5.24.2009

Race Review: AutoReview 10k

All my official funruns, 3 5k and 1 10k, were staged at The Fort with Boni High Street as the Start/Finish mark. I've been accustomed to the route except for my 1st 10k which included traversing the Kalayaan flyover up to Gil Puyat Avenue and back.

The AutoReview 10k race route which was to begin and end at Mckinley Hill, was my first at the said venue. It was only me and DB this time, with DB running the 5k since he said he wasn't able to prepare for a 10k race.

The race route was very challenging as seen in my NSTB elevation/speed chart below. Yup, the NSTB worked beautifully, i.e. the map, charts, and other info were completely displayed on my profile which, btw, you can view through this link.


As I said, the route was very challenging with its constantly changing elevation. The race distance measured 10.27kms as per my NSTB. Officiating and water stations were very good as well although I wished for more freebies after the race. The only freebie I got was a 10% discount coupon at the Blade store.

The only major downside to this race were the hosts on stage. The booboo was that they let the 5k runners run first before the 10k participants. This shouldn't be, especially nowadays that we experience sunrise as early as 5:30 to 5:40am. To add to the irritation while we were waiting for the 5mins wait time before the start, this one host was really into it ---really! He was in love with the mic so much that kulang na lang eh kainin nya yung mic. I think the guy was a frustrated DJ (or announcer sa karnabal or something) since he kept on talking and talking. We were all scared that he might lose track of time and forget that the 10k runners still haven't started.

The best description of the host came from one of the foreigners who joined the race (which I think was an American based on his accent) who said to his friend after, "We went inside Heritage Park and it would've been great if we had all that cloud cover but the guy up there on the stage seemed to have diarrhea of the mouth so we all started late!"

Aside from that above mishap, generally I enjoyed the race. I clocked in at 70mins ---1min slower than my Botak 10k since I had the CR problem again at the starting line. I think I wasted 2mins hoping that the McDo and Starbucks CRs were open but unfortunately were not. At the end of the race when I went to relieve myself, di naman pala ganun karami. I think it's psychological. Next time next time....

I think I also need to improve on my pacing. Based on the NSTB chart, I was pacing well up to 5-6kms but started dropping after that until the 9th km. I think I need to reprogram my strategy since it's still meant for 5k. Hinahataw ko unconsciously after the 5th km. Dapat siguro pinace ko pa din until about the 8th km, tapos dun pa lang dapat humataw.

I believe what I did right on this race is that I warmed up by jogging about 100-150meters before the race. That woke up my forever wake-up-late-then-feels-painful left calf muscle kase hindi nagwarmup. I think I should do the same in every race from now on.

My next race? If our company sportsfest gets postponed on June 7th (8.8kms in UP), I'd probably join the Mizuno Run 10k, a revisit to the Kalayaan floyver route.

Btw, I weighed 168 lbs after the race. ;-) 16 more pounds to go before I reach normal BMI. Sana tuloy2x na!

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