Independence Day Run

More than a year ago (ooppss sorry, I have another super late post), I joined the Philippine Independence Day Half Marathon 2010. Organized by the Center for International Education (CIE) Global Colleges Manila, it was a race with high ambition to boast of having been held right during the celebration of the Country's 112th Independence Day.

It made many of the Patriotic runners give their best and expect a good turnaround of the event. Unfortunately, those expectations died a noble memory for most of the participants. Mine as well. But what failed me was not just how the race turned out, but mostly on how I performed for this run. I failed myself, I failed my own personal expectation!

What happened? During this race, it was when my plantar fascia started bothering me. And how it began was purely my fault also. Barely three weeks before this race, I just had my very first full Marathon (May 22), where I used a shoe not intended for a road race, much more for such long distance. Then just a week and a few days after this full (May 30), I was foolish enough to run a 21k distance race-pace as a very late "recovery" run, where I also achieved my first 21k PR (personal record). Then two weeks after (Jun 12), came this event - another 21k race for me less than a month after my full marathon.

So what's wrong with a full Marathon and a continued series of Pikermi in less than a month? Well this is just my personal experience but for me, my own fitness level during that time is still not ready for such kind of stress. During the May 30 21k race that I did, I was already feeling some unknown pains on my right foot. Then after the Independence Day Half Marathon (Jun 12), I realized that I am already suffering from a right foot injury - the Plantar Fasciitis.

What also attributed to this injury was not just the continued stress that I had with those races, but I think, it was also for the wrong type of apparel, (specifically the shoe in this case) that I used during the Marathon (May 22). The shoe was designed for trail running, not for road, and not for a Marathon distance. It was a Reebok Trail Crossback, size US 7.5. Just from the name itself, you'll know it's not meant for a road race, but foolish me! On my succeeding races (the two series of 21k), the shoe was right for my foot type as it was referenced from my Gait Analysis. But I remember when I bought my Adizero Boston (size US 7.5 also), the sales man advised me that the shoe was not designed for races longer than 10k. But heck, I thought I am just a light-weighted runner so racing the shoe up to 21k distance won't matter at all. Yes indeed it won't, but not if you're already suffering from an injury.

On running, the skill, fitness, and training does matter so much! But in the end, the kind of running shoes that we wear also matters a lot as we can't give our full effort/potential during a race if we're already suffering from an apparel-caused injury.

Speaking of running shoes, I just learned that there will be a new running shoe arriving soon in the Country (Philippines). I have checked their website and it's kind of promising given the fact that the shoe absorbs both the vertical and horizontal impact that our foot gets as it lands. I like the color combination of their black/lime CloudSurfer model, but it seems that the CloudRunner will be more functional for me for my near-future plans of running an Ultra-race. Yeah it's ON!

So how did my race turned-out? I finished the entire course at 1 hour, 47 minutes and 1 second, ranking 167th out of the 619 category Finishers. Fast you say? Well, the other thing that saddened me was that after I got my Finisher's medal, it turned out that the course was short of 3 kilometer distance as measured by my co-runners through their GPS-enabled watch.

The Reebok Trail Crossback, it performs well on trails, but not on road.

ON CloudRunner, does it really perform well? Let me try... ;)