When race day came (this was May 23 in UP Diliman), I immediately included this event to my growing list of must-run-race-events-every-year. Even if the participants were few (well compared to the bigger commercial races) and the props for the events were simple yet effective, you could feel the energy among the crowd because you were surrounded by people who love the sport and run for the sake of running. You could feel this passion permeating the atmosphere.
And truth be told, this was my biggest mistake. I thought I could already run with the big boys. Well I did, for the first 30 seconds. It was quite a rude and humbling awakening. On the 6km mark, I was already struggling and running out of juice. Imagine that! Well, to show you how passionate these guys were, the top 30 finishers timed below 1 hour. To top it all, some of them were at least 20 years older than me! Talk about passion!
This race was a big lessons learned about pacing, foundation-building and most especially passion. Most of the participants did not have the latest running gears but what I saw was something more important. I saw passion, commitment, focus and determination. All the pains I experienced in this race made me a better person and I hope a better runner. To quote Dean Karnazes, in his book, Ultramarathon Man, "Pain is the body's way of ridding itself of weakness."
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