In lieu of attending the Condura Skyway Marathon yesterday, I chose to attend a local 5k race sponsored by a nearby Church (Mt. Carmel, QC) called "Takbo Mo, Dasal Mo" (or TMDM for short) which featured a 3km walk/run and 5k run. The registration fee was at a modest P350.00 which consisted of a singlet, racebib, and an armband.
The armband, as seen above, allows you to put a piece of paper where you write your prayer petition which will be dropped off into a box at the finish area after your race. The prayer petitions are then sent to a sisters' monastery where it will be prayed over for a month. That in itself, is well worth the registration fee.
This is not your typical RunRio race. This is a hometown, small time race where the main goal is for everyone to have fun. The race attendance was probably around 400, inclusive for both 3k and 5k categories. With race marshals being the local barangay tanod, and post race giveaways being a bottle of energy drink, a banana, and a hard-boiled egg inside a paper bag, the race was simplicity in itself.
ONTO THE RACE
The race was scheduled to start at 7am but we were launched at close to 7:20am. No biggie here as the 5k run will be very short to worry about the heat (although there never was such an issue in this race, except for a young female elite who fainted along km2 probably due to over-exertion. She was sitting up and fine when I saw her inside the ambulance at the finish area). As I didn't exactly train for this one, my goal was simply to finish below sub-30 (good) or if fate allows, finish between 26-28 minutes and beat my PR (excellent). I also wanted to see how much of the pace I can take out there without actually losing steam or bonking.
At the start of the race, I darted off to move away from the crowd. I felt light in the first few hundred meters but was very conscious of my pace effort so as not to run out of air. It was like this for the first 2kms.
km1 - 5:11
km2 - 5:08
I was surprised to have logged very fast initial laps. As there were 3 more kms to go (and no water stops available), I had to maintain composure so as not to lose fuel. Basically I backed off a little on the gas pedal since I knew that there was a long climb up ahead as this was my usual training route. Km3 logged at about 5:15.
My fast efforts from km1-2 came back to haunt me as I found myself slightly drifting at km4 (5:20). As I made the second to the last turn for the finish, it became obvious that this race will be short of the required 5km distance by 600m. The last 400m averaged at 5:29/km pace, obviously showing my difficulty to maintain my start pace.
Garmin finish time was at 23:46 for 4.40km. If I added my 5:29/km pace to complete 5km, my finish time would've been around sub-27 ---a 5km PR!
ENDURANCE REQUIRED
I'm a little disappointed with the race organizers since they didn't get the distance right. However, the race was for a good cause so I won't go hard on them on this one. The important thing is that I was able to see myself perform at a good pace, although endurance (VO2Max?) needs a lot of improvement. This is probably the result of my lack of mid and long easy runs that has been replaced lately by bike rides. A good wake up call for me to get the endurance part back on track, especially now that I'm looking at running half and fulls again.
