kaladkarin: n. one who can be quickly convinced to join a trip or activity

I think you can guess what happened after my back-to-back races — I rested hard. I went to Boracay on All Saints’ weekend and absolutely did not schedule any running. There wasn’t room in my bag for my Lara Croft boots and running shoes, and I think you know which one won out.

I wouldn’t be running this weekend either, if a friend who works for ABS-CBN hadn’t alerted me to the Philippine International Marathon: A Run for the Pasig River. Apparently, most of my friends who had run Race For Life 2009 would be there as well. No, not the full 42 kilometers of a marathon (except for Pastor Ferdie Cabiling, the senior pastor for Victory Ortigas). So, on the very last day of registration I agreed to join them all at the start line at Quirino Grandstand this Sunday. Oh boy. I’ve been teaching my exercise classes all week, but haven’t run at all. Good luck to me!

The good thing about this race is it’s not held at the Fort. Seriously, there is only one good 10K route there (but it also involves Buendia and Makati CBD), and it’s been used twice: by Globe and by Adidas. I want to see different sights! The 42K runners at the PIM will cross 9 bridges over Pasig River. There’s even a marathon relay event where groups of 40 runners will run the route (roughly 1 kilometer per runner). Takbo.ph has a contingent, which would have been a great alternative to running 10K all by myself if I had known about it earlier.

The one thing about this race I’m unsure of is its organizer. R.A.C.E. has organized good race events in the past, but its most recent one was the Adidas King of the Road, and that didn’t turn out too well — faulty race kit distribution, long lines at the finish chutes, and now inaccurate official results which are posted only on the Adidas Philippines Facebook fan page. I am hoping that PIM will be different and much better, although my experience with races all throughout this latter half of the year is that there has always been one issue or another. My smoothest race experiences have been with Globe and Race for Life, and even those had some hurdles to jump.

Side note: I used the Race for Life gift certificates I won to buy a pair of cropped running tights from Nike. I’m using those for PIM and I hope they make me run faster! LOL

Tags: Running, Pasig River, Philippine International Marathon

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