Quezon City International Marathon

Distance: 10K
Time: 1 hour and 3 minutes
Date: December 4, 2011
Pace: 6:12 minutes per kilometer

Quezon City

The unique treat in joining a race in Quezon City is that you get to run at the widest highway in the country, Commonwealth Ave.  I used to shy away from Quezon City based run since I am based in Makati with BGC and MOA being closer locations but this time, it seemed to be a well organized run backed by a strong sponsor, SMDC and Runnex. The different race categories are spaced apart and that would avoid an overcrowded run with 42K taking off at 4:00 am, 21K taking off at 4:30 am, 10K taking off at 5:45 am and 5K taking off at 6 am.

The Route and Elevation

The race course for the 10K category is quite simple.  It starts from the Quezon Memorial Circle in front of Quezon City Hall and goes straight to Commonwealth Avenue and with a U-turn at halfway point which is a little past Amsterdam Avenue in Don Jose Area in Commonwealth and then you take the same road back to Quezon Memorial Circle for the Finish Line.  The advantage of a straight course is you don’t get much disruption of momentum because of curves and turns in the course.

Though the course way seem flat the elevation can be tricky with the first 5 kilometer of the race being a slow uphill climb with series of inclines and descents along the way which includes the Tandang Sora Flyover.  After the u-turn you get the course in reverse with slow downhill descent back to Quezon Circle and passing again through several inclines and descents along the way.

The Race

At first I was more worried about the parking than the race being not so geographically familiar with Quezon City.  I was able to get a nice parking space near the Quezon City Hall of Justice.  I did short runs of warmups and the regular stretching routine.  This race was more of a build up for longer runs so my main strategy was to run at a relaxed and steady pace throughout the race and just have fun.

I was not pace-conscious during this race and was more concerned in avoiding so much walking breaks and I was surprised when I saw my pace in Garmin. It was as flat as it can be with the blips just for short stops at the water stations.  I am used to running at a volatile pace sometimes starts strong, fade a little, recover and end strong but I’m happy I got to run at a pace I was able to sustain for the full 10K of the race and it was a decent time and a strong finish and most important of all I had fun.  Since Commonwealth is wide, there was enough room to run and it was a good thing that they did separate the 5K runners u-turn slot to add more running space for 10K, 21K and 42K runners.  It was a bit congested in the finish line but still tolerable since the 21K, 10K and 5K runners almost came at the same time due to the spacing of the gun start.   Hydration was spaced about 2 and a half kilometers apart and it was good I did have my hand held hydration.  It was a good run and the weather was cool for the whole duration of the race though the full marathoners did have a taste of rain.

Team Total Fitness Running

It was nice running with Team Total Fitness again with strong finishes in 10K and 21K categories with Andie and Richie finishing their first half marathon. Congrats to the whole team for another great race and given that we’ve just survived a very tough “From Tokyo with Love” a few days ago.   It’s great running under the Total Fitness banner and being part of a team that trains hard and race harder.