Run United 2 - 16000 Runners

Today 21Aug11 as early as 3am all roads were leading to Bonifacio Global City (BGC) for the Run United 2 which is the 2^nd Leg of the Runrio Trilogy. The event marks also the 4^th year of RUNRIO in organizing local road races who are primariy one of if not the main driving factor in the popularity of running in the Philippines today which has never had it as big as what it is now.

In 2007 when Runrio did their first race event there were only1888 registered runners which at that time was already considered a big crowd. Today, after 4 years Run United 2 generated 16000 registered runners (21k/3500 10k/5000 5k/3k/500m/balance). For a single day event I think this number is something for the records. In this magnitude of participants a major factor is crowd management which I would like to congratulate RUNRIO to have a done a good job in making sure of safety and orderliness during the event.

Participants that joined the event have their own individual reasons for picking up the sport of running. Whatever they may be, it is still a step forward for the well being of each individual person. What has fascinated me were the smile and glow in the faces of the participants and even the non-participants who came along to see their family and/or friends.

As I was entered in the 10k event I was able to watch the gun start for the 21k which was a sight to behold with all 3500 runners just for the 21k event. The 10k event due to the number has reached 5000 the gun start was in two waves starting from 5:30am and folowed 3 minutes after for safety reasons. This was followed by the 5k/3k/ and the 500m events for kids.

I completed my 10k event in an unofficial time of 01h11m51s and a ton of joy in my heart to share the road with the different runners in all walks of life.

Happy 4^th anniversary to RUNRIO and may you continue to deliver world class road races in the Philippines.

Run and Leap - Making a Difference

This weekend was another of those small scale running event for awhortwhile cause, for the benefit of OLOLH CHARITY PATIENTS. Our Lady Of Lourdes Hospital Medical Staff Organization, Inc. sponsored a ( click on distance to see route) 3K  a 5K and a 10K run and and organized by Run For Change.

The venue was at Venice Piazza, Mckinley Hill, Taguig City. When I arrived the venue at around 5am officers of the sponsoring organization were already on the stage and providing the needed informations to participants and encouraging words to set the tempo before the gunstart. There were welcoming speeches, prayers and aerobic warm up to liven the crowd. At 6am the 10K event was gun started and followed in intervals by the 5K and 3K events.

I would like to congratulate the organizers for a sucessful and well organized event. For possible improvement in future the following could be improved, correct positioning of the distance markers which were not consistent to the actual distances. In particular,  the 6km marker and the 7km marker was less than 0.5km apart and the total 10km distance was short being only 9.81km. However, marshalling on street junctions, hydration stations were well handled. Again, for a non commercialized road race it was a success.

I completed by 10k (9.81km by my Garmin 310xt) after 01h12m53s it was a struggle on my part considering the route was hilly comparative to the usual BGC route and that the race started already at 6am which brought about temperature at 28F by 7am considering the clear skies.

Conratulations to OLOLH Medical Staff Organization, Inc. - you made a diffenece.