kilometer 159: Auto Review Run

I woke up at 4:30 in the morn­ing last Sun­day for the 3rd Auto Review Run for Road Safety and Courtesy.

What a long title. Any­way, for sim­plic­ity I’ll just refer it as the Auto Review Run.

I was think­ing of set­ting a 10k per­sonal record, but the dreaded McKin­ley Hill + Law­ton Ave + Bayani Road + Her­itage Park route may not be the best place for set­ting a PR. Any­way, I was just plan­ning to main­tain a 5 min/km pace all through out.

I arrived just in time, some twenty min­utes more before the gun start. The National Anthem was sang by the emcees, good voices by the way. A sim­ple prayer was also said before the race.

Well, you see, I’m really not that reli­gious or spir­i­tual or any­thing like it. But I do say a lit­tle prayer every­time before run­ning a race. It goes some­thing like: Dear God, keep us safe and strong. Amen.

The emcee also intro­duced the youngest and old­est run­ners, a 3 and a 91 year old. Wow! I admired the old man who was also a WWII vet­eran as he was one of the sur­vivors of the Bataan Death March. He doesn’t look like his age.

Also, at the cor­ral I saw one of my block­mates in col­lege. It was nice to see him. He said some­thing about going for an 11 as his run­ning pace. That’s 11 km/hr. Ok. Let’s try that.

Gun start. My block­mate zoomed. I tried zoom­ing also, but I was afraid of hurt­ing my left knee again so I just ran easy. So it was some sort of a warm up until the first water station.

I gulped two cups of cold water and grad­u­ally increased my pace. I did feel com­fort­able with that rel­a­tively fast pace. I felt like it was around 4:50 to 5:00.

Looks like the weekly road races and gym work­outs are pay­ing off now. I felt strong and com­fort­able run­ning the hills. I am also get­ting famil­iar with the route in Fort Boni­fa­cio, which guides me in my run­ning strategy.

I crossed the fin­ish line at 51 min­utes and um-teen sec­onds. Not a PR but unlike the pre­vi­ous 10k runs at The Fort, there was no knee prob­lems now. That’s good! I know, I’m get­ting better.

After the run, while I was stretch­ing, some gen­tle­man approached me and asked about what kind of stretch is appro­pri­ate for his legs. Our post race stretch­ing lead to some talks about run­ning. It was his sec­ond run, as he and his wife did enjoy run­ning 5k at the pre­vi­ous Botak run. I think, he’s strong for a sub 30 first time 5k fin­isher. Also, I told him that I learned those stretches and run­ning tech­niques from the Team Bald Run­ner Run­ning Clinic.

Run and Go Home
I took a light meal at McDon­alds, chicken fil­let meal + choco sun­dae for 75 pesos, before head­ing home. Yes, that’s me reward­ing myself.

I slept for around 2 hours.

I was late for a team teach with my men­tor at MOA. I just let it pass, there’s Tues­day any­way. Ate lunch around 12 noon. And went out again for the cycling class at FF Manila. I did promise Kiko that I’ll be join­ing them for the get-together after the class.

I was also sur­prised with myself that I did not say no on the invi­ta­tion. Any­way, it was nice meet­ing new set of peo­ple. We ate a bunch of deli­cious food, watched the High na Kho! videos, shared a lot of sto­ries, drank Lights and Abso­lut, and laughed out loud even on our way home.

And yes, that was me run­ning and work­ing out for tomorrow’s hangover.

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