It hasn't been long since I started with my running era, with my first running event taking place just last August this year, and since I'm still limited in events near me, I haven't followed it up, not until last Sunday when I joined the 3rd leg of Run Bulacan, which is set in the city of Meycauyan. Actually, I was also supposed to participate in their 1st leg, but due to some circumstances, I had to give up my entry for that which I wrote in this post. And because of that, when my new running buddies invited me to join the event cause it is close to where his son currently resides for work, I did not think twice and accepted his invitation, though it turned out to be my most dangerous run so far.
It has nothing to do with my running buddies or any of the runners. The issue lies with the route and how organizers run the event. To begin with, the organizers only show the route only two days before the event, which gives the runners little time to check the route personally to plan their run, as the image shown on Google Maps goes back to January 2024. At the same time, there is barely any lighting on the route, and 4:00 AM is still pretty dark, so runners will need to be more careful in case there are uneven roads or open manholes, instead of their pacing. But what makes the route really dangerous is that while we are running, there are lots of vehicles driving along the route, particularly the large trucks. And there was not a single traffic cone or barricade that would separate the runners' route from the vehicles. There are some marshals who are guiding the runners, but they are spread very thin along the route, so it doesn't feel safe to run. I do not know what happened with the organizers with how they mismanaged this event, because while I wasn't able to join in the first leg, my friends who joined that had positive feedback of that event. Anyway, enough of the rant, I should talk about the race.
This is 3 out of 4 series of running events by this organizer, set within different cities within our province, and for this leg, there are categories for 5km, 10km, and 21km. There are 3 of us who entered this event, me and the father and son tandem. Since I just recently started joining these kinds of events, I chose to enter the 10km category, along with the father while his son entered the 21km category, so we had different gun start times. For 21km, the gun start was 4:00 AM with a cut-off of 8:00 AM, and for us, 10km runners, the gun start was 4:30 with a cut-off of 7:30 AM.
Originally, I was planning to make a new personal record within this run, but given how runner-unfriendly the route turned out, I ended up with a slower result, not to mention the unexpected amount of uphill within the route also made my pace slower, finishing the race at 1:15:01 using the official time and 1:14:45 using the chip time, ranking 59th among other male runners and 75th among all the 226 runners under the 10km category.
After that, the next one that arrive at the finish line is the father at 1:38:01 official time and 1:35:17 chip time, while the son finishes at 3:18:33 official time and 3:02:22 chip time. Regardless of the result, I'm just glad that none of us ended up getting hurt.
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After the run, there was really nothing noteworthy to do at the venue. Compared to their first and second leg, there are far fewer partner sponsors at the event, and the finisher medal has turned out to be ugly, so we decided to immediately leave the premise to grab a breakfast before we go back home.
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We were initially planning to participate in the final leg, which will be held in January, but after our experience here, we decided to no longer join. I was even planning to challenge myself and finally enter a 21km category, but they messed up in this event so badly that their page is being flooded by negative feedback. Unless they do right with the final leg, I do not think that there will be a future for these organizers if they once again plan an event in the future.
Hopefully, my next and final run for the year, which will be held this coming Sunday, will be more organized, and that, I can make a new personal record in this race.
That was it for me. Thank you for reading my post, and see you on the next one.