Rexona Run 2012: Defy, Surpass, Outrun Yourself

Last year's Rexona Run was the time I got introduced to Team Alpha1, and my official first race with the team, so this race event is quite special to me. On this year's edition, I'll run 21k again with a sub-2 target.

WHAT: Rexona Run 2012
WHEN: August 12, 2012 (Sunday) - NEW DATE: September 23 (Sunday)
WHERE: Mall of Asia
RACE CATEGORIES: 5k, 21k relay (NEW! 2 members covering 10.5k each) and 21k individual

REGISTRATION PERIOD: 
Online Registration (www.runrio.com) - July 2 to 22, 2012 (TO BE EXTENDED, NEW DATE TBA)
In-Store Registration - July 2 to 29, 2012 (TO BE EXTENDED, NEW DATE TBA)

REGISTRATION CENTERS:
- Riovana BGC
- Riovana Katipunan
- Toby's SM Mall of Asia Branch
- Toby's Trinoma Branch

Race Registration Fees and Inclusions

Rexona Run 2012 Singlet Design

Assembly and Gun Start Times

MEDALS: 21k individual (8cm diameter, 4mm thickness) and 21k relay (5cm diameter, 3.5mm thickness)

Medal design with lanyard

21k Finisher Shirt (NOTE: for individual category only)

Keychain token for: Sub-30 5k runners and Sub-2 21k runners

Cash Prizes for the winners

Medals for the winners

RACE MAPS 

Run to your nearest registration centers now! See you on September 23!

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UPDATE (August 9, 2012)

OFFICIAL STATEMENT OF POSTPONEMENT FROM RUNRIO

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Dear Runners,

Due to the heavy rains, we will be postponing the REXONA RUN 2012 event to SEPTEMBER 23, Sunday still at the Mall of Asia grounds. We feel that due to the current calamity, it would be inappropriate to still push through with the event. We have taken into consideration that a lot of the runners may be living in affected areas, and that our route marshals are part of the AFP so th ey will be busy with relief operations.

Instead, we will be focusing our efforts on relief operations this weekend, particularly in Marikina. You are very much welcome to participate or help out in any way. More details will be posted soon.

Thank you for understanding. Please stay safe and dry!

Coach Rio

Unilab Run United 2: 2nd Piece of the Puzzle

Time to get back to blogging! I've been very busy these past few weeks, with my travel to Kuala Lumpur and then a week training at work with a certification exam afterwards. Crazy! I've got loads of backlog blog posts so I'll try to catch up bit by bit.

The 2nd leg of the Unilab Run United trilogy - Run United 2 2012 happened last 17th of June. This was my last long run before heading to KL for my 3rd full marathon. Quite disappointing since I caught a bad case of colds a few days before the run (which only worsened after the race because of the rain during this race).

I drove to Mall of Asia very early morning, if I remember correctly I was already there 2:15am. Haha! The race village was still being setup and I got a very nice parking slot. There were a few early bird runners already waiting for the shuttle buses to pick us up.

And then the rain poured hard, with strong accompanying winds. Runners had to find cover. It was getting cold as well. When we got inside the shuttle bus, we were already a bit wet. The airconditioning was torture! Haha!

With the reported 4000 21k runners, I knew how crowded the starting line will be. The emcee announced 3 waves will be implemented. I had no intention to race, so I didn't really care whatever wave I'll be in. I think I made it on the 2nd wave, which were released 15 minutes after the 1st. It took around 3 minutes for me to pass by the starting arc, and it became very difficult to squeeze my way in to overtake runners during the first few kilometers of the race. I was running solo (supposed runners who said they'd pace with me left me, bummer) but i bumped into a runner friend Arvin, I think around km10 so I had company for a few kilometers before he told me to go ahead.

At the last 5 kilometers, it was time for me to speed it up. I wanted to finish strong and I wanted at least a good negative split. When the runpix results were released, I was ecstatic reading "DURING THE LAST 6 KMS, YOU PASSED 576 RUNNERS, AND 0 PASSED YOU." Exactly my plan. I may not have done my sub-2 goal (I finished in 2:09), but I finished strong nonetheless.

RACE OBSERVATIONS:
- Shuttle buses were very efficient, but a bit late than the announced 2:30am pick-up start. I like that they're showing videos of previous Unilab Run United races. It was sort of building up the excitement more for that day's race.
- Waves were implemented. However, I hope next time, they'd check estimated/target finish times of runners so that waves could be more organized - with faster runners being released first, and bibs color-coded for waves. Not sure if this is too much to ask though on a logistics-perspective, but I've seen this being implemented on overseas race events.
- I love the race route. Point A to Point B races are really a breath of fresh air for runners.
- As usual, overflowing hydration.
- Medal and finisher shirt issue of RU1 no longer happened. The distribution of the finisher items are now more organized.

Thanks Active Moments for capturing this. Almost at the finish line!

Team Alpha1 group pic! Thanks to Rolly of Team Titans for lending us his camera.

Team Titan friends - Mark, Seph and Rolly

With Arvin - we paced for a few kilometers during the middle part of the race

Post-race breakfast at Gerry's Grill MoA

Runpix results

Next leg (Afroman Distance) on September 16! Mark your calendars! I can't wait to complete the medal puzzle!

#BeatCoachRio by Safeguard Active

Last June 5, Safeguard Active sponsored a unique running event in Bonifacio Global City. Coined #BeatCoachRio, this event tested the speed of runners in their attempt to beat Coach Rio's 2.3-second 20-meter dash. Runners had two chances, and their best (and fastest) would be their recorded time.

The rain did not stop runners from attending the event, and it came to a point wherein participants had to run in batches to save up time. In the end, the top 5 runners competed with Coach Rio, with JP Sabido being the ultimate runner beating our favorite coach.

Of course I did not miss the opportunity to have my pic taken with Coach Rio in the event photo booth!

With Biloggirl, Kulitrunner and Coach Rio

And of course, the usual fun hang-out with fellow bloggers!

With the bloggers (photo courtesy of Ally Lim)

Oh I forgot to mention, I did not even attempt to wear my running gear going to the event since I sort of guessed what the event will be like. I just knew I couldn't beat Coach Rio. So hats off to the one who beat him!

Philippine Air Force Anniversary Run on June 24, 2012

The Philippine Air Force, on its 65th anniversary, will be holding a fun run this 24th of June. I wasn't able to attend the launch of this event as much as I wanted to, because of work schedule conflict. I like to promote this event though, as my dad's a retired Colonel of PAF.

WHAT: Philippine Air Force Anniversary Run
WHEN: June 24, 2012 (Sunday)
WHERE: McKinley Hill, Taguig City

Race Categories, Registration Fees and Gun Start Times

REGISTRATION CENTERS:
- Venice Piazza, McKinley Hill
- Riovana BGC Branch
- Riovana Katipunan Branch
- ROX BGC
- Physical Fitness Gym, Villamor Air Base

Singlet Design

RACE MAPS 

 

 

For more inquiries, you may contact Joar Calvadores at 09266829312.

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!

And the RU2 Free Race Kit Winners Are...

Congratulations to the following people for winning Run United 2 free race kits:

• Loyce Nunez (10k)
• Ederlina Magdaraog (5k)
• Kenneth Clem Araneta (10k)
• Calvin Cain Ramirez (10k)
• Nathan Aceron (5k)
• Marivic Viray (10k)
• Sherwin Cordero (10k)
• Elvin Mendoza (10k)
• Hyde Aceron (5k)
• Charles Darwin Villanueva (10k)

Expect an email regarding instructions on when and where you could claim your race kits.

Non-registered runners still have a chance to head to their nearest RU2 registration centers until June 10, 2012.

Special thanks to Coach Rio Dela Cruz and Vima Mendoza (Kulitrunner) for this contest opportunity!

See you guys on June 17! I'm excited!

Promo: Free Unilab Run United 2 Race Kits

With a few days left before the much-awaited Unilab Run United 2 event, everyone's getting more excited. The biggest number of 21k runners and the anticipated race expo are just some of the things I'm looking forward to.

And for some lucky readers, I'm doing a quick contest. I have 10 free race kits to give away - for 10k, 5k, 3k or 500m dash categories. NOTE: 21k category is already sold-out!

Just leave a comment on this blog entry with the following details:

• Full name
• Category of your choice (10k, 5k, 3k or 500m dash)
• email address

You have until June 6, 10am to submit your entry. One entry per person only please. Winners will be announced on the same day and further instructions will be provided to the winners on how they could claim their race kits.

See you on June 17! Keep on running!

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UPDATE: June 6, 2012 10:30AM Contest is officially closed.  Thanks for joining!

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Disappointing C5 Half Marathon Event

Having joined the AXN Runs Philippines last year, I only had high expectations from Finishline's C5 Half Marathon event. This year's event got me sold with the nice finisher shirt and cool-looking finisher medal (which are the only positive things I could say about the event, honestly). Sad to say though, the organizers did not focus on the more important race event aspects.

RACE KIT DELIVERY DISASTER. Whenever registering for a race wherein I don't get the race kit instantly, I feel there's always a risk of something going wrong. The registration form clearly stated race kit deliveries will be made from May 21-25 (Monday to Friday). My race kit arrived May 26. A lot of registered participants were anxiously waiting for their kits to arrive. I read forums with a lot of irate runners who have not received theirs. There were even threats of reporting Finishline to DTI (which is already too much, I think). My Team Alpha1 running teammate Daves never got his kit delivered. There's a lot of finger-pointing happening - with Finishline blaming courier IRIS for not being able to handle the deliveries and IRIS saying kits were sent in late by Finishline, hence the delays. Now who's saying the truth?

RACE DAY, BAD DAY. While waiting for our gun start, there was an announcement from the host that there would be a race briefing from the race director Vince Mendoza. It turned out that the race route has been changed last minute. And it's not just any minor modification, mind you. Instead of the promised published race route (same as AXN's last year which covered a long stretch of the C5 road), 21k runners will only be running a shortened path of the C5 road, and will have to do two loops! WHAT THE HELL! I did not sign-up for this! This event should have been called "Half C5, Half Marathon!" I'm not sure if it's cost-cutting on the organizer's part, not being able to meet the quota runners. But then again, it even made me question more if the 1000-peso registration fee I shelled out was worth it. [SPECIAL MENTION: Dead rat at km3. 21k runners had to bear passing this big dead rat 4 times due to the race loops. I wish I had my camera with me so that I could post a pic of that rat here. Haha! Off-topic.]

At the km17 water station, cups ran out. I had to use the water container lid just to hydrate. I even heard plastic cups were just being recycled by the marshals.

Action shot - Deemen and Sprintingswine

I'm still hoping Finishline will be able to release an official statement regarding the events that transpired. A public apology perhaps? Now's the perfect time to do damage control, else they'll lose runners on their succeeding events. It's just so disappointing that they're falling way back as far as race organizing is concerned. Expensive yes, but so not worth it.

post-race. waiting for Daves. holding the "memorable" finisher medal.

post-race breakfast at Shakey's. (from L-R: barefootdaves, deemen, romp, [alpha-in-the-making] redcapguy, sprintingswine)

By the way, I'd like to thank my teammate Jesy for pushing me to finish the race. He paced me during the 2nd loop. I came all the way from Laguna for a company outing, drove straight to Ortigas at the wee hours of Sunday morning without any sleep whatsoever. He was literally pushing me during the uphills. Sorry Sprintingswine for ruining your fast race records. 

The graph below shows my abysmal race performance. 

C5 marathon race performance stats

Next race: Brooks Run Happy on June 3. Hoping for a better race experience there.

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UPDATE:

OFFICIAL STATEMENT FROM FINISHLINE

Dear Runners,


First of all, I like to apologize for the inconvenience last weekends race may have caused.


I’d like to take this opportunity to share with you the stories behind the several issues. The intention is not to justify any of them.


Registration Fee is too high –
We’ve always wanted runners to experience challenging course like running at C5. Unlike last year, this year’s C5 Half Marathon was funded by us runners. All the expenses from staging of the race, producing the technical tees, timing chip are all paid for by the participants and us organizers. In many big races, these costs are taken cared of by the sponsors. We set the registration fee at the current level for us to cover your requirements including staging, delivery cost, manpower, cost of sports drinks, water, imported medals, imported singlet and finisher shirt fabrics. There is not a single cash sponsor. We are grateful for those sponsors who donated their products as prizes and freebies. We are very thankful for them.


Early deadline for regular registration
The reason why set the registration deadline early is for us to produce the size you prefer and only the quantity that is needed. This is again related to us not having any corporate sponsors who normally pay in advance the production of singlet, medal, finish shirts, and operating expenses.


Delivery of race kits
For the runner’s convenience, we decided to have the kits delivered to all metro manila residing runners. It was however unfortunate that we tapped a courier whose operation was not designed to handle our requirements.


Last Saturday, I had to personally visit our courier’s office at 1:00AM to check how many kits are still pending for delivery. At this point, I had to make the decision to pull out the remaining kits and have it picked up instead.


Missing Race Kits
RUNNR has always been a very supportive partner. We are responsible for all the runners who paid for this event regardless whether we received your payment from our registration site or not. This is the reason why we decided to give out race kits despite not having received payments and entry forms.


Change in race route
The changes in race route were decided only last May 25 after our last coordination meeting with different government agencies. Unlike last year, our gun start for half marathon this year is earlier. The uneven road condition along Eastwood combines with unrepaired lamp post pose a danger to many runners.


We were supposed to announce it last Saturday (May 26) but we were consumed with addressing the race kit delivery concerns.


Late gun start
I have to make sure that the roads are all clear before starting the race. I made a decision to delay the gun start until all vehicles passing through C5 are re-routed. I hope you understand that C5 is such a major road and closing it sometimes takes more effort.


Lining up at the finisher shirt tent
We allotted two tents for the finisher shirt tents, one for regular and one for late registration. All regular registered participants were supposed to get their preferred size (bib with R) in one tent while late registrants (bib with L) sizes are on a first come first serve basis at the other tent. Because we released new race number to those who were not able to claim their kits, this caused confusion to many. Runners who originally assigned a different race number is now wearing a new one which may not match the race number in the finisher shirt. Nevertheless, we were prepared for this and had extra tees unlike last year.


15km short by 3km
After investigating, I personally found out that it was indeed our marshal who directed the 15km runners to take the u-turn during the first loop.


Race Results
Please give us time until tomorrow to release the results. We are in the process of consolidating the changed in race numbers, especially to those who were given new race numbers during the race.


We hope that you will continue to support us as we strive to be better in all aspects of our race.


Sincerely,
Vincent Mendoza

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