Inquirer 25th Anniversary Run - 10k Event

Feb 27th, 2011 - It was really hard to wake up early for the 5:50am gun start for the 10km race. Luckily, things worked out in my favor as race was delayed for a few minutes. I even made it to see the 5-person relay take off! Phew!

With a little bit of stretching and basically a 100-meter jog to warm my muscles, I walked slowly to the starting line to await our gun start.

Wife Per accompanied me to this race (she wanted to go to Mercato Centrale and only way she could do so was to ride with me this morning... hehe) and took a picture of me a few minutes before my race.

The Emcee was still speaking when the gun was fired. Haha! I wasn't even sure he knew the race had already commenced for us! The weather was perfect for me - cool weather with no sun yet. The route was great too as it was tweaked in such a way that we went to this new long road that has a little hill climb to it. There were ample water stations in this race and I made it my point to stop at every single one of them.

Personally, I had a great time! There were no foot pain for me and I enjoyed the feeling of panting, wheezing and being out of breathe. I made it a point not to pressure myself by NOT looking at my pace or time on the road but only looking at my Garmin to see the distance I've finished. It was more of a "what-I-feel" race.


Thanks to Active Moments (www.activemoments.net) for the nice race pictures. There were a lot of photographers this morning so I was sure to get one or two good pictures in.


Nearing the finish line.


10k race completed and one with a happy face!




Hmmm... I am NOT in this picture!

But I had to post it because of this guy: Mon (according to the back of his pink Powerpuff shirt) that I used to push me forward. Whenever I am tired, I will use him as my motivation to keep on running (instead of walking) and that lead me to chase him.... and to eventually finish the race at a good time... He left me eating his dust but he helped me in this race. The last time I got a time this fast or lower than this was in June 2010! Thanks Powerpuff Mon!

I finished my race and got a nice environment bag from Inquirer, which I used to fill up with Powerades and bottled water.


My official results are as follows:

Que Pe Dennis

Category: 10 km

Chip Time: 1:03:58

Chip Time Ranking Details

These rankings are based on chip time. Your chip time is the time from the moment you cross the start line to the moment you cross the finish line

Chip time rank: 165

You had a faster time than 1% of runners in your category


Wow, I beat just 1%? How impressive!

NOT!!!

Still, it is my best time for over 6 months so that is a great thing for me! After all, isn't running more about competing against yourself vs other runners (unless you're an elite or a Kenyan of course).

Good race organization and what I liked here too was seeing the relay runners head out fast with their silver batons in order to make it to the grand prize of Php 25,000 (split among the 5 runners of course). That was an exciting sight!

And the grand prize of both me and Per: breakfast at Mercato Centrale! Mmmmm.... chicken adobo with rice! Yummy!

See you in the next race (Clark 21k for me).