I woke up at 4:30 AM this morning to prepare for this race. While inside my car enroute to UP Campus, I started doing my stretching for my smaller muscles. I arrived at the race area at 5:20 AM and continued to stretch my bigger muscles and leg muscles; and later slowly jogged around the parking area for my warm-up routine.

Upon reaching the start area, I saw two Kenyan runners talking among themselves. I approached and started talking to them. I found out that they participated in the 2008 Subic Bay International Marathon held two weeks ago (20 January 2008). They introduced themselves as “Tom & Sam”.  The taller Kenyan, Sammy Kiprono, placed 2nd Runner-Up (3rd Place) in the Subic Marathon with a time of 2:28:17 hours while the shorter one, Thomas Kiprotich, placed No. 8 with a time of 2:35:08 hours. After some pictorials with them, I tried to go around and look for familiar faces whom I met in my previous road races.

I saw familiar faces among the crowd to include “the guys” whom I met in Clark Freeport Run—the “senior runners” and  “weekend runners” from Manila. These guys are very funny and friendly. I stayed with this group up to the time the race started.

I saw Ben (Photographer On The Run) as the Official Photographer of the Race and he got some pictures of me and the Kenyan runners. I really appreciate his offer to help me and act as my “support team” for the Pasig River Heritage Marathon.

I was using my Nathan Water Belt. One of the runners behind me at the Start Area asked me where I bought it and told him that I bought the item in Los Angeles. He asked again if it is advisable to use it in 10K races and I told him that I am used to it because I always use it during my training.

After playing the National Anthem, Welcome Address by the Organizers, and Course Orientation, the race started slightly delayed by 2-3 minutes after 6:00 AM. Once the race started, I left the group of “senior runners” and started to maintain my pace based from my “speed play” runs. There were no kilometer markings along the way and I monitored my pacing and the distance I covered through my Timex Watch with the thought that my average pace per kilometer should not be more than 5 minutes per kilometer for me to improve my finish time.

The course is relatively flat except from Km # 6 to Km # 7 where there are uphill terrain. At Km # 8, I knew already that I have a chance to improve my time from my previous 10K run in Clark Freeport and I was able to increase my speed up to the finish line. I finished the race with an unofficial time of 46:45 minutes. I was running about 7:31 minutes per mile or 4:41 minutes per kilometer. With this latest feat, I was able to improve my PR best time by three minutes & fifty-one seconds (3:51 minutes) from my Clark Freeport 10K run at 50:36 minutes.

The following data were taken from my Timex Watch Zone Trainer Digital Heart Monitor:

Elapsed Time—46:45.9 minutes

Time In Zone—41:58 minutes

Maximum HR—182

Minimum HR—109

Average HR—174

Total Calories—795