For Per's first race for the year, I decided to pace her early on when I registered for her race. It will be a 5km race starting from 9th Avenue and heading towards Kalayaan Bridge for the U Turn on top of it to head back to the finish line.
It was supposed to be a simple 5km race but we made a big mistake thinking that the race was on a Saturday!
On Saturday morning, Alvin and I did a short 2.8km run around the village before we drove with Per to BGC. Another friend joined us that morning. Everyone was willing to wake up early that day and to run with Per in her race.
But, we didn't see anyone else wearing the pink race singlet. Nobody was wearing the race bib too. Uh Oh!
I was still optimistic about it as we slowly headed our way to the starting line, where it was devoid of any race set-ups or of any runners! $%#%& !!!
I couldn't accept that I got the date wrong and thought that the starting line was somewhere else but when I saw that the road to Kalayaan Bridge was open to traffic, I knew we made a mistake!
So what now?
Well, we were all there so might as well do a short run. We all did a short 3.7km jog around BGC area and while they headed to Pancake House for breakfast, I added some more mileage to my run. Thank God the weather was nice that morning but it was lonely to run by myself.
I was able to run a total of 19km before I went back to them. Drank some water and got left behind again as had to 6km more!
Then there is Sunday to talk about!
All our legs were sore that morning but we still decided to push through with the race.
Of course, I checked on the race information that Saturday night to make sure date, time and venue are now correct. And finally, we saw a lot of runners in their pink singlets and in their pink bibs!
Now to do the race!
The 10km race started around 5:45am, about 15 minutes delayed from the official gun start time as they had to wait for some celebrities to go at the start of their wave. Per's 5km race started 5 minutes later with Dingdong Dantes running in the lead (and with a lot of screaming girls behind him, and a lot of serious runners making him their target).
As luck would have it, Per's Garmin died on her and I didn't wear my Garmin that morning too. I did have a stopwatch with me and that should be enough. Good thing there were markers every kilometer of the way and I was able to do some computation on pace we are on and on our target finish time.
My goal for Per was a sub-40minute 5km time. I just hope that yesterday's run didn't make her legs tired for this day.
At the halfway mark we were below 20 minutes, so that was good to achieve our target. We kept going and rather than have Per stop at the crowded water stations, I brought a water bottle with me and offered her drink whenever she needed it. Kerwin and I were running in front of Per and trying to pull her towards us.
The distance to the finish line was getting shorter and shorter and it was nice to see Per still continue running and not burning out.
Before long we saw the finish line at the bottom of the road and I told Per to go faster. We overtook some runners in Cosplay outfits (man, they must be superfans to be wearing those costumes on that hot Sunday morning!).
Per crossed the finish line at 38 minutes and 4 seconds and with a big grin on her face. She finished strong and happy!
Congrats to Per for reaching her target especially since she ran two days in a row!
Praise God for keeping us safe and strong during these two days!
