Globe Run 2010: Push and Pull

That was a tough one.

I don’t know why it was tough, it shouldn’t have been. It’s almost the same route we run every single half marathon with just a bit of greenbelt and more of heritage added. I told Mesh this morning it must have been some encanto at work.

Hurrah for the great water station and eager beaver aid station volunteers. But what happened to the FB update? Finish line only? I thought there would be several mats so friends could track us. Ohwell, no biggie. Extra singlet after the race was a nice bonus. No crowd at the finishline chute also.

The Race. Garmin rested today so I don’t have my accurate km splits. I just hit the lap button of the Polar whenever I saw km markers.

BananaSplits

16:18 | 5:46 | 6:04 |13:08 | 5:59 | 6:22 | 6:18 | 6:44 | 6:42 | 6:52 | 6:48 | 7:05 |14:10 | 6:58 | 6:47 | 6:42 |12:50

Clock at the finish line read 2:22, same as the tuna run. But I think the distance of the 1st 2Km was off. I was definitely not running at 8min/km pace at the start. I heard that the buildings at the CBD made the garmin go bonkers so I suppose we won’t really have accurate race distance data.

Since I was clueless about my pace, I just bounced around during the first half of the race and hoped that I was on pace. Based on my running time and km markers, I was on target for the first half. Km9 was bad. The Gu I took at Km6 did not want to stay with me and decided to go up and out. Not pleasant. I started taking walk breaks to ease up a bit. Surprisingly, even with my walk breaks I was still able to maintain a good pace. Not on target anymore but not too bad. I just compared my km splits from the tuna run; the Globe splits were better (even with the walk breaks). I was able to stay off the high 7min/pace most of the time.

Could have been the Push&Pull. After Km9, I just relied on getting pulled by other runners. I returned to my mark-and-chase strategy. This carried me all the way to the finish line. Two girls in pink, one in green, a herbal life tri suit and consistent strides of a girl to my right kept me on pace.

Somewhere near BHS, I noticed a 15K runner was keeping pace with me. I actually like hearing a runner’s footfall. Helps to keep my rhythm. When we reached 32nd and she lagged about 2 steps behind, I looked back and asked her to keep pace. It is easier that way. We kept pace most of the Kalayaan flyover. I kept chasing a runner in herbal life tri suit. Pushing until I catch him.

As we were about make our final turn to Makati Ave., he turned to me and said, “Thanks for the push.” Turns out whenever I overtook him, it pulled his pace along.

Overall, it was a good race. T2 did not post PRs yesterday but it’s good to be back and running as a group. Missed the rest of the guys who weren’t able to race with us. Til the next race T2.