopped by to get a drink of water. As guaranteed before at the presscon some weeks ago, there were a lot of water stations for this race, which was quite good for us runners.

ddd

My desire for the finisher medal got to the point where I counted the runners who were ahead of me but gave up at 20 as figured I would be crazy if I counted all the way to 500! I would instead do my thing: focus on my arm swings, high knee raises, proper foot landing, breathing, feeling if there is pain on my left foot, etc., all the while following the directions of the 10km route.

dddd

It was nice running here at MOA again and it has been a while since I joined a race here. Weather was perfect (not too hot, not too cold) and there were enough marshals to make sure we don't get lost. An ambulance was also roaming about, which was another good point for the race organizers.

dddd

At one point, I gave up on my quest for the finisher medal and just decided to do the run to the best of my abilities. If I make it, that would be awesome. But if I didn't, that is okay too. As long as I finish strong and painfree, then I should already be happy with my achievements.

ddd

But...

dddd

Everytime, a runner would overtake me, at the back of my mind I would think, "what if he is the 500th runner?". So I would run again and do little walk breaks and if I do take them, it would be for only 10 -20 seconds before I run again.

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Even with this thought, I did not sprint or run after them as I didn't want to be too tired today.

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So I ran, and I ran, and I ran, and thinking that this 10km distance seemed to be too long, I would look at my Garmin and see that it just showed a distance of 8km. GRRRRRR!!!!

ddd

Anyway, to cut the story short, I made it to the finish line at a time of 1:05++. Not really fast for me but given my circumstances, I was very happy by it.

dddd

I ran another 3km around MOA complex at super slow pace of 8:30 - 9 min/km pace, did a lot of stretching at one of the empty parking lots, drove home to pick up Per to have breakfast at our new favorite weekend morning place (hint: it's at BGC) to replenish burned calories and went back home again to relax.

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18km Target Achieved!

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As for the finisher medal, I have yet to wait for the results to see my place in the 10km category but I got what I secretly hoped for:

Yeah Man!!!!
I can now proudly say that I Raced for Place and I got it! Best of all was waking up the next day with no muscle or foot pain. God is definitely Good (no foot pain was one of our answered prayers).

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Kudos to the race organizers for this fun run!