Summit CamSur Marathon (9.26.10)

Certainly, I liked the Fun Run for Ina experience. It unleashed the athlete in me. Since then, I have become a "serious" runner. I even have influenced my office buddy Simon and other friends who have seen my running photos in my Facebook account. Weeks after my first run, I learned about the Summit CamSur Marathon and other upcoming local runs such as Daralaganan sa Bombon and the Milo Marathon Naga Elimination. At Basilica compound, my mate and I started training. Actually, we were really preparing for the Milo Marathon and planned to run 10km.

On the last day of online registration, I registered still thinking twice if I was going to join. I texted my buddy to website, just in case he wanted to run. But, we finally decided to claim our race packs when I learned that my siblings, who had never joined a fun run, were joining! It meant that my first "serious" run and my mate and siblings' baptismal run was in an international event! How cool is that? Probably, it was the first time for most of the participants specially the hundreds of public school teachers and government employees in the province sponsored by the governor. At CamSur Watersports Center, we paid and claimed our singlets which I think is one of the best that I have. Supposedly, we were late registrants but the staff was so kind that she did not charge us.That afternoon before the race, I cooked half kilo of spaghetti and consumed about half of it. I also bought bananas for the next day's activity. Race day, as early as 3:30 in the morning we were off to Pili Capitol. Going to the venue, I knew there would be lots of participants based from the number of cars and jeepneys full of runners en route to CWC or Freedom Stadium. Though the organizers expected 20,000 participants and the official count was 3,000 runners short, it is still the biggest in the country as far as I know.

At Freedom Stadium oval, the starting point of 10, 5 and 3km categories, the number of runners began to swell. There were group of friends, workmates, students and public school teachers. I recognized some celebrities like Izza Calzado, Aga Muhlach and other celebrities. There were also Kenyans and other nationals. We were just behind them at the starting line as if we were elite runners!

My target time for this run was 1 hour and 30 minutes. The cut-off time in 10km in Milo Marathon which we were actually preparing for. When the gun was fired by L-Ray, I ran aiming for my target time. The first kilometer was tough! In fact, I thought of walking already before the KM1 marker but I had not seen anyone walking so I continued. I could only run one kilometer straight without walking. I did run-walk-run strategy. Good thing, water and energy drinks were sufficient. I drank in every station eventhough I brought a bottle of Gatorade.

I wore my brother's shoes, the one used in biking/trekking, without socks! In my first run, I wore walking shoes. I didn't have running shoes until Unilab Run United 2. At Km5, I had blisters. 1 hour and 17 minutes was my time.