NB Powerrace = Perfect Weather + Lots of Water + Clean/Fresh Air

On By kingofpotsIn Insights, Jogging, Pictures, Races, Running

Race Report: New Balance Powerrace 25K Race @ 5:49 AM 16 November 2008

Last year, I found out about this race when it was featured in one of the Lifestyle articles of Philippine Star after a month from the date it was conducted in Clark Air Base. I was impressed about his race when I found out that this race was able to use the RFID technology for each runner in the 25K race to determine their finish time. Since I was not able to run the first edition of this race, I promised myself to run this race for this year.

Three weeks ago, I had the members of the Team Bald Runner and myself registered for this race and trained for it and made some planning for the transport and distribution of the athletes to run for a particular pace. As I trained for this race in preparation for the Milo Marathon Finals, I was wondering why New Balance came up with a 25-Km race which is not within the conventional distances (5K, 10K, 10-Mile, 20K, & Half-Marathon) of road races. Maybe, some sports apparel could come up also with a 30-K or 32-K run in the future which I think would benefit those who are preparing their marathon race as their last “long steady distance” run.

The Team Bald Runner left for Clark Air Base after lunch on Saturday and stayed in one of the transient facilities inside Air Force City. Some of the members of the team joined the 5K race in the afternoon of Saturday and Gerald Sabal of my team won in the Men’s 5K run.

After a 7-8 hours of sleep on the night of Saturday, I woke up at 4:00 AM and did the “usual” preparations for the race. At 4:45 AM, I was already near the Assembly Area and did my warm-up and stretching. There was some slight shower of rain before the start of the race and I knew this was a good sign that the race will have a nice weather for all the runners. I was able to get my RFID “chip” from the Registration Area and met Wayne aka SFrunner; Philip aka Foreign Runner; Jay aka Prometheus Running; members of Happy Feet Runners and other “runner-bloggers” and “commentors” to this blog.

After some confusion as to where the runners would enter into the “corral”, we were finally led to the exact location where all the runners would position themselves but it took some time for everybody to enter the “corral”. More announcements were made and there were key personalities of New Balance who made their speech which most of the runners could not understand because of “technical” problems with the Public Address System. Anyway, the runners just heard a “popping sound” and blowing of a portable horn and the 25K race started at 5:49 AM which was 19 minutes delayed from the 5:30 AM scheduled start. I didn’t have any complaints about the late start as the surroundings was still dark and the sky was too cloudy where I suspected/anticipated that it might rain later during the race.

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BR, Philip, Jerry, Ivy, Mark, Charlie & Mark’s friend before the start of the race.

As soon as the race started, the elite runners were already ahead of the rest of the runners and I maintained a pace of 5:19 mins/km together with Coach Salazar and MarkFB. The 1st kilometer was all flat and the 2nd kilometer had more downhill and was able to pick up my pace to 4:50 mins/km. After one more uphill at the start of the 3rd km, everything was all slightly downhill. At this point, I was running fast together with a group of runners with an average pace of 4:40 mins/km, however, after the 11th km, it started to go slightly uphill towards the the turn-around point at 12.5-km point. After the turn-around point, I could see the other runners and bloggers who were about to reach the halfway point. I received more greetings and shouting of the words—“Bald, Bald Runner, Sir Jovie, BR” and lots of waving and “high-fives” from my friends and visitors and bloggers as I ran towards the second-half of the race. 

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The “Hardcore” Group with BR on the 1st half of the race.

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Lester (in blue), BR, MarkFB, ang Coach Salazar approaching the turn-around point.

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The other members of the “Hardcore” Group…Jonel aka Bugobugo85; Jay aka Prometheus Cometh; & Rollie (?)

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Lester, Coach Salazar, and BR on our way back to the Finish Line

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Coach Salazar & BR went ahead of the group towards the Finish Line.

On the last 8 kms, I started to speed up as I was about to go uphill and I was able to leave the other runners who were with me for the first half of the race. Upon reaching the last 3 kms, I started to count my strides loudly from 1-20 and repeat the process up to the finish line. I ran the last two kilometers as if I was doing my 2K speed run at the oval track and even increased my pace on the last kilometer before the finish line with an average pace of 4:40 mins/km.

My GF 305 registered a time of 2:09:00 with a distance of 25.14 kms. My average pace was 5:07 mims/km. The course was really, really tough and challenging but it was balanced with a cloudy sky with colder temperature; lots of (bottled) water in all the water stations which were positioned every 2.5 kms; and most of all, with the clean/unpolluted and fresh air of Clark Air Base.

Congratulations to New Balance for a nice and memorable race. It was indeed a “power race” with the ideal conditions for a great road race. I can not wait for next year’s edition of this challenging race.

More pictures to follow on my next posts.

17 thoughts on “NB Powerrace = Perfect Weather + Lots of Water + Clean/Fresh Air”

  7. markfb

    Thanks for the first 10km BR! I wanted to run all the way with you but I just couldnt keep up. Mali ata gasolina nakarga ko that day. hehehe Congrats on a great run, iba ka talaga. Age is just a number. Hopefully we can keep up next time. Pati si Lester naiwan mo sir.

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  8. foreignrunner

    You are proving science wrong or are you an exception to the rule? You are getting faster and better the older you get. You looked great and great run. Thanks for the tip of the dry ice around the neck, it is needed in this hot country. See you at unicef and remember, I will be bringing my old pair of running shoes with me, they are still in great condition.

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  9. kingofpots

    jonel, nice pictures and you look great during the race.

    jay, at last, prometheus is being “exposed” through this blog.

    witchkitty, thanks. it was great to be running with runners 10-20 yrs younger! hehehe!

    lester, thanks. i hope you could join the speed training and be able to “fix” your back problem.

    jerry, thanks. i hope to catch up with you & philip..hahaha!..i told captain espejo that drinking during the race will be a part of the speed training.

    sundaywarrior, thanks. it is just a part of a training and the bigger picture is to be able to run the bataan ultra next year.

    markfb, everything is hardwork and i know you are going to be faster soon!

    philip, thanks. hopefully, i could make myself faster in the coming races but i have to put in more time and effort for this. slowly but surely, i’ll be able to be more competitive while we have the strength to run. see you in the next races.

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  10. sfrunner

    HI BR. Great post again with photos. Team Baldrunner did quite well as did you on what was a challenging course. We were fortunate to have the cloud cover and less humidity. Yes on the job by New Balance. The last two weekends of races are among the best that I’ve run in.

    Thanks again for everything and I’ll see you in LA in March!

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  11. Hi Sir Jovie — congrats on a great run. Captured a few pics of you with a really strong finish. Idol ka talaga!! Hope to catch you again in a race in the near future. More power to you and your group!!

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  15. rgcabredo

    Hello sir, I first ran into your blog in June. I decided to log my runs and try the 1000K challenge. I logged around 375km since June. The NB Powerace is my longest run ever 25K. I was a truly a challenge. The course layout and support (marshalls, signs, water stations) were great. It was a great feeling to make to the finish line. My wife also finished the 10K run.

    Unfortunately, I was among 5 car owners whose vehicles were broken into sometime during the race. We parked at the end of street (cul-de-sac) behind the Clark Hostel and Clark Museum. I and my wife lost many valuable and important items. I reported this to the CDC police. They seemed to point the finger at the race organizer for not providing security. Another robbery victim at the police station said that he talked to a race organizer. The race organizer said that security is a police matter. Quite sad to see people pointing fingers at each other while washing their hands of responsibility.

    I work at Clark and was able to borrow money from co-workers so that I could check my family out of a hotel, feed them, buy fuel and pay for toll back to Manila. The new theme/tag-line of New Balance is very appropriate for my feelings – Love-Hate running.

    Hate to rain on the parade, but I think other runners should learn from this experience. Be careful where you park your car. Push organizers to improve lighting and security. There is always a better way to do things.

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  16. nvllanora1975

    Sir,

    I am perfectly right when I said in your Aniversary Blog that you are getting stronger in every race. You just proved it again in this NB Power Race. Age doesn’t really matter – CONGRATS BR.

    As for me, it seems like my record was lost. My bib # was 2138 but there was no record found as indicated in the unofficial result. I already emailed Extribe though.

    Congrats again, Sir Jovie.

    Nolan

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  17. geneordanza

    Sir Jovie, congrats on another great run. galeng! It was great finally meeting you at the race, may photo-ops pa para ebidence 🙂 Hope to bump into you again at the race and more power to you and your projects!

    –gene

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