Back to Back Races - April 2 -3, 2011

Doing a back to back race is quite fun to do if the opportunity presented itself.

First of all, it is definitely not as tiring as doing a Half Marathon as you have two days (and about 20 hours worth) to cover the same distance as a 21km, and you burn the same amount of calories so that’s a great thing too.

As distance is shorter taken separately, you don’t have to carbo load two nights before the big race, so you will eat less and burn more calories. Perfect strategy to lose weight!

You can also decide which of the two races you would go “all out” in and which of the two races will be an easy run for you or if you are strong enough, you could also “race” both events.

And of course, not all races are the same – different venues, different organizers, different routes, etc. You could have a good experience with one race and a bad experience with another. You could get a runner’s high at both times too! It’s like watching two different movies. You have your expectations but it is only after the movie ends and the end credits come on the screen that you decide if you liked the movie or not.

Doing two races doubles your fun too in terms of stuffs that you will get from each race – two singlets, more bottled waters, two race bibs (for those who collect them), more race photos, more race results, more loot bags, etc.

One disadvantage of doing a back to back race is that the weekend goes by quickly without you getting the experience of waking up late and just lazing in bed. I was sluggish in the afternoon of Saturday and Sunday and didn’t go out anymore come Friday or Saturday night.

Another disadvantage of doing this is the cost for the race. As there are two races, then it’s logical to think that you will pay double the amount that you would normally pay for one race. Of course, it is all relative here. You could opt to join two smaller 10k races and the total amount paid might even be cheaper than one big 21km race. It’s just a matter of finding affordable races for the weekend that you want to run in. And with the running boom in the country, there are a lot more options as to where we would put our hard earned money in. It also stands that one 21km race is more expensive than one 10km race as there are more road permits, marshals, water stations, etc. required for the longer distance so it might not be as expensive as you think when you go for running two shorter races for that particular weekend.

Now on to the races I did:

1. HYUNDAI RUN FOR A CAUSE 10K: Held in Roxas Blvd on a Saturday morning. There were about 25,000 runners that day with most people having registered for the 5km race. This was also a FREE run and initially, the organizers were just targeting 2,000 runners but with the high demand (because of its very good value…DUH!), the organizers kept adding the number of runners till it ballooned to way over 25,000! As it doesn’t fit BGC anymore, they moved the venue to Quirino Grandstand. I expected it to be chaotic. I expected to run out of water as there were just too many runners. I expected that I had to constantly weave in and out of people who were walking in this event. I am pleased to say that none of my expectations came true! There was a lot of water for the runners, as volunteers even gave out bottled water to us! It wasn’t chaotic at all even with the huge mass, and they resolved this by having different waves for the starting time of runners (10k event had 3 waves while the 5k event had about 7 waves). The 5k start was about 40 minutes away from the 10k start so I did not even encounter any 5k runners in my run except maybe for an elite runner. It was definitely a well organized event and I had a fantastic time running on Roxas Blvd again.

FINISH TIME (Garmin): 1:08:56

PACE: 6:37 min/k

DISTANCE: 10.43 k

2. A.A.C.E. THE GOOD RUN 10K: Race was held at BGC area and I was glad I could wake up at a later time for this race (vs. 3:30am for the Hyundai Run!). Gladness was replaced by panic as I realized too late that I started with the 5k runners! But that’s okay as there were also some 10k runners who started with me and it motivated me to chase after the 10k runners (which I did). The route was around BGC area and I was happy that we didn’t have to go through Lawton Avenue anymore. Luckily, there was no muscle soreness in my legs from Saturday’s run and I was able to run normally here. As expected from a Runrio.Inc race, there were no problems with regards to hydration or getting lost in this race. Personally, it was an almost perfect race for me as I was able to do negative split with very little walk breaks, didn’t have any heel pain (or if I did, it was manageable), and felt strong all the way to the finish line. Got my loot bag at the finish line and just like yesterday, headed home immediately to wake my wife up. Haha!

FINISH TIME (Garmin): 1:05:55

PACE: 6:31 min/k

DISTANCE: 10.13k

Both races were handled fantastically and I was glad to be involved in both of them.

TO GOD BE THE GLORY!