Men's Health All-Terrain Race

The 12K Men's Health All-Terrain Race was my second run event for the year and probably the toughest and most difficult course I will run this year. The event was held in the countryside of low lying mountains of San Mateo, Rizal, an hour's drive from Metro Manila. The format was a steep uphill climb on pavement on the first 2-3 kilometers, then followed by rolling terrain that includes running on both dry and muddy dirt tracks. Then running on gravel road before going through another uphill run with a scenic countryside below as backdrop. There was also beautiful short run on landscape full of grass and trees before you hit the final leg of the race. Finally, there was the steep downhill race to the finish line.

I thought it was a good race, considering I haven't train for this type of race format. I clocked a respectable 1:08:18 for the 12K all-terrain run. I also finished strong so I'm quite happy with my performance. Those 10Ks I've running last two weeks helps, it build my endurance for those uphill climbs.

Now for some pet peeve. I couldn't decide if I would have been better off using trail shoes rather than my running shoes. I have pair of Merrell shoes that would have been better suited on the trail run and definitely easier on gravel road, but would have been awkward to use initial uphill race (3-4K) and the downhill (1.5K) race since both are running on pavement. On the other hand, those trail run are really dicey, easy to sprain your ankle on those trails. And I hate to ruin a pair of good running shoes. I also had to walk on the last hill climb :-(

Overall, the race was well-organized event, complete with race marshals, water stations every 2 kilometers or so, distance markers along the trail, and bonus points for the scenery, the view was spectacular at the top.
I'll wait for the race result to be posted on their web site.

Kudos to Men's Health for organizing the event and well done!

Coming up next, the Mizuno Rush to Infinity Run event.

Posing at the finish line.

Hello World!

My foray to brave new world of blogging!

By and large, this will be running-theme blog, I'll also post some of the technical stuff I do (open-source, Python, techie stuff unrelated to) sort of reference material for me, but for most part, this will be about my running and how to keep myself motivated. I procrastinate a lot :-( so blogging seems like a good idea.

I run mostly outdoor (or used to) but this year I just sort of became lazy, nowadays I mostly just go to the gym, use the treadmill once every two weeks. Sad indeed. But then a stroke of fate, my sister saw an ad for the Market! Market! Fun Run. Long story short, I run at the event and got back my groove for running outdoors. At the time, blogging was still farthest from my mind, but I kept trying to think of a way to keep me motivated, I was afraid that I might slide back to my old ways of putting things off if I can't come up with something that will keep me running religiously. Then while trying to google for the next race, I chance upon a couple of local blogs on running, I thought they were hip, savvy, and cool. And then voilà, why not blog? But then, I don't know a thing about blogging, and my writing experience is mostly limited to work emails, so I'm thinking... I'm nuts. Ahh, but I do love to run (love conquers all diba, hehe) and it can't be all that bad and I may not be up to any award-winning blogs but I'm sure it could be learn/develop. So I thought, just give it a go and see how it goes, blogging sound like a killer idea, it would be a shame not to give it a try. And so here's to wonderful world of blogging, may the force be with me :-)

Here's the run that started it all, with my nephew CJ.