i2runner

It’s Fit & Right, right?

INTRO:
For some reason, a small number of my colleagues from our company wanted to join the “Fit & Right” race last Sunday. My running friend and colleague Manding invited some of his office-mates to join the fun run, and we ended up registering 45 runners! Sounds a good number at first glance, but when you think and actually do register them, it’s a nightmare. Claiming the race packet on time was even harder, and we had 2 or I think it was 3 runners who had no singlet, wrong race distance, and wrong singlet size. Heck, we even had a runner who had wrong sex, but that was my fault.

When I opened my own race kit, I was glad to see the singlet actually looked nice, and really Fits Right! And what the heck, it even included a Fit&Right goodie fruity food! Unfortunately, most of the race kit didn’t included the fruit cup, so this is a big minus for the organizer.

My 5K race
I registered for the 5K race “only” because I am just recovering from a new Unknown knee injury. My ITBS seems to be healed, but a lateral knee pain that seems to be deep inside the bone is kinda scary, could be running-induced OsteoArthritis? Well whatever it is, the pain seems to go away when I use only the softer-cushioned Nike Lunar Trainer. So for this race, I’m glad it didn’t rain since the trainers are slippery when wet, but they’re really grippy when dry. Since they’re moon-light, they’re great for racing.

I was expecting the race to be quite cool and flat and I didn’t get disappointed. I was hoping to trim a few seconds off my previous 5K PR in KOTR, but with very little running and mostly brisk walking, I had low expectations. Anyway, I tried to run my best 5K, to maintain a 7:30/mile pace when I bumped with dennis along the way. He seems so relaxed while running fast, tried chasing him but he was much faster now, and he got a new 22:25 PR. I, on the other hand, was already 22:30 when I still had 400meters to go. I tried to sprint as fast as I could, and was 9seconds above 23minutes. Still above 23minutes, but a new PR for me Now the offical race result is available at http://runningmate.ph/images/5kmResult.pdf, and… What the F… my name isn’t there!!!! New PR and there’s no official record of it!!! Something in the RF-ID really messed-up, and didn’t sense my ID. Probably the same reason why LTO didn’t implement that technology. I have been skeptical about the reliability of this, I believe the ChampionChip has been a more reliable and proven device in road races.

My Garmin measured the course as 4.956Kms, an error of less than 1%! impressive, one of the most accurate courses I’ve ever ran this year.

My heart-rate reached an alarmingly high 193beats per minute, right around my calculated age MaxHR. In the past when I had high mileage training, my heart seldom reached above 180bpm. Now that I rarely run, my heart must have somehow shrank and had to beat faster to meet the more intense requirements of racing and chasing PR’s.

So my personal chase for PR was OK, but the RF-ID ruined it for me by not sensing my chip, or in this case, an antenna.

WTF
But wait, there are more surprises! I’ve heard a lot of complaints from my colleagues and friends that in the 10K race, the stage emcee had absolutely no coordination with the gun-start. So the runners were all surprised to see the people in front of them to begin running, they weren’t able to start their stopwatch on time because there weren’t any count-down. Then the emcee asked, “so where are the 10K runners?” when in fact they were already running! One of the runners told me “This race sucks big time!”, she ran the 10K and had problems getting cup with water. She actually had to use both of her hands to make a cup for the water! If we have to do this in the races, why do we even have to pay for it? Then after the race we couldn’t even avail of the “freebies” because they ran out of supplies. Most of us just couldn’t help ourselves but be jealous of the great bag of goodies the other runners were able to get. I’m so sorry, please forgive my language, but sh!tty races like this gives us more reason to go bandit. If this race is Fit & Right, why is this race so wrong?

My Hero
I wanted to leave the race immediately, but I still had to claim my bag of clothes in the baggage area, where there has been a huge crowd of hot sweaty runners bumping and squeezing each other like sardines. We were there for at least 20minutes and I could hardly breathe. The problem I think is, that the square-shaped baggage counter, only had one side of the square open for claiming, unlike in the Fort where all 4-sides of the square could be used, sometimes even reaching 5sides! Just joking. Then Alfred (El Kyoshi) used his height advantage (he’s 7feet tall) to be noticed and claimed our bags even though we were 4-men behind the line. So he used his 4foot long arms to reach and claim our bags. Unbelievable. Thank you Alfred!

Conclusion
But then again, for me personally, I really don’t care much about how crappy the organizers are, as long as I could run. For this day, I’m glad my left leg and knee are finally healthy and fit as the right leg. At the end of the day, that’s all that really mattered to me and now I’m looking forward to run another crappy sh!tty and sucky race probably next month. So far, Fit & Right is the worst race I’ve ran in 2009, and am excited to run another sucky race to top it.

Here are the pictures of my colleagues who enjoyed the sucky Fit & Right race. Some of them really surprised me with their race results, and I’m really glad they joined. In the end, they all have inspired me.

Fast Mags finished his first 5K in 26minutes. Not bad.

singer/idol Manding finishing and singing through his 5K race.

All-White Leslie and Beth finishing the 3K race.

He is Jet Paiso

Flashy Argonaut Bolt sprinting the last 100meters.

New Moon Zoom

Iryne's 2nd 5K race.

Beth with her new adidas shorts and new 10K PR!!!

Trying to fit 2,000 calories after burning 300calories @ Dampa