Rain, Rain & More Rain

Sunday September 27, 2009 was the Newport Liberty Half Marathon, the clouds opened up and it rained the entire time of the event.

Woke up 5:30 am and after an hour Agnes and I were on our way to Jersey City. Got to the race site with 20 minutes to spare for registration and a short warm up! As we were entering the parking building we saw Lence, asked him to get my number to save time. We really should had left the house 30 minutes earlier, now I didn't had any time to fully prepare!

Meet up with Lence, put on my race bib number and champion chip. Tried to use a Porta-a-John but lines were too long, then we heard a staff event member shouting 3 minutes till start time! I didn't really felt like disposing any business yet, so I told Lence let's just go and run. Turn out to be a BIG mistake, more about it later.

Got to the starting line, gave Agnes a kiss and she took our usual pre-race photo.




My initial goal for this race was to break 2 hours which I have never done before. Lence was going to help me achieved this goal. However leading up to this race I got sick and weather conditions were not ideal. I told Lence let's just see how things go and how I feel but I will still try to break 2 hours today.

Mile 1 - was our warm up, we passed Rainer Dones and his wife! Congrats for toughing it out there!

Mile 2- pace picked up to 8:30min/mile, too early & too fast had to pull back to 9:10min/mile.

Mile 3- had to stop 5minutes @ a McDonalds and dispose my business, couldn't wait to get back to the finish line anymore. This is why getting to race site EARLY is really important, so that this kind of things don't happen. Told Lence just to conitnue and I will try to catch up with him later.

Mile 4 breaking 2 hours was going to be really tough now! paced picked up and was too fast 8:41min/mile. I saw a woman wearing a sign at her back "Seek Ye first the Kingdom of God" as I was passing her I shouted "Amen Sister" and she smiled back!
I ate one GU Roctane followed by water.

Mile5 I got lucky race marshals stopped the trains from crossing, but right after I passed the tracks they let the trains go by as a result some runners had to stop a for a minute or 2. That would have been more time lost for me, yikes!

Mile6 we were now inside Liberty State Park, lot's of puddles and mud run. Race clock read 1 hour and change, calculated I have to run less than an 1 hour for the next 7 miles to break 2 hours, it wasn't going to happen today so I changed my goal to finish less than 2:10

Mile 7 in the zone, after the pit stop @ mile 3 I was just passing a lot of runners and I wasn't being passed. This felt really GREAT!

Mile 8 dropped my Endurolytes tablets, grrrrrrrrrrr..... Good thing the aid stations were now serving Gatorade, so I switched to Gatorade from H2O.

Mile 9 caught up with Lence and saw Joanne Jager on the other side, words of encouragement were exchanged. I was feeling fatigue now, I guess dropping my nutrition bothered me mentally.
Ate another GU Roctane followed by water.


Photo courtesy of KenShelton

Mile 10 & 11 recovery run but still was passing a lot of runners and not being passed!

Mile 12 & 13 picked the pace up again just enough to finish within the new goal time.

Our official time was 2:09, no PR today but it was still a new Course Record for me. So it didn't turn out to be a total lost anyway. There will be another day to break that 2 hour barrier for me.

Thanks to Lence for dragging my butt and of course to Agnes for her Love & support, waking up early and waiting for 2 hours in the cold and rain is just has hard as running 13.1 miles.

For the geeks you can check our splits by clicking HERE

Thanks for reading!

Mabuhay,
Cerrone

Fil-Am Tri Club Ride/Picnic

Long Island, NY September 19, 2009
Sunny & Clear 70F

Thanks to Andrew for organizing the ride & picnic.... 30 strong Filipino riders came out for a beautiful day of riding, eating & playing.

Enjoy the Video

Monmouth County Park Sprint Triathlon

I made the decision to participate in this race only the night before. This race has been one of the oldest triathlon events in the Jersey Shore area, it's the 25th annual sprint triathlon @ Seven Presidents Park.

Coming into this race I had no real training, it's been 3 weeks now since Timberman 70.3, so I'm hoping there is still a little bit of fitness left that I gained from all that Ironman 70.3 training. My goal here was just to enjoy every bit of moment for my the Last triathlon event for my 2009 season.

The race was scheduled to start @ 7:45 am and registration @ 6:30am. It's about an hour drive to the park from my place, so I set the alarm clock on my cell phone @ 5:00 am. I was deeply asleep and I thought I was dreaming when I heard somebody calling my name, it was actually my mom waking me up, it's 5:30am!! Oh no gotta hurry now...... So I got to the park with about half an hour to spare, still needed to register then setup transition, I kept calm and just did everything I visualize while driving to the park (Note: I firmly believe in visualization training is really important too!)

The swim was 1/4 mile long, but the waves that morning were like 8-10 feet high! Definitely a good morning for surfing and not much for swimming. It was hard getting past the breakers but I gotta admit it was also a lot of fun for me though, I like the feeling riding up those waves... Anyway click on the link to see the details from my Garmin http://connect.garmin.com/activity/13254176

Now the bike was a 12.5 mile flat and straight away course, there were some head winds on the first 3 miles and the final 3 miles that definitely slowed us down. Choice of nutrition on the ride was Gatorade Endurance Formula mix, 2 Endurolytes & 1 GU Roctane... http://connect.garmin.com/activity/13254180 (I forgot to pressed the lap button until about .5 miles into the course).

Onto the 3.1 mile run, the course on the boardwalk along Atlantic Ocean, very beautiful!!! started out easy and stayed relaxed, got to the half way turn point and popped another 2 Endurolytes tablets... Then I saw Lence only a few meters away from making his way to the half way turn around also. The race was on for me, I wanted to test myself and see if I can hold him off.... I picked up my pace and increase my leg turnover. With about 3/4 miles to go to the finish line we were running shoulder to shoulder, picked up my pace and attacked, Lence responded, I relaxed a bit and then I tried to attack but Lence responded again, with about 1/4 mile to go he finally passed me and I was done.... Maybe next year! http://connect.garmin.com/activity/13254183

Thank you all for reading!

Mabuhay,
Cerrone

Letting Go and Loving Again

It's been over a week since Timberman 70.3. Recovery has been good, I had plenty of eating activities and no training sessions.

I'm feeling some emptiness inside me. So last Sunday & Monday I started to run again, just a short and easy 3 miles around the neighborhood. Last night I wanted to go out for another easy 3 mile run. But once I got at turn on the first block my Garmin watched vibrated, I thought! damn is it one mile already??? but then I saw the "low battery" warning message. So I said to myself forget about the watch. So I let go of my GPS watch and no heart rate monitor(haven't used one since I got my garmin 310xt), I was still listening to my tunes on my ipod though.

So letting go of technology and just running using my legs, heart and mind not worrying about any measurements made me fall in love again with running. I just enjoyed each stride and the views of my neighboorhood.

That's all for me now!

Mabuhay,
Cerrone