Din: Level Up

After running six 10k races, I thought it was time to move on to the next race category, the 15 or 16K. Well, as luck turned out, the next race in our calendar was the Run To Read Race with a 15K category. Perfect opportunity as well to run a longer distance than 10K at The Fort which included the infamous route to the Heritage Park. Time to test if my hill workouts were enough for me to survive the undulating paths of the Bayani Road.

Since I would be running a 15K race, I decided to use the Amphipod instead of my trusty handheld Nathan water bottle. Just in case, you can find my reviews of the Nathan here and the Amphipod here.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I take hydration quite seriously. I do not depend on the race organizers in providing me with enough hydration even if it is their responsibility. Again, I repeat, I do not put my safety in the hands of others. This is actually based on experiences from previous races that Carrie and I joined. To further elaborate, imagine a spectrum, on the right are organizers who really care for the runners' well-being and ensure that the runners can even swim on  the huge volume of water and sports drink available. On the left are organizers who, either because of cluelessness (or downright stupidity) or worst, irresponsibility, do not care about the runners' plight and only care for their own pockets resulting to stations without the water most especially for longer distances.

In the middle of this spectrum are the organizers hit by Murphy's law. To those who are unfamiliar with this law, it states that, "If something is bound to go wrong, it will."

In the case of the Run To Read Race, I could classify it in the middle of the spectrum, especially for those who ran the 15K race. Unfortunately, the water stations ran out of cups even if there were still ample amounts of water. This was actually still a good case for those who brought their own hydration kits. Bad for those who didn't. I was actually able to refill my Amphipod bottles twice thus I have enough water and Pocari drinks to sustain me until the end of the race. The moral of the story, believe in Murphy, bring your own bottle!