10km Men's Health Run 29 Mar 2009 (Philippines)

Men Health Run late run report...

Credits of photos goes to NY, one of our colleagues.

 

This was my second run in Philippines - it was at the university of philippines.  For more pictures, please see my facebook photos. 

Firstly big big thanks to paparazzi NY who joined myself and one other colleague JS in the run.  This was really the first run where I was pampered with someone dedicated to take photos!  (Although our photographer was distracted along the way by the sponsors and organisers.. more later)...

 The run was held in the University of Philippines, Diliman campus.  Though I've been away from studies for a long long time, it was good to see other countries university campus - and what more better way than to run on the campus!

I signed up for the race together with JS (her first run in philippines).  The interesting thing about this race was... it was sponsored by a condom manufacturer - Frenzy (a local brand).  On close inspection of the event vest, the big condom logo is on the back!  So just in excitement, we thought, well, this run will be filled with big macho looking guys... (hahah).  As it turns out as well, on the same day, there was another event which was a women's only run.  Oh well...

The race was supposed to start at 6am.  When we were checking how long it would take to get to the campus, the apartment supervisor where we stayed told us, around 1 hr!!!  And one other local runner told us 45 mins!!!  So, we thought, well, lets play it safe, go at around 445 am?  Guess what... we reached in 15 mins... so we were staring in the dark at 5am +, they were still hanging the starting line stuff, and my paparazzi had time to learn how to take photos on a DSLR!!!!

The race started finally at 620am.  It was two 5km loops around the campus main grounds - the campus was actually a very nicely shaded area, where later I found out many came to run on weekends as well.  The course was pretty decent. the water station a bit poor in manning.  

I had a new pair of shades (my first!!) because of the prior week's condura run, I realised running in the sun was really too glaring for the eyes.  The shades were Rudy Project (sound cool already?) and meant more for cyclists.  After procuring the shades on the day before, when I arrived at the starting line of this race, I realised a lot of people loved to show off shades on their head... haha.  Actually, I was a bit uncomfortable with the shades during the race, there was a distance differential - I felt shorter when I put it on.  So I alternated on and off...

Finally, the story of our paparazzi - during the first loop he disappeared and was busy taking pictures with the girls (the ones selling condoms)...!!!  Its funny, they were selling photos and giving away condom tattoos... etc.

All in, a pretty good race.  Did not train much, and after condura, I learnt to enjoy the new "discover philippines" whilst running... I did 1:07, decent time for a very relaxed race... 

As you would see - not many people in the race... and mostly men!!!