Smash and Run - A Good Race

Today August 30, 2009 is a day of road races all over metro Manila and even on the provinces. You have races at Fort Bonifacio, UP Diliman, MOA, and Greenhills Shopping Center. In the province, you have it Bacolod City and another place I just cannot recall at this time.




For reasons that it is nearest to my place and that the race route is new, I have selected the SMASH & RUN sponsored by Greenhills Shopping Center and Sun Cellular. There were three categories in the race the 10K, 5K and the 3K.
I arrived at Greenhills Shopping Center at 5am. Parking was not a problem as GSC has so many parking spaces available. To my great surprise, the parking fee was waived for all runners who were to park from 5-9am.




As announced during the opening ceremony, the sponsors mentioned that there were 1000 registered participants. I think half of the number would be for the 10K and the 5K and 3K splitting the other half. It was a modest running event considering there were three other running event close by and on the same time and day. The starting gun was sounded at 5:55am or 5 minutes earlier than what was published. Another good surprise was that the race was well supported by the security staff of GSC they being a sponsor and so with the numerous MMD traffic personnel. Honestly, I have not seen so many MMDA and local traffic personnel of San Juan on other races that I have joined in the past.

There were sufficient water stations along the way. Due to the limited number of participants and the great number of traffic enforcers, keeping the vehicular traffic along the route was good. Of course, as in any venue you will have one or two motorist with “wang wang” trying to move ahead of the traffic and some jeepney drivers along Ortigas Avenue whose faces awere not so happy to see that there was a road race ongoing.



On the 7th km distance, a female runner suffered cramps. She was assisted instantly by two MMDA traffic enforcer who immediately radioed for the ambulance. On my way back, or about 5 minutes after, I met the ambulance and hopefully the down runner has been assisted. I pray that it is nothing serious.

Overall, SMASH & RUN was handled properly. My CONGRATULATIONS to the sponsors and the race organizers. Participation to the race did suffer because of the other races being held at Fort Bonifacio, MOA, and UP DIliman. Maybe one of these days somebody from PATAFA should limit the number of races to be held simultaneously to maybe two events at a time maximum.

Lastly, I wish to congratulate members of the Bald Runners Elite Team, who placed prominently in the different categories. Gerard Sabal won the 1st place for Men's 10K and Crifrankreadel Indapan for 2nd place Men's 10K. The Women 10K was won by Marecil Maquilan. Other members placed as well on the top 10 for both the Men and Women category.






Another great Sunday morning!