Making it hard for runners

Rant about this race organizer’s direction on race registration!  Just capitalizing on the running boom in the Philippines, I see?!

As planned, my next race would be the Rexona Run and New Balance Run this October and November, respectively.  I ran these 2 races last year and has contributed to my love of running.

Last year’s Rexona Run I was able to beat the 30-minute cut-off to get a keychain, yup, a KEYCHAIN!  But its not just an ordinary keychain, that symbolized the determination and hard training I did to reach the cut-off time.  I can still remember running with the side-stitch just so I can reach it.  It was satisfying.

The New Balance Run – I upped it by running a sub-1 10k (Soleus-time).  Again, proved that hard work really has its moments.  I also won a raffle, a NB shirt worth P2,195!  Well-worth it, and here’s when I bought my NB Minimus shoes that made me more inclined to running.

To give back to these runs that made me the 6min/km runner I am now, I planned to race them again, this time the HM.  I’m preparing as hard as I can – with the recent Milo HM, I already have an idea on how it will go (Rexona Run has the same route).  And this September has proved to be a good training month for me.

BUT the race organizer decided to mess it up by making the registration process inconvenient.  There is now a separate registration date and race kit pick-up date.  WTF?  The organizer would like us to spend to go to the registration site, and spend and possible take leave or mess up one day of family time to claim the kit!  Imagine thousands of runners getting together in two days to claim their kits?!

Here’s more, the online registration, you have to buy “prepaid cards” to be used to register online!  Plus, go to the pickup site to pickup your race kit.  Takes out the convenience of “online registration”, right?

We have noticed the increasing fees in race registrations.  We understand that there are increased costs in operating races and venues when the participants are huge, but to totally do nothing to deliver the kits to online registrants and to prepare the race kits in registration sites?  This is just too convenient for you!  You really are maximizing the profits, no? 

Anyway, I won’t let this race organizer ruin my passion for running.  I will still train and run races.  Not just this organizer’s races (or until he decides to invest a bit to make it convenient for runners).  I registered to the Domination Run on November 24 for a 21k run, and it only costs me Php700 + Php150 for shipping- this is still much cheaper compared to this organizer’s rate. 

In the end of the day, runners just want to run.  We won’t care much about the organizer and their raffles and loots, we want what’s fair for our time and money.  

Welcome September! Welcome new running goals!

Its been a very toxic August for me, and now that its over, time to organize my thoughts to prepare for better months ahead!

Gotta love family time!

Back to running

It feels good to be sore!  Yeah, sounds weird, but I'm enjoying the feeling of soreness in my calves today.  This after a come-back 10-miler I did yesterday after 8 days off.  After the weekend getaway with the family I had the head cold and my body just feels beaten up.  The toxic week of our company sports-fest preparation didn’t help either.  It was just a week of stress and fatigue.

New shoes

Yes, the week of preparation and stressful schedule translated to my shoes catching a hole.  I wished it would be my running shoes, as it already passed the 500-mileage, but it was my office shoes that got replaced.  I’ve only been in this company for 2 years and I already changed my work shoes 3 times now.  Well, I get what I pay for, so this time I got hold of a sturdier (and more expensive) shoes – yes, I’m too cheap to pay for better shoes now compared to when I was a lot younger.  I guess its part of “senior moments” now.

What about the new running shoes?

Well, I seem to be fixated on the Saucony Virrata now.  I tried searching for that brand yesterday after I bought my office shoes, just to see if I can secretly buy it, but it was not just present in Robinsons Galleria! L  It would have to wait for a while until I can get to better running stores, or when the New Balance Run registration will be up (Free registration when you buy NB shoes!)  I’m looking at the new Minimus 10v2, this new version seems to be a lot better than the first version I have now.  Yesterday’s run I could felt hot spots again, and if I went up a few kilometers more, I know blisters will come in next.

The plan

Now that its back to usual work load, its gonna be a come-back to running.  Yesterday’s 16k run, I was exhausted in the last 2km.  I’m guessing it’s the dehydration from the week plus the head cold that I was slightly in to that day.  My usual training plan resumes two days from now.

This year will not have special cut-off time prizes

Next race would be the Rexona Run 2013 on October 20.  Basically its still 1.5 months training for this, so I’m going for it.  Next would be the 25k New Balance Run as my birthday race on November 10.  Both runs I’ve ran the previous years, but at a lower distance.

The goal

For a time my goal for my next HM would be to gun it at sub-2.  But it seems I’d rather get a goal of finishing it with EASE.  First HM I was able to meet my 6min/km pace, but the last 2 km was a disaster, and I didn’t enjoy it at the time, and for me its more important to ENJOY.  It will also somehow eliminate the “burden” of the requirement to run a specific time, or a specific distance on trainings.  Not that I’ll slack on trainings, but at least I’ll be able to do those timed and measured runs as the body sees fit at the time.

Overall it feels great to be able to plan all this.  I’m excited again for the weekends to come, and looking forward to my morning runs.  Its September – the “ber” months is a time to be excited for my birthday and Christmas, its good to have another passion worth waiting for in running.

Beat myself up just to get the cut-off

Got this keychain from beating 30-minute cut-off for 5k