I was still in bed when I fumbled for my phone and looked at the time: 5:20am.
"AHHHGHHH!!!! I'm going to miss the 5:30am gunstart!"
This race was not planned but seeing that "Pahabol" racekit giveaway by Gingerbreadman made me trigger-happy into keying in my comments for a chance of a free racekit (I actually wrote the first comment). 10 or so comments later, I was surprised to find out that I won (naaah, I was actually certain I would win coz I was the first to comment. Call it vibe since I've NEVER won anything online before). Thanks Luis!
This wasn't the first time I woke up late. I actually missed the Takbo.ph 10k race and another 5k race in QC some months back. That was bye-bye reg fee for me.
Fortunately last Sunday, we slept just a kilometer or so away from the starting line so, in 10 minutes, I was able to grab my stuff and scamper off to McKinley Hill. Needless to say that my 10k race started from the condo.
I ran to the starting arc and was relieved that they were still performing warmups. But then "they" turned out to be the 5k runners. The 10k runners had left X minutes ago!
Yes I put X since the timer at the top of the arc was off, thus I couldn't tell exactly how many minutes late I was. Worse case could be 10-15minutes. YIKES!
Without any warmup/stretching and my 305 taking too long to look for a signal, I turned off my Garmin and just started my race.
McKinley Hill, or Magneto as I fondly called it, is a hard climb if you start all the way from the C5 intersection at the bottom. This was the first section of the 10k. I was able to see the 10k pack climbing up as I was just starting my descent. Sheesh! Damn late.
Calling any race hilly in the McKinley-Lawton-Bayani route is an understatement. This route can really squash any dreams of a PR. I may have made a mistake of wearing my already-worn Newtons for this race (the 4th lug towards the outside of both shoes had worn out since my purchase of it last July) since I found it difficult to adjust to the hills.
The course was well-managed. There were plenty of water stations since another race, the BGC Run, went along the Lawton-Bayani route too. I was able to grab a banana from one of the BGC water stations as I left Heritage Park, just across the Libingan ng mga Bayani entrance.
I was really out of it on the way down to Mckinley, i.e. started to walk-run. Sprinting immediately from the condo to the race site, no warm-up and stretching had finally taken its toll on my hill-battered listless running form.
I reached the finish at 1:18+ gun time. Again, I wasn't sure how many minutes I was late but I think my "chip-time" could've been around 1:05-1:15. I guess I'll never know for sure exactly, but that was surely a forgettable race for me.
I hope to recover in time for my next race this coming Sunday, QCIM2, wherein I've volunteered to be a pacer for a 2:30 21km finish. I hope to do better there.
Actually, I just hope to be there.....on time!!! :D
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