09.09.09

Yesterday was a very busy day for me, running-wise. I signed up for two races, both for 10k. The first is RotaRun '09, to be held on 20 September at the McKinley Hill area. It looks like RotaRun will be very challenging. The McKinley Hill terrain is notoriously, well, "hilly." The only other time that I've given McKinley Hill a go was during Urbanite 15k. RotaRun will give me another opportunity to test McKinley's inclines. Hopefully, I'd fare better this time around. I'd like to think I'm coming back as a stronger and more experienced runner. I probably won't go sub-60 in this one, but who knows?

And by the way, the singlet is really neat.

The second race that I signed up for is Race For Life '09, which is scheduled for 10 October. What makes this race appealing to me is the fact that it will be held on a Saturday, and not on a Sunday. This means that I'd get to keep my Saturday night and would not have to go to bed early. I have yet to see the route map, but I'm hoping it would be flat so I'd have a decent chance of setting a PR for 10k. Right now, my PR for 10k is 0:59, set during the recent GMA Tatakbo Ka Ba? Run.

After a long day at the office, I capped off 09/09/09 by doing a 10k run in 1:07. As I had written in my previous post, I had been "runless" for the past three days, and my body was just begging for a run. A 10k around the Fort area did the trick. Somewhere during the halfway point of my run, I felt a sharp pain at the right portion of my groin area. I stopped running and walked it off for a few minutes. It worked, but the deceleration spoiled what would have been a very good over-all pace for me. During the last three kilometers of my run, I was doing an average of about 5:35 to 5:40/k. Unfortunately, my strong finish was not enough to compensate for the 7:30/k stretch in the middle of my run. I ended up with an average pace of about 6:42. Still, this run proved to be a good warm-up for Eco Dash on the 13th.

My September is peppered with 10k races - Eco Dash on the 13th, RotaRun on the 20th, and NB Power Race on the 27th. This will be followed by the Octoberun 16k on 4 October, and another 10k at the Race for Life on 10 October. In between these runs, I'll be throwing in my own 5 and 10k weekday runs. This stretch will serve as my build-up for the Adidas KOTR 21k on 25 October.