Registration Details:
1. Fees:
• 3k – P500
• 5k – P600
• 10k – P700
o This includes a free limited edition NatGeo Earth Day Run technical shirt.
o Proceeds will support Design Against the Elements Competition in bringing innovative solutions to climate vulnerable communities in developing countries.
2. Ways to Register:
Online Registration
• March 8 to April 4
• www.natgeorun.com
• Courier charges for race kits apply to online registrants
 P100 – within Metro Manila
 P150 – outside of Metro Manila

Cash Registration
• March 8 to April 11
• Nike Outlet in Bonifacio High Street
• Timex Outlet in SM North Edsa and SM Mall of Asia
• Courier charges for race kits apply to online registrants
 P100 – within Metro Manila
 P150 – outside of Metro Manila

Event Details:
• April 18, 2010
• SM Mall of Asia
• There will be 3k, 5k and 10k races
• Schedule:
 5:30AM – Registration
 6:00AM – Gun start for all races
 8:30AM – Announcement of Winners

Normally most marathoners would say the fastest course is where the fastest marathon times would be, or where the world records are broken. In Metro Manila, this would be inapplicable since we have invited Kenyans in our Marathons except in Milo. So I’ve decided to download the race results from last year, parse it in excel, and crunch it in minitab to get good histogram analysis.

BOTAK Marathon
BOTAK marathon of 2009 was in the middle of summer and according to feedback from the runners, the course was confusing with very few marshals along the way, and hydration was their biggest frustration. The average time of the runners was 5:06, and the standard deviation is quite large — 1hour 10minutes! The slower runners probably slowed down more due to lack of water, therefore stretching the distribution curve.

Milo Eliminations
The Milo Eliminations last year was in the beginning of July, the weather was still hot and humid, but the hydration was well distributed throughout the race except for the last 5K, where the 10K and 5K runners have consumed all of them. This marathon has the 4hour qualifying time for the Milo Finals later the year, which makes this feel more “prestigious”, and the 5hour cutoff makes this marathon feel like it’s not for the ordinary jogger. This was the only marathon I’ve joined last year and while I was able to force myself to qualify for the finals, I ended up with severe ITBS injury (cause is still mysterious) that minimized my running for the rest of the year. I remember this course to be hilly only at the Lawton and Bayani road areas. The toughest part for me was hitting the wall at the last 10K without any available water to drink. The average time is quite fast at 4:12, probably due to lots of runners trying to break the 4hour qualifying time, while some just trying to break 5hours so their names could still appear in the finisher’s list. As you can see in the histogram, there are no more data after the 5hour mark, so the histogram is not a normal distribution.

Quezon City International Marathon
I interviewed a lot of runners and they told me QCIM has a very tough course compared to Milo, especially because of the rolling terrain. I remember even the Kenyan winner had an unexpected slow time of 2:33.  There were also a lot of complaints from the runners at 4:30 to 5:30 time where they didn’t receive much hydration. The organizers quickly responded and water was then given to slower runners above 5:30.

Subic International Marathon
I was expecting the SIM to be the fastest marathon since it was held in the SCTEX highway. Some did have new PR’s, but a lot of slower runners experienced problems with hydration, and a lot suffered from dehydration. Probably the same reason why this marathon has a relatively slow average of 5:04, like BOTAK, runners were dehydrated by the organizers. Also, like BOTAK, it has a wide distribution, showing how slow runners were forced to run even slower.

Condura Skyway Marathon
Again, I was expecting this to be a fast-coursed marathon. Although the terrain was sky-high, it had a gradual slope. The weather was cool in early February, and the start of the race is early at 4:00AM. However the Condura had a surprise to the runners by routing the race in the latter stages to go up high the NAIA ramp. I guess a lot of runners must have faded here. Although a lot had new awesome PR’s, a lot of runners had cramps also. The race also had portalets even on the skyway. Hydration was overflowing. With the best view course available, this is probably the most enjoyable Marathon course in Metro Manila

Composite Histogram
So what is the fastest Marathon course in Metro Manila? Comparing all the histogram and mean average time, Milo is the fastest. I was quite surprised here, I thought Milo was already tough. Maybe it’s cutting the data from runners slower than 5hours?

Composite Histogram with 5-hour Cutoff
Ok here I have removed the runners above 5hours in all of the marathons. What’s the fastest one we got? It’s BOTAK! However almost 60% of the runners were removed, so the data is way distorted. I just show how bad the BOTAK marathon was. Other than BOTAK, Milo Marathon is still the fastest, QCIM the second, SIM looks fast but its slower runners are slower. Condura turns out to be the slowest of the decent Marathons.

Conclusion
After analyzing the data available in the race results, I would have to say Pojie was right about Milo, and Junrox was wrong about Condura. Therefore, I will train to peak and PR again in the Milo Eliminations this July (and maybe the Finals in December). I will also probably join and enjoy QCIM and especially Condura. How about BOTAK and SIM? Well for the past 2 years of my running and racing, history does seem to repeat itself. I will no longer join Marathon races where there is a big risk of dehydration, poor organization, where all the hard work in training and hopes for a good race just evaporates.

The race results are already available in http://condurarun.com/ website, and placing 100 out of 1,000 may be good, but the overview of the picture may not be complete. This is why I’ve created a histogram of the race result data for you to compare your race time with. This way you’ll know if you’re a slow runner, a mid-pack runner, competitive, or even an elite!

The 21K histogram shows a nice normal distribution curve of runners, with the outliers on the left side being the elites. With my current 21K time of 1:45, I’m just in front of the mid-pack, right in the region of “competitive runners”, but still way behind the elite Filipinos and ordinary (probably even beginner) Kenyans. I’m just glad I’ve improved and have broken away from the “mid-pack” this time.

Meanwhile this histogram of 42K shows messy histogram skewed to the right, no longer a normal curve, still having elite outliers on the left side, but now there is a huge crowd at the right side of the curve. It seems like a lot of newbie runners have decided to join the marathon, probably didn’t train well enough, even though they finished, they probably struggled and had worse times than they’re really capable of. Most of these runners are probably the ones who’ve hit the wall, and/or have been badly injured, but still had the drive to finish the race. On the other hand, the data could be clamped due to the 6hour cutoff time. There could even be other runners who finished beyond this cutoff time, therefore ruining the normal distribution of the histogram. Probably also the reason why some marathon races in the States have cutoff times even up to 8hours.

Keep in mind, there is no half-marathon wall, so the distribution curve of 21K looks better. The distribution curve of the 42K just shows how difficult it is push yourself to run a fast marathon you’re really capable of. Also, look at the 3:10′59″ Boston Marathon Qualifying time for Males aging 18yrs to 34yrs old. There’s a gap from that time to that of the “competitive” and “serious” marathoners, proving how difficult it is to Qualify Boston. This data proves Boston is not for just any Marathoners, and Boston Qualifiers deserves respect in the running community.

As for the 4hour Milo Marathon Elimination Qualifying time, it looks quite hard in the graph, still quite a few percent of the population has finished under it. But like I’ve said before, it’s not impossible. Just need to train hard for it. This is a more realistic challenge for most marathoners.

Congratulations to all the finishers!

ADDENDUM (FEB 15, 2010)
Here’s the new histogram with the Male and Female categories into one graph. Thank you Bryan Rivera for suggesting minitab software, it was a lot easier to use, but I couldn’t configure minitab to format the statistic numbers to hh:mm:ss.00, so I had to edit the numbers in Excel. Thank you for all your suggestions, requests and comments. I really appreciate it.

Sorry dear readers, I haven’t been blogging for the past few weeks, have been busy trying out new things–Playing Guitar and Ping Pong. This ate a lot of my non-running time that I couldn’t find enough time to blog. However for the past few months I’ve been concentrating on 5K training aiming for sub-20minutes. The training has been composed mainly of fast 400meter repeats, tough tempo runs, and fast long runs (not LSD) of up to 16Kms at a little over 5min/km. However most of these runs are done at a flat terrain of an ongoing construction of C6 road. My knees had problems dealing with downhill running, but 2 weeks ago I’ve experimented and was able to run on a hilly course again, and my knees felt fine!

Then just last week my officemate Erik told me he wished he had registered earlier since it was announced that late registrants will not get any medals. There was an available 21K race kit (registered from BongZ’s cousin) that was being sold for only P500, but Erik said he’s not ready for the 21K yet. So I sold Erik my 5K race kit and then I bought BongZ’s cousin’s 21K race Kit. When I received the kit, I saw that it was from a woman. It really didn’t matter to me at the time, I was just excited to run on the skyway again. It occurred to me that this was just going to be my second 21K race, and I was already excited, but I thought I haven’t trained well for this race, unlike last year where I had several 21Km training runs before the race.

3 days before the race I was able to join takbo.ph’s carboloading party, then ate a lot 2 days before the race. I was thinking I will no longer bring any hydration belt nor carb gels with me, I remembered last year I had stomachaches with those gels. 21K should be short enough for the body’s glycogen storage as long as I ate a lot before the race.

Race Plan
Since I was already running 8:17 to 8:14/mile (5:10 to 5:07/km) during long runs, although I thought this was already tough, I believed I could run an 8:00/mile half-marathon. That should be 1hour45mins for the race. After joining an informal track mile race, where I had a 6:17 time, I used mcmillan’s calculator to predict my half-marathon time. It said I could run 1:40. I thought this was insane, maybe if the race was done only on the track, I could do it. I thought my biggest challenge was lack of hill running during training, and not enough long runs. But I thought, what the heck, I can target 1:45 to 1:50, still a new PR for me.

A few days before the race, I received another book, “The Runner’s Edge” from Raffy Castaneda aka “alaska runner”, one of the kind dear readers of this blog, is a several time Boston Marathoner. The book was about utilizing high tech gadgets like Garmin, Nike+, Suunto, Polar, etc.., for peak running performance in training and racing. It’s quite new, I’m not sure if it’s available in Manila already, but this is just what I needed. I haven’t fully read it yet, but I scanned it the night before the race, it said the best racing strategy for chasing a PR for the half-marathon is to run it at an even pace as much as possible. This was unlike in 5k and 10K races where the paces are faster in the beginning and in the end, and the negative splits of an ideal marathon race. Another important information I read was that for chasing PR’s or even racing, the heart rate monitor is pretty much useless, since this would tend to give you signals to limit yourself even though you need and can run faster. So that’s the plan, don’t use the HRM, and monitor the average target pace of 8:00/mile (5:00/km).

The valuable book I got from Raffy.

With Raffy Castaneda in the QCIM. Raffy is a Boston Marathoner!

To give you an idea of what a 1:45 half-marathon, it is as fast as a 50minute 10K, or a 25minute 5K. Doable, but I had to sustain it for 21Kms, something I haven’t done before, and still was afraid to do.

The 21K Race
I lined-up near the starting line and met Pat Alcomendas, who is a 1:44 half-marathoner, and I asked for some advice for the race. I also met Jerome Bautista, the guy with me in the Condura Poster I was already feeling nervous at the starting line, but the emcee did a good job entertaining us, and I was able to relax myself by listening to their music and dancing with it. Then when the countdown started, I felt my heart rate involuntarily rise, I thought it’s race time!

Like most races, the runners started out sprinting mostly at 7 to 6min/mile (4:21 to 3:44/km) pace, I had trouble holding myself back to the planned 8min/mile (5min/km) pace. The course started exactly at 5AM, so when we got to the Kalayaan Flyover, it was really dark and couldn’t see anything except fellow runners. When I got to Buendia, I was slowly overtaking other runners and eventually even Marthoners who started 1hour earlier, but had a longer route before merging with us.

@ takbo.ph aid station. Same singlets, shorts, but now with the lighter lunar racers

Even though I have finished a Marathon before, I was still a little scared of the half-marathon distance especially with the pace I was running. It was not a race for reckless pacing. So I closely monitored my Garmin405 to aim for 8:00/mi, but at the first 5kms, I was averaging 7:50, I thought this was OK since I was still on the flat road. I should be slower when I get to the skyway.

When I reached the skyway, it was still really dark and so I couldn’t really enjoy the view. Running uphill was tough, trying to keep the pace at 8min/mi. Then I was able to overtake the marthoners and then half-marathoners one by one. When I saw the lead pack, I was way past the EDSA intersection, then suddenly there weren’t much runners in front of me. I saw Coach Rio running real fast, but I couldn’t find any Kenyan runners in the dark. When I got past last year’s turnaround point, I still couldn’t see the U-turn. I told myself, Oh no, the race course isn’t the same as last year! Then finally I saw the U-turn just in front of the Nichol’s exit, which is at ground level, but it was a lot farther than last year’s U-turn, so there was an added long hill climb back to skyway. Oh no! It was quite tough climbing back, and I was a little worried with my 1:45 target.

Going back on top of the skyway, I could only see about 2 runners far in front of me, and about 4 runners far behind me, and thousands of runners still running to the U-turn. Wow, I said I must be running fast, I am no longer a mid-pack runner like last year! Every now and then I would hear someone would cheer “go natz!!!” and I would hear “halimaw ka natz!!!” and it really gave me motivation to continue, even though fatigue was starting to accumulate. I felt I was indeed running fast on the way back in the skyway, finally feeling like speeding on the highway, the only speed limit is my Garmin telling me not to go over nor under 8min/mile. I cruised the downhills of the skyway easily, sometimes reaching 7:15/mile, but I was beginning to feel some pain in my ITB again, and had to try to correct and monitor my running form.

Then I met Beth running past me, then we stopped and we kissed on the skyway. Ok this is bit cheezy, but it was fun!

I need to emphasize that one of my plan was to walk everytime I drink to relax my leg muscles, somewhat like a Semi-Galloway method for this Semi-Marathon. With only 16km training long run, this was going to be like having only 32Km training run for the 42Km marathon. I thought I will suffer soon, possibly cramps, so walk breaks should be beneficial in relaxing my leg muscles. Soon, I saw runners ahead of me not stopping nor walking during water breaks, and even though I would walk the water break, I would soon feel refreshed and run a little bit faster. Then slowly but surely, I was overtaking these non-stop runners. I do find it a little funny because with my even-paced running, every time I was about to overtake some runner, they would surge a little bit faster than me, like they do not want me to overtake. This would repeat 2 to 3times until they finally give up and let me overtake them. This kind of behavior would happen several times to different runners, I’m wondering if they think I was racing them. They either want to be faster or slower than me. They didn’t seem to want to run with me. For crying out loud, I’m only trying to aim for 1:45!!! But again, it was really fun

Just before leaving the skyway, strange thing happened, I met Alman, the photographer of the famous Condura-Skyway poster where I was in front of the pack. Now, when I look behind me, there was no longer any pack, only few runner way behind me. And it was still dark. So I thought, no more posters of Condura with me next year. I asked Alman about my email to him asking for the high resolution picture, he said he already sent it. My email probably has problems receiving large files. Strange. Alman was wearing running gears and was carrying an SLR camera but with no race BIB.

When I reached Buendia and reached the takbo.ph-Renier Pacific aid station, I got a lot of lively cheers and I walked after receiving my cup of water.

Like Jonel Mendoza said, Walking does wonders to Running!

Fatigue was building in my legs, they weren’t like the lactic-acid burning sensation in the mile or 5K race, but was a little bit similar to the the late stages of the marathon. My average pace was slowing down, I saw it go to 8:02/mile, so I knew I had to pick-up my pace. Then I ran into the 10K runners in the Buendia to Kalayaan flyover route. They weren’t too slow to block me, and there were still a lot of hydration from condura available. I had to stop at each of them to get a walk break, I was of course scared of having cramps, I know the feeling and it’s not pleasant at all. When I reached the Kalayaan flyover, I slowed down significantly and I was heavily breathing. My running form has severly deteriorated, now somewhat like that of Emil Zapotek. I was surprised when I was going down the skyway because my Garmin says there is only about 400meters to go till 13.1miles, but I was clearly still far from the finish line. I figured out the course was going to be a little longer, so I ran faster and splitted my time at 13.13miles, and got a time of 1:45′15″. Wow, broken my previous PR of 1:52!!!

The last few turns I still tried to maintain the pace but I was already tired. Right before the turn, I saw Condura employees cheering and singing, I gave high-fives to all of them. Thank you very much to all of your cheering! It gave me a enough energy to finish the race. It was still a little dark, the sun hasn’t risen yet but at least all was now visible. So at the last turn, I could see the finish line, I pushed myself to sprint hard and finished at 1:47. However the Garmin registered a distance of 21.64Kms, about 2.52% longer. Meanwhile, the book Raffy gave me said Garmin is 98 to 99% accurate in road races, so I’m going to choose to believe in the Garmin instead. I’ve extracted my Garmin data to Excel and pin-pointed my time to be 1:45′04″ at the distance 21.096Kms (The half marathon is 21.097kms). I will now choose the 1:45′04″ to be my new Half-Marathon PR!

1:45'04\

Like Raffy's book said, even-paced strategy is best for the Half-Marathon

After crossing the finish line, I jogged and walked, but my legs felt really sore right away, just like in the 42K, but a little bit manageable. I had some freebies in the race area, had few mini-cups of COORS BEER, and a New Valley Granola bar. I then went back to the finish line to photograph some of my runner friends. My ITBS felt sore again, but I hope it would bloom to a real injury like what happened to me in the Milo 42K.

I finished 41st overall, out of 1,500 runners. Meanwhile, Jennifer Zandueta, finished 5th in women’s category.

8min/mile or 5min/km is literally a blistering pace for the 21K

Christy, finishing another fast 21K

Beth finished a new PR of 2:22!

Beth finished a new PR of 2:22!

Edick and his sister Bennette

Nora the Golden Girl! I'm so happy to see her finish her half-marathon.

Paolo finishing his first Marathon. Congrats buddy!

James finishing his 2nd half-marathon but was injured in the skyway.

Phenomenal Carly finished her 42K in 4:23!!!! Amazing and congrats!

4:24 marathoner Jaymie The Bull Runner. She has inspired me to go high-tech on running, the reason why I bought Garmins and Nike Lunars. I also handed the high-tech book to her from Raffy. What a coincidence. Hopefully the book will help her smash even more amazing 42K PRs!!!

Jay Nacino sprinting at the end of the 42K race. His previous struggles with a sub-4hour marathon has inspired me to get serious in training. Congrats Jay!

The Prince still looking great after the Marathon

Luis struggled in his first marathon, but still ran it in a good time.

Argonaut's Quest for the Marathon

My Father (Bobby) running his 3rd marathon (in less than a year)

My fathers NEW PR 5:24--this is 19 minutes improvement from his QCIM.

Finally met Patrick Concepcion, the great man behind the Condura Race. Great Runner. Great Man. So humble in person.

(i2runner is in takbo.ph black singlet)

Wow, it’s my first time for me to be included in a picture in a newspaper! The picture was taken in last year’s Condura 21K in Skyway, a beautiful sight with the airplane above us runners! I mean, just look at it. Doesn’t it look awesome to run 21 to 42kms above the city? Please visit www.condurarun.com. I’m planning to frame the picture and hang it on my wall. Heck, it’s already my laptop’s wallpaper.

Unfortunately, for me, my knees limits me to flatter routes only 5K races allow. However, I’ve registered Beth to 21K, while my dad will run the 42K–his 3rd one already, in less than 1 year!

This year the Concepcion brothers have answered the runner’s prayers to include the Full Marathon (42.195Kms) in the race, also in Skyway, but will now run the whole stretch of skyway. This means runners now have to enter the tollgate (unlike in last year), so an epass is definitely an advantage:

Runningshield's epass

This Condura race will probably be the best race of the country not only because of the Skyway Route, but also because the leader/organizers of the race are also real runners themselves who also do listen to runner’s needs and wishes. I predict this is going to be a perfect race just like last year, so I encourage all real runners in the city to join. Newbie runners or non-runners who would also like to experience road racing this year should definitely not miss this.

However all these great planning and the growing strong demand of running have increased the registration fees to another level. Other races this year even have higher fees! I believe this could discourage some less fortunate runners who could still choose to run regularly without racing. I am also now being more careful of this trend, and will now limit racing to only every 2 to 3months, choosing the only races that I believe would be memorable like this Condura race, or other Coach Rio great quality races. The rest of the weekends for me would be for long training runs that are equally enjoyable.

Deadline for registiration is on January 24, 2010. Keep in mind, 7days makes one week!!! Registration is at Planet Sports and RUNNR store.

Please visit www.condurarun.com and runningshield.blogspot.com for more information.

So for 2010 I am going to make my goals more enjoyable and more realistic. Whenever I ask Beth what motivates her to wake up early in the morning and run alone, she always tell me it’s because she simply enjoys doing it. I realized her reason for running is way better than mine–training for faster endless PR’s. (Sure, running have endless benefits like weightloss, lower blood pressure, improved cardiovascular system, stronger endurance, improved mental health and reflexes, improved cellular energy metabolism… and oh, more social life both real and in blogosphere and cyberspace.) So perhaps I should run because running like life, is enjoyable (perhaps this is Patrick Concepcion’s secret for 30years). So I did, and whenever I run again, I enjoy it more. Even the after-effect of running, the runners’ high, feels so great hours later whether I’m in the office or playing ping-pong.

So in summary, here are my top goals to enjoy my running life:
1)Add feel-good intervals of up to 12×400meters, 5×1,000meters, 5×1mile with recovery jogs of half the distances or less.
2)200 to 400meter repeats at paces where I could feel life is at its most precious.
3)Tempo runs to make me realize life is short.
4)Long Runs to make me realize life is really short.
5)Repeat steps 1 to 5 all year round.

Now here are my less important goals for the year:
1)Sub 6:30 mile – I’ll be racing with Patrick and Ritchie next week. If I couldn’t do this, I’ll be attempting another one next month, or the next.
2)Sub 20minute 5K – Hopefully I could do this by April. If not, maybe next year.
3)Sub 45minute 10K – Piolo who?
4)Sub 4hour marathon – Oh did I already do that last year? Ok why not Sub 3:30hour marathon. No pressure here, maybe I’ll experiment with the Galloway’s Run/Walk method.

Lifetime goal:
Run/Walk Ultra-Marathons.

Running should make life fun, not the other way around.

*Get your 411 on 01.10.10*

*January 10, 2010: *Mark the date for the Mizuno Running Expo and the start of the registration for the Mizuno Infinity Run. There will also be a Running Sale with discounts shooting up to 80% off. All these exciting events happening from 10am to 7pm at the BMG Centre, Magallanes Commercial Center, Makati.

The Mizuno Running Expo will feature top running athletes such as Olympian Henry Dagmil, SEA games athlete Neil Ducusin, distinguished running coaches Ige Lopez, Patrick Joson and Peter Gonzales, renowned race organizer Rudy Biscocho and other known personalities in the running community.

These experts will help expo participants understand more about the competitive running form, proper hydration and nutrition, latest technology and gear, and other vital information to help them get the most out of their running season.

*April 11, 2010: *Mizuno Infinity Race – the country’s first-ever race bannering a challenge to runners to “/Beat Your Own Time./” Registration is at 400 pesos for the 5/10K and 450 pesos for the 15K. You can register for the Mizuno Infinity Run at the following Mizuno stores: Boni High Street, Megamall, Festival Mall, Mall of Asia, Trinoma and Magallanes.

Watch out for the launch of *Creation 11 – the official shoe for the Mizuno Infinity Race*. Runners will get their race packets for free upon purchase of Creation 11. This is on top of the generous freebies that Mizuno and partner sponsors have prepared.

The Mizuno Infinity Run Expo is made possible in cooperation with Oakley and Gatorade with the following majorsponsors: Mail and More, Suunto, and Manila Water. Doctor J, Derm Plus Lotion, Citgo, and BMG Solar. Media partners include RunnerSpeak, Run Radio on NU 107, Men’s Health and Women’s Health.

I initially wanted the hot-looking adizero rocket, but when I saw that the lightest racing flat was the Mizuno Wave Universe 3, I tried to contact Mizuno locally but got no response. Then the next lightest racing flat was the Lunar Racer! I got so excited and called Nike Bonifacio High Street and spoke to someone by the name of “Mutya”, and she told me they have all sizes available. I remembered about 6months ago that they didn’t have anymore stock of these, so I knew they were endangered. I quickly went to their store as soon as I could commute from work.

First Impressions
When I held the shoes in my hands, they felt like I was holding styrofoams! They were incredibly light. I got the size 9.5-US, and the forefoot were really snug-tight, my toes had no room to move at all. However, the tight toes seem to support my forefoot, I thought these are going to be great for forefoot sprinting, great for 5K finishing kicks. I read somewhere that tight narrow forefoot shoes are typical of racing flats. The heel is noticeably lower too, therefore the heel-to-toe difference seems minimal, hence the name “flats”. However, the shoes look so meek, unlike the agressive looking Mizuno Ronins and Musha.

Test Run
These ultra-light shoes seems to allow me to increase my leg-turnover rate therefore increasing my pace significantly with less effort. I feel I was about 30seconds/mile faster with these ultra-light flats. The cushioning is superior, they feel as soft and comfortable as the Lunar Trainers and Glides. Of course, they have the same Lunarlite foam. The ability to run fast with these shoes became so addicting that even during easy/recovery runs, I was running at 5K race pace. Days later, I got sick with coughs and colds because of not slower on easy days. (Actually I even ran hard on Christmas morning with these shoes when I was already sick, just because they were temptingly good. Please don’t tell anyone.)

I didn’t like the flywire, because I had high bony arches that gets hurt with too much pressure on the flywire. I bypass these flywires with my lacing technique.

But after 3 days with these racers, I developed blisters on my forefoot and little toe due to rubbing. I guess these shoes does need to get proper breaking-in.

42K racing flats?
The cushioning’s so soft, they’re unlike most minimalist racing flats that have intimidatingly thin cushioning that seems to break your legs if you run the marathon. After all, even Haile Gebrselassie’s adizero adios isn’t a racing flat but a lightweight performance trainer. I wonder how well he’ll race with the lunar racers. When I thought racing flats, I thought of only 5K’s and 10K’s. Now after trying these shoes, I’m convinced I’ll wear them on 42K races. After all, these are the shoes Duncan Kibet wore in the Rotterdam Marathon (3rd fastest Marathon of all time), Dathan Ritzenhein in the Beijing 2008 Marathon, Kara Goucher in NY and Boston Marathons, and BaldRunner in Milo 42K finals.

Lunar Racers in 42K races

Duncan Kibet - 2nd fastest Marathoner of all time

Racers vs Trainers
There have been reports of some runners preferring the racers over the racers even during their training workouts including long runs. There are even reports in the forums of the racers even reaching 1,000miles! I don’t know if they’re true, but the racers does seem to threaten the trainers in my daily run. The following are the comparisons:

Weight (my weighing scale can’t detect the racers!)

There are more BRS1000 Outsole Black Rubber. This makes the racer more durable for longer mileage, and better traction for greater acceleration. There are also smaller lugs or “waffles” that makes the racer better for wet running.

The Racer has a more narrow forefoot, unlike the roomier trainer.

The racer has a lower heel, but not significantly, so its mileage is probably going to be the same, if not better than the trainer.

PROs:
Ultra-Lightweight – Lightest Running Shoe available in Metro Manila as of this writing (unless Mizuno releases the Wave Universe 3). I hope I could run a sub-20minute 5K someday with these racers.
Great Cushioning – Just like the Lunar Trainers. Will not kill you for races longer than 10K, unlike other intimidating racing flats out there.
Excellent Forefoot Support – What a racing flat should be.
Marathon Racing Flats – Bald Runner has run a 3:48 marathon with these flats.

CONs:
Not for everyone – it doesn’t have the arch support or motion control needed by over-pronators. You can try inserting orthotics though.
Narrow forefoot – wide footed runners may need to choose 1/2 to 1.0 size higher to accomodate wider forefoot, but this may add additional weight, defeating the purpose of weigh reduction. Lunar Trainers are a good alternative.
Cushioning too soft?- May be undesirable for heavier runners. Lightweight runners can enjoy this.
Boring design – it doesn’t look like a kick-ass racing shoe like adizero rocket or mizuno ronin2.
Endangered Specie- These are becoming rare, I only found this in Nike Bonifacio High Street after waiting for months, with an expensive price tag of P5,500.00.

Conclusion and Recommendation:
Recommended for narrow-footed lightweight runners who want to run faster with no over-pronation problems. The shoes also needs some time for proper breaking-in, or else suffer some blisters during the race. You may also want to wait next for year, there is a coming Lunar Racer2 rumored to be available in 2010, slightly heavier though. Probably a strand of hair heavier.

Other Lunar Racer reviews:
http://baldrunner.com/2008/10/31/shoe-review-nike-lunaracer/
http://www.shaunchng.com/blogs/2008/11/04/nike-lunarlite-flywire-racer-review-first-impressions
http://roadtonycm.blogspot.com/2008/10/nike-lunaracer-review.html

For the past 3 weeks I was able to successfully start a solid 5K program that involved 6 to 8×400meter intervals and some tough 35minute tempo runs, and a long run of 9miles. Last just last week I was able to run a total of 30miles (48Kms). This week I had a mild fever, probably due to overtraining, but recovered quickly 2days before the race. So I decided to monitor my progress with this race, and maybe adjust some of my training pace and volume depending on this progress.

I warmed-up with 1.5mile jog around BHS before the race, and when I was done, I was at the back of the 5K crowd when the gun started. I therefore didn’t have good position like I used to, and had to struggle going to the starting line and started my watch. Because of the huge crowd, I had to run to the sidewalk and sprinted to overtake a lot of runners. When I felt the lactic acid burn, I realized I needed to calm down and go into my planned pace.

The whole race my body seems to have improved a lot since starting the speedwork and tempo run programs. I had a few side stitches but they went out quickly when I changed my breathing pattern. My knees didn’t have any problem going downhill, and ran them as fast as I could but still reserving my energy for the final uphill. The turnaround felt a little too far, and my split showed 11minutes at the turnaround point, so I figured a 22minute 5K. On the way back, it felt tough going uphill, had to go through a lot of slower 10K runners, and then I’ve decided to run on the “island” of McKinley road. Finally, my lungs were all burning for the last 1.5kms, felt tempted to give up but kept telling myself to enjoy the pain. Enjoy the pain. After all, this was what 5K running is all about, running as fast as we could until we’re breathless with our lungs and legs burning, knowing it would be all over soon. The downhill straightway to the finishline was easy, I believe I reached the finishline at 23 or 24minutes, but the garmin showed 5.21Kms. I knew the organizers messed-up again.

5K to 5.21K. Organizers failed to properly place the U-turn, a common problem in races.

So I calculated my 5K split, and it was 22′30″, new PR for me, considering the course wasn’t flat at all, and it was tougher because of the extra distance.

Then I used the Garmin to Excel technique to better analyze in Full HD 1080 (just kidding) my new 5K PR, here are the results:

In comparison, here’s my first jogging 2years ago when I decided I should run again. Just an easy relaxed run.

Finally, here are the photos of the Celebrity Run:

Beth receiving jogging headband from Yahoo!

Celebrities Rico and Vener showing some holiday spirit.

Some of my officemate newbie runners

my ex-officemates

Beth, the most beautiful 21K Celebrity runner enjoying her new ipod nano.

Ronnie, a celebrity runner for Christ

Celebrity Idol Sherwin Batobara

Bull Runner, arguably the most famous celebrity in the race.

Luis aka Gingerbread finishing a sub-i2runner 21K

Bryan, the Biggest Loser Winner, finishing a sub2hour 21K

Sam taking an easy jogging finish after running a fast sub2hour 21K

Highlight the race/workout desired, then click:
File–>Export–>Export “ ”

Then save the file as *.tcx.

This *.tcx file could then be opened by Microsoft Excel. It was so simple, why didn’t I try that before? Now our race or training data could be better manipulated, analyzed and graphed with excel. The tables need a little getting used to. One of the columns have data for distance traveled in meters, and there’s another column for the time (with date). Other columns have additional data for Heart Rate, Longitude, Lattitude & Altitude, while the rest I still don’t know what they’re for. You will need a little crunching to get the time interval between difference in intervals to get the speed, and you’ll just need to convert it to pace/mi or pace/km with some common sense formulas.

What I didn’t like in Garmin’s software was its inability to zoom into the paces or limit the graph’s Y-axis pace. For instance, my marathon pace was around 9minutes/mile, but due to the noises and spikes of garmin, I had some readings at 17minute/mile pace so the Y-axis of the graph would reach that point. Therefore, I couldn’t zoom or look closer to 9min/mile of the graph. This is the reason why I didn’t post this graph on my Milo Marathon blog. I will use this technique next time.

Now compare the two graphs below from the same race. The first one is the raw graph from garmin connect, where it shows the slowest pace I had was 17min/mile.

connect.garmin.com

Now I don’t care about that, I would rather zoom to the relevant pace by limiting the maximum of Y-axis of the graph to 11min/mile, and the minimum to 4min/mile. Then I only took the kilometer splits to get a cleaner data. Now the difference is shown below. Doesn’t it look cleaner and more understandable?

EXCELLent!!!

Thanks to takbo.ph’s shoutbox chatroom and to Neil and Patrick, I am now able to better understand my workout to the smallest resolution of Garmin Forerunner 405, which I think is approximately 5-second interval data-points.

Please feel free to comment if you need clarifications or some techniques in manipulating your graph data. You can also email me at zixednatz@gmail.com, I’m just glad to be of any help