Goldilocks 21km: Glad to be back

2:29.

I was surprised with my time as I stopped the timer on my stopwatch approaching the Goldilocks FunRun 21km finish line. The clock on the finish arc showed 2:26, mine showed 2:29. Guessing that they haven't adjusted the timer since we were sent off 2+ minutes before the actual gun time, I came to realize that the time on my stopwatch was correct.

I almost didn't make it to sub-2:30.

Since I didn't have my 305 back from repair, I had to rely on my stopwatch and press 'lap' on km5, 10, and 15 to oversee my pace. The recorded laps were as below:

• km1-5: 34:30
• km6-10: 34:00
• km11-15: 34:00
• km16-21: 46:00

I was still on 2:22-2:24 pace by km15. After analyzing what went wrong, I arrived at the following:

1. Blister. I opted to wear the VFF Bikilas over the Brooks Green Silence. I haven't ran in the Bikilas for more than 8km at any run. Perhaps the lure of my last cruise interval workout encouraged me to go for speed over safety. The result was a 1-peso-coin-sized blister under my big left toe in km10 which forced me to go to the side of the road. The stop had caused me 1-2mins and perhaps cautioned me to slow my pace
2. The absence of my Garmin305 (still under repair) made me neglect my pace-monitoring duties after km15. The last leg showed I was at a 7:40/km average pedestrian pace, admittedly since I was more concentrated in overtaking the walkers struggling to finish the race. Maybe if I had my 305 beeping my per-km splits, my performance would've been different.

Still, I needed the 21km mileage and it was great to be racing a half-marathon again after such a long time. Seeing a lot of runners (1,600+) joining the 21km event, it seems that many 10k runners have "leveled-up." This was pretty obvious from the Buendia turnaround point, when many newbies (I presume) were found walking by the wayside, perhaps not obedient in following their long run schedule. To be honest, I was actually LOVING the feeling of overtaking them one by one from Buendia all the way to the finish.

A note as well on the Bikilas. Although the blister experience is something that needs to be addressed (wearing Injinji socks perhaps?), I LOVED them as I trudged the uphills. Forgive me for being vocal, pero PANIS yung mga uphills ---as in I never walked. Probably it being lightweight proved pivotal for me to conquer the Kalayaan flyover and the 5th avenue approach to the last turnaround. It was just unfortunate that the blister happened.

Obviously, the 2:29 (2:28:22 chip time) result is something that I need to improve on. Let's see how it goes this year.

Congrats again to RunRio for an excellent, well-organized race!