CM Challenge 2017

Colorful 10K done.

It’s a colorful kind of dirty for me at Color Manila Challenge 2017. This time it wasn’t just about color powders but a bunch of obstacles as well.  CM Challenge also came with a challenging rolling route using the McKinley West and Bayani Road Area.  Of course, the run is just an appetizer for the wonderful color display at the Color Manila Festival.  #ColorManila #CMChallengeAccepted #ILoveColorManila

CM Challenge 2017

Running with Z and Que for this one. – Photo by Que Gavan

I’m slowly switching back to the running lifestyle. Funny that I’ve always been on the trails and this is just my 3rd road run for the year.  I just appreciate the slower pace at the trails plus the view that comes with it.  Well, it was a last minute decision to join CM Challenge being given media slots last week.  Two reasons I joined Color Manila.  First, it’s Color Manila – it’s a really fun run at a very relaxed pace. 2nd is that it’s on a rolling course of McKinley West and Bayani Road.  It’s one of the rare hilly course that can really help you work on those climbing skills.  It should be a fun way to get my mileage this week.

Race Route

The race starts at McKinley West and heads out to Lawton, Bayani Road and a short section of C5 for the u-turn slot before heading back to McKinley West on mostly ascents in Bayani Road and Lawton.

The Race

Nice seeing Maica of Team Smart at CM Challenge.

I opted for the 10 kilometer distance since I’d love to try the route at Bayani Road again.  McKinley Hills and Bayani Road were among my favorite training area before because of its hilly terrain.  I’ve been to all the Color Manila Runs but this would be my first time to try the CM Challenge version.  I came in early just to avoid the rush once the roads are closed since Milo Marathon would be occupying some of the roads from MOA to BGC including Lawton which is part of the race route.  The mood was so chill that it didn’t feel like a run would be happening this morning.

Chill for the run.

I went with fellow bloggers Que and Z, who was planning to just do 5 kilometers but was able to convince them to join me in the 10K distance on a very relaxed pace.  It helped that they ran out of 5K kits at the media tent too.   The plan was to just go on a relaxed paced on the run.  The group were separated into waves so there won’t be too much congestion on the obstacles.  We placed ourselves in the middle waves.  At gun start we made our way to the course and to the obstacles.

Inflatables

First we had to pass by the inflatables followed by obstacle color stations.  The Pink one had us crawling.  The green one had us going through the middle of the walls. The yellow one was a short wall climb.  This all happened at the first 800 meters of the race before entering the Lawton area, which was also a portion of the route of the Milo Marathon.  It was nice seeing some friends doing the Milo Marathon here.  We took the chance of the descent to run heading to Bayani Road.

Color Me Green

Bayani Road gave us so many memories of races and training on this road.  I used to run this stretch from McKinley Hill to Bayani Road until c5 at night.  The route felt creepy at night especially it included the Libingan ng mga Bayani stretch, which was eerily silent at night.  The other part of Bayani Road that we like is that it’s a rolling course. It’s not an easy one because of the climbs but this is the course I like.  I like that it uses more muscle groups, quads on the climbs and calves on the flat and descent.  We did a run walk on this part.

With Maica again at C5.

We took advantage of the descent to speed up heading to the c5 area at around the 4th kilometer.  It was fun at a fast paced on the descent and it’s a good thing that the legs was cooperative for today.  We were really running with no structure but we made some mini challenges like sprinting some stretches.  It was my first time to hit the c5 area in the Bayani Road.  There was about a 500 meters stretch in c5. One thing I noticed in the Bayani Road and C5 stretch, it was concrete.  I guess, I’ve been running for so long already that I know the difference of running on asphalt and concrete.

We shifted to the grassy part to reduce the strain of the concrete grounds.

Concrete is a bit harder on the legs. On our way back, we took the grassy stretch in Libingan ng mga Bayani just to reduce the strain of the concrete grounds.  The race has a new character on the way back as its mostly uphills.  While we were walking some stretches, we challenged ourselves to run on the climbs.  It felt exhilarating to run that steep 200 meters on the way back.  We’d resume a relaxed pace again and look for another challenging terrain.  We also run the last 500 meters heading to kilometer 7 before making our way back to Lawton.

Fun at the Color Stations.

We were surprised that there were still some runners being launched at this time at Lawton.  We’re back at McKinley West area for the final 2 kilometers.  There was a u-turn at Le Grand Avenue before heading back, which we also run just for the fun of it. After the u-turn, we’re heading back to the obstacle area with several more obstacles, the crawl at the orange station followed by the blue station.  There was a climb at an inflatable followed by the slide before heading to the finish line.

Find the Hidden Franckee – Photo by Z Villarin.

We took the last few obstacles and then headed for the finish line looking like a colorful espasol at the finish line.  I enjoyed the really chill pace as well as the challenges both from the race and our small challenges along the route. It was such a colorful way to add-on my training mileage for the week.

The Colorful Kind of Dirty.

Of course, the highlight of any Color Manila Run is the Color Festival so I’m leaving you with such a colorful visual display to cap off the event.