Racing in the Rain

I probably was one of the many who wondered whether this race would push through as it has been raining since Friday evening. At 4:30AM, I figured that I’d be running in the rain and so I prepared for it by bandaging my feet to keep me from getting blisters. I just read from another runner’s blog that running with wet socks and shoes can cause blisters.

I got to The Fort at around 5:25AM. I was happy to see that there was already a good number of racers gathered and warming up for the race. I met up with Jen and Meng at the parking lot and we proceeded to the check-in area. They decided to go to portalets first while I tried to do the stretching and warm-up exercises led by a couple of Fitness First Instructors.

Shortly after, I approached Jen and Meng as it appeared that they had a problem since they were in the middle of the field looking down at their shoes. It turns out that a small portion of the rubber sole of Jen’s shoes was peeling off. Not having an extra pair of shoes to wear, Jen just peeled them off and we went into our respective check-in area.

I decided to do some limbering exercises while waiting for the start of the race. I positioned myself around 5 rows from the front. I was just thinking about what happened to me when I started at the back in the Condura Race last March where I had a difficult time passing slower runners in front of me. Anyway, there were some familiar faces, but then none that I knew personally.

The race started on time and I began running at my usual race pace. I noticed that many people were passing me by and so I started to worry that perhaps it's been such a long time since my last race that everybody improved their performance except me. Well, it's probably more likely that I had situated myself too far in front. After 15 minutes of running, I felt that everyone was running at a pace faster than mine so I increased my pace to keep up, but soon after I started to feel my legs get tired. I had decided to forego the first water station as I felt that I didn’t need it yet. When I got to the Kalayaan Flyover, I decided to slow down as I could feel my leg muscles start to complain.

I was a bit surprised to see that the turn around point for the 8 mile route was much further away than the Makati Post Office, as shown in the race map. Nevertheless, I just kept running. It turns out that the route reached the train tracks near South Super Highway before turning back. By this time, I was really tired, but I just paced myself and told myself to just keep running.

The items offered at some support stations were interesting. Some had Jello, Bananas, Chocolates and I even heard from someone that a station was giving out ice cubes. Another station was giving out Coke instead of water so I just declined the offer.

When I got back to the Kalayaan Flyover, I couldn’t take it anymore so I walked on the way up. I was brisk walking upward to conserve strength. When the it leveled off at the top of the Flyover, I started running again. Before I knew it, the finish line was in sight and soon it would all be over. I clocked in at 1:18:31.

I remembered to drop my raffle stub in the box provided and then I made my way to the water station. My legs were quite sore as I could feel that I may have pushed it a bit too far. After drinking a bottle of Rush at the parking lot, Jen, Meng and I decided to hang around and see what was at the booths. There weren’t any freebies except for the IE8 software so we decided to hang around to see who would win the Mizuno GCs, the Microsoft Zune, the HTC Cellphone or the HP minibook.

The race was actually a great experience. This was my first time racing in the rain. Too bad we all forgot to bring a camera because now, we don't a single picture to show for it.