I woke up at 2.30am this morning and fixed myself to meet Ivy Macainan in Manansala Tower. That morning we decided to drive all the way to clark. We reach the starting area one hour before the starting gun. While heading to the registration are to claim the RFID, i met wayne, DATC and saw several runner bloggers at the registration area. I also met BaldRunner while i was having warm up session.

That night, i had a hard time to sleep. It was 12am, i remember, and i still couldn’t sleep. Well, it always happen to me if i have a race/marathon to join. There is this feeling of excitement and nervous which will lead me to have a hard time to sleep.

The race was started a little bit late this morning. The starting gun was 5.49am (5.30am in the registration form) but the weather this morning was absolutely perfect. I was expecting that it would be rain during the course.

As planned, Phillips aka ForeignRunner and i will pace together. We aim to finish the race in 2hours5minutes and our initial pace was 4.20. Now, this is the lesson i should learn from this race. Most of the runners, every time they arrive in the water station, they will just grab the bottle or cup and start drinking while running. I find this is very hard for me. I have to walk and drink. And that’s what i did this morning. I had my first water on the km 7.5, grabbed the bottle, walked and water in. Phillips, on the other hand, grabbed the water, keep on running and water in. At first, i was able to catch him up and run together. It was on the u-turn that i had a long walk to finish a powerbar gel and a bottle of water. On this point, Phillips was 500m away from me. I thought i could still catch him up but it was never happened again. Every time i walked on the water station, Phillips is getting far and far from me. On the uphill part (about 4km long), which is my favorite, i speed up a bit and and was able to close the gap a little. But still couldn’t catch him up. He has a steady pace and good rhythm. We were actually in the same pace.

If only i could drink while running, like most of the runners do, i could have a better time. This is the lesson to learn. I should train to drink while running, as advised by BaldRunner.

While running this morning, i also felt the effect of not sleeping well last night. Something to learn as well… There was few seconds i run while my eyes was closed and pretending to be sleeping and i did that for 2 times purposely. It was happen on the uphill part and somehow after awhile i felt better and speed up a bit. Strange but it works for me.

I also enjoy reading the quotation in each km marker like “running misses you” etc. I smiled and felt relieve to read that. The quotation will make you laugh and inspire you to love running.

I met Gene, my running buddy in kabahagi ako, after the u-turn. He got slow down, i suppose, because i know we have the same pace. Later i discover that he hit the wall. Sorry for that Gene. Hope to see you again!

After the u-turn, i met so many familiar faces and those are runner bloggers such as, ben (thanks for the greetings, ben… really appreciate it) bugobugo85, rununlmtdlooneyrunner, jinoe, ivy, ibanrunner, bananarunning (thanks for the smile…) and several others. Those greetings, smile, and encouraging words from you guys was really powerful. It gives me new energy to keep on running. Thanks to a guy on the waterstop km7.5 who keeps on giving encouraging words to runners to keep on running (it reminds me to a guy in VSO’s kabahagi ako run who did the same thing, standing on the side walk and cheer up the runners and he did that continuesly)

meet the runner bloggers

I saw wayne and captain coach Espejo standing by the fence just after i reach the finish line. I met DATC, LooneyRunner, RunUnlmtd, Jinoe, Barracuda Running, Markfb, bugobugo85, jay and several runner bloggers. For those runners whom i failed to mention, sorry guys, i am definitely remember your face [but not the name ] For the first time, I also met thebullrunner personally… perhaps she thought i’m pinoy coz she spoke in tagalog to me. But that’s fine, i could understand a little, konte lang hehehe well, it was great to meet her. And yes i met bananarunning as well. I was looking for her for picture taking but disappeared with banana

Thanks to New Balance race organizer! It was a perfect race. You did a great job this morning. Hope to join this race again next year.

According to my GF305, i finish the distance of 25.22km in 2hours23seconds unofficial. Below is the speed info which i got from GF305 MotionBased:

Pace Data	Average ( m:s )	Best (m:s)
Overall Pace	4:46	–
Moving Pace	4:46	3:30
Ascent	4:47	3:41
Descent	4:44	3:30
Flat	4:47	3:42

…and congratulation to Phillips for being the 3rd place in our age category!

Phillips, thanks for the run! I’ll see you again next time…

Phillips aka foregnrunner during the awarding ceremony

With BaldRunner and Wayne aka sfrunner.

With Jinoe aka manokanexpress

With Ivy and Wayne