Up the Hills and Over the Mountains

I wish I am telling the story of how I've overcomed the hike for Mt. APO or the trail of Mt something something, instead I will be sharing the story of my comeback run in AMG Fun Run 2 @ McKinley hills better known to me now as "Bulubundukin ng McKinley".

AMG Fun Run was organized by my office peers in HP. It was a charity fund raising event (as most running events are) for the benefit of PGH patients. My friend Tin was kind enough to pledge the donation for my run and since this was my first run after being rested for some time, I only registered for the 6km category. :)

I feared that it would rain on the race day, It was already raining when we left home, however considering that Mckinley is more than 21km away from my home it was expected that it wasn't raining there yet.

We arrived at the venue a couple of minutes late but since this is a non profit race it is expected of course that we would start late so I was just in time for the stretching.

The bang for the 9km category started a few moments later, followed by the 6km and then the 3km. I, belonging to the 6km mark was with a handful of eager-to-run HP folks. The signal was given and we dashed off... Much to my surprise I was in the front group leading the pack of the 6km runners along with 4 guys i don't know. The first stretch was a steep descend which was immediately followed by a steep climb. :P After about 2km of up and down my knees started hurting and I started walking. My breath was thin and my vision blurred as i walked in a very slow pace up the hills of McKinley. Everyone was passing me now and from the lead I was bumped into the middle of the pack.

I tried to run but after about 2 mins my chest started hurting - I muscled all my energy to run as I threw careless curses into the wind - blaming the hills for my hurting knee. 3KM passed. At some point during the course of the run Loogz caught up with me and we started walking together. I was panting hard having that feeling that I was about to faint - he said he had the same so we decided to just walk the remainder of the race route. The steep climb was harsh even when we were walking, perhaps it was the lack of practice or the cold legs - I just couldn't run anymore. I walked, I walked very slow until we got close to the 5km mark. At this point it already started raining - and presto! I now have a reason to stop running. :P

To sum it up i wasn't able to finish the race - I was too tired too soon. The run was again as excruciating as my first and i suppose the fact that we were running in such high inclination didn't help one bit. :(

Now I'm Back. I'm back to my training plans and Im hoping that the next run takbo.ph anniv run would be better. hopefully a sub 40 or sub 35 :)

here are some pics from the race.

almost flying

sooo tired (yes i've gotten a lot darker from the swimming lessons T_T)

gunstart

lap marker