geffchang

It’s amazing that I completed today’s fun run, despite the negativity I was generating. I broke 2 basic rules of running (AND I do not encourage it).

1. I did not have enough sleep. For the past 3-4 days, I barely had a good night’s rest. Last night, I only had 5 hours of sleep. But still, I pushed myself to wake up when the alarm sounded at 3:15AM. I was still so tired and sleepy, and the Lipovitan did not really help. 15 minutes into the run, I was already breathing heavily. After an hour, I just wanted to drop the race, and go home and sleep. Fortunately, last night’s motivational “Never give up” success secret from an attendee at the Digital Influencers Marketing Summit slapped me in the face. If you are going to run long distance (21K, in my case), you need to have a good rest beforehand so you feel fresh, and ready to conquer the road.
2. I tried out new gear. I bought a New Balance 890 v2 during the Ayala Center Cebu sale a week ago, but didn’t try them out for a long run yet. I wore them to work, and ran 1.5K with them TWICE without any pain… until today. During the half part of the race, my left toe started to hurt. It’s probably just a lacing issue, so I’m going to adjust that on my next run. In case you ask, the New Balance 890 v2 doesn’t feel heavy like the Adidas Supernova Glide 4. It’s responsive and comfortable enough, but it doesn’t provide the coolness (air) I get from an Adidas Climacool Ride. At 40% off, it was a good buy. Now, if you don’t want surprises during a race, never try out new things (food – you don’t want LBM, gear, etc.) without at least testing them during your practice runs, so you can adjust any discomfort (or get at least used to it).

Violations aside, I’m just glad I finished the Gawad Kalinga Cebu Run 2012 in 2 hours and 50 minutes. Overall, it was OK. They had good hydration intervals, and two of them were Powerade, though none of them were cold. One thing I didn’t like in the race was the lack of distance markers. My GPS died after 6K (I must have pressed a button on my phone), and I didn’t bother to track after that. So I just relied on time, and turning points. Now, turning points are scary markers, because sometimes they are not placed in the middle of the race. So when I saw that I was already 2 hours at the turning point, I thought I’d finish in 4 hours, which was understandable given how tired and sleepy I was. So, minus points to the race organizer for not providing distance markers.