The bedside clock displayed 5:35am as I woke up Saturday morning.
Ugh! I woke up late!
The previous night's race preparations for Saturday's Figaro 10k went all for naught as I overslept, due to the long drive from QC to Nasugbu and back to attend the wake of my officemate's Dad there. I had no driver-reliever so I drove 3hrs to Nasugbu, then 5 hours back (because of the traffic and stopovers).
It might've been good as well since my body was obviously not conditioned to race that Saturday. Still dead tired and groggy, I went back to sleep.
I found out later in the day thru my batchmate that the 5km loop of the race only measured 4.44km according to his miCoach. Tsk tsk...
Thanks to takbo.ph's List of Races, I was able to find a race for the next day: The St. Luke's Hospital QC Urology Alumni 3k/5k for P300.00. Knowing the pros and cons of a cheap reg-fee, I still decided to sign up since these legs were aching to race (my last race was the Aug.1 Rexona Run 5k). A sub-30 5k dream must be achieved. Further, this race was just a 5-minute drive from home so even if I wake up at 5:35am, I can still make it to the the 6:10am gun-time.
Sunday morning I was relaxed as I arrived in St. Luke's QC. I felt that sub-30 was imminent, despite being awestruck by the presence of the mighty Kenyans warming up (yes, even for a small race such as this, they were THERE!).
The attendance was around less than 300 combined for the 3k and 5k runners. The gun went off a few minutes late, but that was ok.
By the middle of the 2nd kilometer I felt that sub-30 was going to be impossible at this point due to two reasons. One, the race course was laid with calf-killers: hills. It was like Botak Baguio without the cool breeze and elevation. I started with 5:30 on km1 and succumbed to 6:20 by km4. Hill-training is still my achilles' heel (hehe).
The second reason was that the race distance, similar to Figaro Run the day before, was short. My 305 measured it at a measly 4.21km. Despite my finish time of 25:33, the 6:05/km average pace made me conclude that even if the race was exactly 5km, I won't be able to reach sub-30.
Yup, I'll have to make hill-training mandatory in my training from here on in.
So what's up with these two races (Figaro and St. Lukes) and their route-distances (4.44km and 4.21km), right? I feel that it's an essential part of each race that the distance should be damn accurate. Be it a P550.00 or P300.00 registration fee, the distance MUST be accurate.
Am I right or am I right?
So please do better next time and, for my part, I will do better with the hills, too.
Deal?
Ugh! I woke up late!
The previous night's race preparations for Saturday's Figaro 10k went all for naught as I overslept, due to the long drive from QC to Nasugbu and back to attend the wake of my officemate's Dad there. I had no driver-reliever so I drove 3hrs to Nasugbu, then 5 hours back (because of the traffic and stopovers).
It might've been good as well since my body was obviously not conditioned to race that Saturday. Still dead tired and groggy, I went back to sleep.
I found out later in the day thru my batchmate that the 5km loop of the race only measured 4.44km according to his miCoach. Tsk tsk...
***
Thanks to takbo.ph's List of Races, I was able to find a race for the next day: The St. Luke's Hospital QC Urology Alumni 3k/5k for P300.00. Knowing the pros and cons of a cheap reg-fee, I still decided to sign up since these legs were aching to race (my last race was the Aug.1 Rexona Run 5k). A sub-30 5k dream must be achieved. Further, this race was just a 5-minute drive from home so even if I wake up at 5:35am, I can still make it to the the 6:10am gun-time.
Sunday morning I was relaxed as I arrived in St. Luke's QC. I felt that sub-30 was imminent, despite being awestruck by the presence of the mighty Kenyans warming up (yes, even for a small race such as this, they were THERE!).
The attendance was around less than 300 combined for the 3k and 5k runners. The gun went off a few minutes late, but that was ok.
By the middle of the 2nd kilometer I felt that sub-30 was going to be impossible at this point due to two reasons. One, the race course was laid with calf-killers: hills. It was like Botak Baguio without the cool breeze and elevation. I started with 5:30 on km1 and succumbed to 6:20 by km4. Hill-training is still my achilles' heel (hehe).
The second reason was that the race distance, similar to Figaro Run the day before, was short. My 305 measured it at a measly 4.21km. Despite my finish time of 25:33, the 6:05/km average pace made me conclude that even if the race was exactly 5km, I won't be able to reach sub-30.
Yup, I'll have to make hill-training mandatory in my training from here on in.
***
So what's up with these two races (Figaro and St. Lukes) and their route-distances (4.44km and 4.21km), right? I feel that it's an essential part of each race that the distance should be damn accurate. Be it a P550.00 or P300.00 registration fee, the distance MUST be accurate.
Am I right or am I right?
So please do better next time and, for my part, I will do better with the hills, too.
Deal?
haha I initially thought of coffee and hospital's relevance! but anyway, I agree with you, for fees that high, the participants deserve to race with more or less accurate category distances. nevertheless, hope you still enjoyed your runs. nice post! :)
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