Running 28kms of Happiness in Brooks Run Happy 2

With the feedback I got from last year's Brooks running event, I was a bit hesitant joining this year's edition. Remember the finisher medal made of wood with a smiley sticker on it? Google it if you haven't seen it yet. Hehe!

But since there are no races slated for June 3 offering 21k other than this, and I'm on marathon-training-panic-mode, I opted to register for Brooks Run Happy 2. I particularly liked the bib design, and even the poster font too! Kinda cheesy, but the design made me feel "happy" in a way.

I and my Team Alpha1 teammate Joric (aka redcapguy) agreed to do a pre-run. Since the gun start was adjusted from the originally announced 4:30am to 5am, we'll cover more distance before the actual race. We started running around 4:15am (we invited Jesy aka sprintingswine but he was too lazy to run yet), going around the BGC area. After our 2nd loop, we heard the emcees announcing the gun start for the 21k runners. We entered the assembly area passing by the back of the event stage just in time to catch up with the tail end of the 21k runners. By this time, I checked my Soleus GPS watch and we already ran 7 kilometers.

Within the first kilometer, we caught up with Jesy and Daves. Jesy joined me and Joric, and we left Daves who paced fellow blogger CJ aka runadoboking. I told Jesy we were on LSD mode and had no intention of racing. During the course of the race, I kept reminding Jesy to slow down as he has the tendency to lead using his quicker race pace. Most of the time we were on "kwentuhan" mode which I really enjoyed because there's not much pressure when we're not too competitive in a race.

Sprinting Swine, Red Cap Guy, Deemen (shot by Ms Mars of Pinoyfitness)

I was surprised I was still running strong during the latter part of the race. I even registered my fastest pace during KM27 (KM20 of the event). It seems like I'm getting my groove back. Yay!

We clocked in at 2 hours and 15 minutes. Joric and I ran a total of 28 kilometers in 3 hours. The event was great. I ran happy.

funny arrow. wrong way perhaps?

almost at the finish line

Race Likes:
- Plenty of hydration (and ice-cold too!)
- Lots of marshals along the route
- Ambulance at key points. There's an ambulance at the Buendia flyover as well. Good location!
- Kilometer markers with the "happy" font.
- Nice finisher medal (waaaaay improved compared to last year's)
- Plenty of loot! I particularly liked the "Born a RUNNR" pin

Improvement areas:
- 15km marker facing the wrong direction (corrected at a later time though)
- Lousy loop cords - they won't even fit my hand! Did they use a child's hand as basis? LOL!

Race performance graph

Brooks Run Happy's 2nd edition: BIGGER. BETTER. HAPPIER. :-)

Until next year!