Asian Hospital's RUNew: My Birthday Run!

Runners celebrate different occasions by joining running events, which they deem special and memorable - may it be their birthday, running anniversary or even when they just reach a particular mileage. In my case, I'm lucky enough that a Rio-organized event was scheduled just a day before my birthday, Asian Hospital's RUNew, which was held at Filinvest Alabang. A race in the south, what more can a runner from Paranaque wish for?

Most of my running friends reside in the Northern part of Metro Manila. Good thing, two of my original running buddies, Ying and Geoff, are both from the south, and agreed to register with me. Ying came from an injury as well (but has completely recovered), so we all chose to register for the 5k category only. I, on the other hand, was supposed to be recovering and resting my injured ankle.

May 2, 2010 - Pre-birthday race day. I was still limping but I was stubborn. I wanted to run. I drove to Filinvest wearing my favorite singlet from Skyathon.

After gun start, I let Ying and Geoff go ahead and not wait for me; I planned to run slow. A bit faster though, than my pace last Skyathon. I targetted a sub-1 finish this time. My Photovendo pic shows how serious I am (and feeling a bit of pain too).

I was happy to finish in the official time of 43 minutes and 11 seconds, way above my expected finish goal.

RUNew was a small running event compared to the others I've joined so far. I would estimate around 3000 participants ran. With this small number, I knew it was easy to spot Coach Rio and have a picture taken with him. Here's me and my running idol, fresh from the Boston Marathon. "It's not a RACE, it's a STATE OF MIND." Nice shirt, Coach!

We also spotted Patrick Concepcion (Runningshield in the running blog community), after his strong 16k finish. We had a good chat with him on his plans for the upcoming Condura Run 2011. He hinted a possible Alabang starting line, should the Skyway construction finish within the year. Woohoo!

It was a refreshing experience! I just wish more race events would happen in the south.