Week 3: Race for Life

My third straight weekend of 5Ks was for the "Race for Life", a fun run for some charity that I am unaware of. Apparently it's a pretty popular charity, because it attracted a crowd of thousands of participants-- surprising, given the relatively steep registration fee. All in all there was a total of 2694 people across all categories who finished the run (that's over 10 times the number of people in the Ateneo run the week before).

Race for Life 2010
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Bonifacio Global City

Distance: 5K / Time: 25:03 / Rank 43 of 1259

This one was held on the shiny new streets of Bonifacio Global City. For a pleasant change, the route was just one big loop with almost no backtracking. Unfortunately though, the distance based on my most generous calculations in Google Earth was just 4.8 km. Actually I suspect it was even shorter.

I'm not so familiar with the streets of BGC and didn't bother to study the race route, so during the run itself I had no idea how far along I was, and it came as a surprise afterwards when I found that I nearly finished the whole thing without walking. With a time of 25:03 I was somehow ranked 43 out of 1259 finishers in the 5K-- a ranking that remains my best ever in percentile terms.

In fact it seems fishy to me, and I had to double check the results just now to be sure. Maybe there were a lot of women and old people.

Final bend before the finish.

Epic line for goodies from sponsors.

After the run there was an area set up with the sponsor booths in a row, forming a sort of assembly line where finishers collect freebies for the generous loot bag. There were drinks, candy, sardines, soaps, shampoos, a pen, alcohol, vitamins, a raffle entry... I think there was even a bank offering loans or something. Almost enough to make the 30 minute wait in line worth it.