My Botak Half-Marathon : 21/100
Running is addictive … once you start, you just want to keep on increasing your dose. I remembered running my first race which was a 10k during last year’s VSO held at the fort. After a few 10ks I ran my 1st 15k during Asian Hospital’s Run New and then my 1st half-marathon which was the Condura Race.
I was actually planning back then on making Botak my first full marathon. Lucky for me, I had so many deadlines at work that I had to forego of that plan and instead registered for the half-marathon. Had I been stubborn and pushed through with it, last Sunday’s run would have been a very painful memory.
Me and my friend Ian weren’t expecting PRs for this race as I didn’t have enough time to train (my weekly mileage went down from 38 to 0 after pacing for our friend Isko in BDM 102) and Ian is under the weather. So, we decided to aim for a finish somewhere between 2:15 and 2:30.
We were able to finish it with 2:29:29 on my watch.
Observations :
- There was a water truck in the Kalayaan flyover. Sweet!
- Excellent singlets. I don’t wear singlets anymore but I have to make an exception in this case.
- Lots of Gatorade at the finish line.
- There was also an awesome band at the finish line.
- The race started late. It started at 6:00 am. Starting a 21k race during the summer months in the Philippines is not cool (literally).
- There were not enough water cups in the aid stations ; luckily I brought a disposable hand-held water bottle with me which I conveniently refilled whenever I reach an aid station.
- Since this race involves a lot of “turn-arounds”; they should have added road marshals as I was almost side-swiped by a passenger jeep along Kalayaan Avenue on our way to Rockwell.
I know that It is difficult to organize a full marathon so I won’t make a big deal about the inconveniences I experienced in the half-marathon race, instead I would like to encourage Botak to improve their service for their next long distance race.
I hope that next time, no one gets lost 
I read your article about mahraton is coming to Kaohsiung for a second time.Its very useful to know that Kaohsiung do have mahraton and also you write about how and what metro/underground to get to the national stadium.I did not know there is a place called Kaohsiung until I saw in google -travel Kaohsiung.Looking at your website,maybe next year I will go to Kaohsiung and visit all the interesting places you wrote.Thanks.Michael