SCMS 2010: Virgin Marathoner No More

I have waited a long time to blog about my first full marathon. I don't know why the inspiration of writing never came to me after that big Singapore event. Maybe I was too preoccupied with my Europe business travel that time. Maybe I was dreading the running hiatus that I knew would come because of work. Or maybe I was just too damn disappointed of the race result that I didn't want to share the experience anymore. But frustrations need to be set aside. Now that I'm back to running, I realized I've got nothing to be ashamed of. Finishing a full marathon is an achievement, with only a percent of the world's population being able to successfully accomplish. So now with a fresh outlook, I'd like to share my first full marathon experience, and attempt to recount those days of December 2010 when I finally became a marathoner.

PRE-RACE

The race kit collection for international registrants was one of the most organized I've seen. The buildup of excitement was tremendous as I first held my race singlet and personalized race bib.

Eugene and I at the race kit collection entrance - look at those excited faces!

Race bibs at hand!

Race bib and that gorgeous Asics singlet

RACE DAY

After two days of enjoying the city, the big day has finally come - December 5, 2010, race day! I've had very little sleep, what with the anxiety and the excitement and all other thoughts running through my head. Am I really prepared for this?

Full marathon map - seeing entire Singapore City on foot!

Eugene and I arrived at the Orchard, the starting point for the full marathon, 2 hours before gun start. Everything seems to be well-set, and as runners filled-up the road, the anticipation grew until that much-awaited countdown to race start.

Early birds at the starting arch

Festive, well-lit Orchard

I ran. I was intimidated by this massive number of runners from all over the world who traveled all the way to Singapore to join in this race, but I tried to keep up. I told Eugene to go ahead at the early part of the race because I could not keep up with his pace. I felt alone but still determined to do what I can to finish strong.

From one kilometer marker to the next, I felt like its going to take ages before I could get to the finish line. Race marshals and volunteers cheer runners on, which helped a bit in boosting up my energy. I was running like I ran my first half-marathon at the Condura Run - the adrenaline rush kept me on. By kilometer 21, I even beat my personal best by a couple of minutes.

But by kilometer 22, the unexpected happened - I hit the wall. 10 kilometers early than the normal. I was anticipating that dreaded wall to come in at least by kilometer 32, but it struck way earlier and it struck hard. My legs felt like lead. I started walking and I felt defeated as race marshals shouted "Keep on running!" I realized the lack of sleep has come to get me, and there were even times when I had my eyes closed while walking, psyching myself that those are power naps that would give me some quick energy boosts. But I knew I was just fooling myself. Runners were overtaking left and right, and I was left in the company of walkers.

Every now and then I'd attempt to run a few meters, looking at my watch and seeing how far I am now deviating from my original 4-hour goal (which was supposed to be still achievable at kilometer 21). There were a lot of muscle rub stations along the way, and I'd cover my legs with the ointment, making it numb from pain and buying me a few minutes of running until the ointment's effects wear-off. There were Gu energy gel and banana stations too, and I'd consume them to help me move on. It was becoming a tough mental game, and as the Singapore heat made its presence felt by kilometer 30, I just knew finishing this race will just become more difficult.

Runners on the sidewalk stopping because of cramps, runners limping, runners who fainted and on stretchers who won't be making it to the finish line - I witnessed all of these. Those images were definitely downers, but I continued. As kilometer 35 arrived, I knew I can finish this race, not with the results I was hoping for but finishing nonetheless.

During the last 2 kilometers I was just numb, but I realized in a few minutes the finish line will be in sight. And as I finally crossed it, came the sweet, sweet victory of conquering my longest race so far. It was over. I am a marathoner.

Esplanade background

I don't know how that guy beside me could still smile. I couldn't.

Finally crossing the finish line!

RESULTS

I clocked in at 5 hours, 47 minutes and 57 seconds. I was disappointed with the results at first, but when the Runpix analysis was released, I realized I didn't do bad at all.

As you can see from the Runpix performance graph below, I was at my best pace during the first 20 kilometers, doing a 10 kph pace. The big drop occurred post-20k, going down 40% of the original pace because I mostly did a walk-run at the latter half.

I'm on the top 35% of all marathon runners. The hot weather that day really kept everyone slow.

If there's something I learned from this experience, it's that I need to train harder next time. Running 42.195 kilometers is no joke, and it's definitely not your normal 21-kilometer race time multiplied by two.

Run BGC: My 3rd 21k Run

November 28, 2010 - One week before the BIG Marathon Singapore day - one more long distance run. This time, I've decided to pace someone else doing 21k - my good friend Rap. Target is for him to get a new PR. We'll do a Galloway, alternating 7 minute runs and 1 minute rest. Hopefully, we'll have a better time than the 2:47 time Rap got during his previous 21k event (that was in Adidas KOTR).

The start/finish arch

Me and Rap before gunstart

It was my responsibility as pacer to keep pushing Rap to his limits, and after a lot of bullying (LOL!), we finally finished the race at a time of 2 hours, 40 minutes and 28 seconds, beating Rap's previous PR by 7 minutes! Woohoo! That's quite a feat!

Ivo, Ying, Rap, Me, Char-char, Tita Celeth, Geoff - after the race

21k Finishers - Proud Medalists :p

Superposition - Junar, Rap, Me, Geoff, Ying

Time to Blog Again: Unilab Run 2 2010

Yes, you read that right. Unilab Run 2 2010. Yes, that's how delayed this blog post is. It's July 2011, the event was last November 2010. Haha!

A lot has happened with my career the last few months, making me decide to give running a temporary rest and prioritize work. Of course, blogging had to stop as well. T_T

Joining the 32k category of the Unilab Run 2 last November 21, 2010 was supposedly part of my full marathon training. This will be my longest run before the big Singapore event, and it'll let me gauge if my body can withstand the long distance before reaching the dreaded marathon "wall."

Earl and Me - 32k, baby!

The early parts of the race I was pacing Earl (no pun intended) and taking it slowly. I keep reminding myself not to push myself as I have a full marathon in a couple of weeks - getting injured is not an option. Earl let me go ahead at the latter part, where I tried to keep a steady pace til the finish line.

Almost at the finish line!

Tey's Girl Friends, Me and Eugene

Proudly wearing our 32k finisher's medal

The 32k Finishers

Group shot

I SURVIVED 32KM

Runner #501 finished in 4 hours, 2 minutes and 19 seconds, placing 865th out of 1301 32k runners. To a new PR next time!

25k LSD with takbo.ph

Wow, it's been like two months since my last blog post! A lot of things have been happening lately at work which have kept me busy. Unfortunately, it affected not only my blogging, but my workouts and runs as well.

My last long distance run was the 25k LSD at MoA with the takbo.ph folks, last September 19. This run was supposedly aligned with my marathon program for Singapore. I just read about the run at the takbo.net forum and found out that my friend Jinoe (Mr. Takbo.ph) was joining, so I decided to participate as well. We did 4 loops of a simple 6.25k route.

Here's me and Jinoe at the early part of the run:

Good thing we had pit-stops at the 711 convenience store during every loop.

And of course, we wouldn't miss the group pictures after the run.

I had an "instant celebrity" moment when Jinoe mentioned me when he wrote about this 25k LSD on takbo.ph. You may read that article here.

Fort Strider's Run: My First 16k

It was a last minute decision to run this race - I didn't even invite my usual running companions to join. The only reason I registered for this event was that it matches the 16k requirement on my marathon training program for September 12. Of course I tagged Eugene along.

Race Pros:

• Registration center at Paranaque - After my practice run at Manila Memorial Park, had a 5-minute drive to Nelson Auto Repair Shop in front of Paranaque Medical Center to register. Yes, you read that right - an auto repair shop that accepts race registration.
• Cheap Registration Fee - 300 pesos only with a free singlet! I didn't like the fit though, so I didn't wear it on the race day.
• Manual barcode timing system but guess what? The results were released at the same day! Big wow!
• Ample water stations (and Pocari Sweat stations too).
• Hyper race marshalls cheering racers on. I love hyper race marshalls!

Now on to the cons:

• Race Route map was released 2 days before the actual race day. When we arrived at the venue, we found out that they scrapped the initial released route and just used the usual Runrio map, modified a bit for 16k.
• Late gunstart with no warm-up. Everyone was surprised when the gun fired to signal the race start without any heads-up whatsover.
• The event name is FS marathon - why the hell are they using the word "marathon" for an event with only 16k as the farthest category?

My legs felt very heavy at the start but after a few kilometers, I felt the leg muscles loosening up. I was really grateful Eugene paced with me until the finish line. We did a steady pace of around 6 minutes per kilometer - just the right pace we're aiming for our upcoming SG marathon. We finished in 1 hour, 34 minutes and 46 seconds.

And since we didn't have our usual running photographers with us, we had to settle on only a few shots from my celphone camera. Here's a pic of the start/finish line before the 16k gunstart:

And here's a post-race picture of me and Eugene from the race village stage:

12 weeks to go before the BIG day. I need more training!

UP ERG's Activate! Run and Pump it UP!

The University of the Philippines Engineering Radio Guild (UP ERG), my college organization, is celebrating its 75th anniversary. One of their activities is "Activate! Run and Pump it UP!", a race event held last August 29th at the UP campus. I was one of the first to register on this event, which was my 2nd race event in UP. Again, I opted to join the 10k category (plus 2 rounds at the academic oval for a total of 14.4k as part of my marathon training).

I would have to say, in the most unbiased way (hehe!), that the race singlet is one of the best as far as material quality and design are concerned. I remember being one of the first few people who saw the design, and gave the thumbs up for the black instead of the white version. The design was released a month before the actual event, and I doubted they'll be able to release the singlets on time due to their complicated side cut design. There was a slight delay on the delivery, but participants were able to claim their singlets a few days before race day. Whew!

One of the race freebies is the UP-ERG baller id. The color's orange, since it was sponsored by Enervon. Here's a pic (this is not my arm though):

Another race plus for me is we had new company, and hopefully, future regular running buddies. On pic below (from L-R): the "oldies" - me, BA, Dada, Nic and the "newbies" - Jing, Egay and Mike.

Here are the 10k runners wearing white (and yes, recycled) bibs...

... and the 5k runners, wearing their red (printed on paper and covered with plastic) bibs:

Maco is my orgmate from UP ERG. This is his first 10k run (and first running event too!).

Jing's, Egay's and Mike's first superposition shot! Weeee!

Aside from the recycled (and improvised) bibs, there are still a few more improvement areas for the race, in case UP ERG decides to do this again next year. Being an electronics organization, people were expecting them to make use of the RFID timing system, used during the Engineering Student Council's Eng'gfinity Run. I was quite alarmed at how the race marshalls (org members) were manually recording the racers' times; they were panicking! Another is that they should have double-checked the accuracy of the race route distance - the 10k was actually 10.7k! It was a challenging route nevertheless, and I enjoyed it a lot!

The race results are still not released as I write this, but I timed myself during the run so I have no problem. I clocked in at 1 hour, 4 minutes and 24 seconds, failing my sub-1 hour goal, but this was a 10.7km race anyway so I'd take it.

I normally don't write about the post-race happenings, but since we had our breakfast at Chocolate Kiss, I need to post some pics! I had the best tapsilog ever, with bottomless iced tea! And carrot cake for dessert too! Bottomline, I gained back the lost calories. LOL!

Here's a picture of us enjoying our breakfast while listening to "good" music:

We heard mass at the UP chapel afterwards, thankful again for another injury-free run.

I'm Running My First Full Marathon on December...

... and its in Singapore!

I and three running buddies - Eugene, Chrissie and Mils, have all signed-up for the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon which will happen on December 5, 2010. Eugene and I will be doing the full marathon; the ladies will be doing a half-mary.

The decision was quite impulsive - I always had this dream of doing a full marathon somewhere else, somewhere special. I was very fortunate my running friends were game to the sudden idea; of course I wanted to have people to share the experience with.

• May 20 - SCMS opened the registration for all race categories (42k/21k/10k)
• June 2 - I was browsing the web and the idea of joining a full marathon came to mind (Inception level). I told my friends about it and we decided to register the next day.
• June 3 - Eugene and I registered for 42.195km; Chrissie and Mils registered for 21.097km. We were ecstatic!
• June 4 - Registration for the full marathon closed.
• June 7 - Registration for the half marathon closed.
• June 8 - Registration for the 10k category closed.

That's how lucky we were. Everything seemed meant to be. We also got last-minute flight promo fares from Philippine Airlines. Sweet.

Here's the proof (I advertently omitted some of the fields):

I'm now on the 3rd week of Runners World's 16-week marathon training program. Thanks to The Bull Runner for the training tip!

Booboo Alert! Run to Read No Show

I've heavily promoted the Run to Read race event. I've registered early for the 15k category, excited to get my hands on that cute, purple singlet. The race was scheduled for the 15th of August. All the while, I was highly anticipating running on this event. What's wrong then?

Schedule conflict! Me and some officemates booked a very cheap flight to Jakarta, Indonesia way, way before (I think it was last year). Our vacation date: August 11 to 19! Can you believe I seriously considered cancelling my vacation just to run on Run to Read? Talk about running addiction. Haha!

But since I share the same passion for both running and travelling, the trip did push through. Besides, I miss my travelmates (they're the same people I've been with in my Beijing trip last year).

Instead of posting the usual running pics, superposition and all, let me deviate from that for once and post some travel pictures here.

Borobudur
perfecting the art of a jumpshot

nice solo shot

Borobudur is a UNESCO heritage site

Prambanan

Brahma statue inside one of the Prambanan temples

I definitely had a blast! Next time, I'm going to combine running with travel. :) Find out how on my future posts!