Monday, August 18, 2008

Run For Your Life!

Wow, it's been a while. School has been eating me alive and I haven't been able to run much recently. Good thing UP is full of health buffs so runs are always advertised and supported.

After making sure that my schedule was clear for the weekend, I registered my brother and I last week for the "Run For Your Life" run that took place just last Sunday, on the 17th. Unfortunately, big bro wasn't able to join me last minute as he had work shiz to finish. Good thing my Better Half (lol how mushy am I) lives around the area, so my brother's spot wasn't put to waste.

We got to UP around 20 minutes before the race began. The usual warm-ups were taking place, as well as the usual last minute registrations. I looked for some familiar faces, maybe a number of Happy Feet people, but I wasn't able to spot anyone. I did bump into a friend though; she had already finished running and was "gate crashing" at the run. :p

The race was okay, though I did notice a number of differences in the system. First, the route was different, which was great as it was refreshing and it seemed much shorter than the other runs I've joined in UP. Or maybe that's because I ran side by side with my boyfriend all throughout. :p Also, instead of starting with the longer distances (10k before 5k before 3k), they started with the shortest distance. That worked out well, too; or maybe that's because we were one of the last ones to finish. xp Not our fault though! Okay, well, not entirely. Let's just say unexpected human hindrances got in the way. Or maybe that's just me being defensive. Haha!

See, my boyfriend (whom I shall call BH from now on - it makes for shorter type time. Haha, like it matters) has a knee condition which he got when he was in high school. I think it's called ACL? Something like that. He can't run long distances now as his kneecaps go all crazy when he does. Now the distance my brother and I signed up for was 10k, so... yeah.

The first few kilometers were going great; I'd say by the fourth kilometer we were still good. Then Mister Pain comes creeping in as we were reaching our fifth, so we had to slow down a bit. When BH felt the pain start to worsen, he decided it best to walk first. I jogged slowly beside him, as I really don't like walking when I've got my momentum going. This happened in intervals throughout the remaining lengths of the race; jog, walk, jog, walk. As we reached around three-fourths of the last 5 kilometers, we saw the water guys packing up and overheard one of them go, "eto na ba yung huli?" which the other guy replied to with "oo, sila na nga".

Then BH decides to start running.


Men. xD


So we ran the last lengths. The whole time I kept asking BH if he was okay, and he kept on saying that his knee hurt like hell. I'd ask if he wanted to walk instead, he'd go "no, let's go finish this sucker running, we're almost there anyways", so we did. Technically we weren't last; there were still around seven people behind us. :p

After passing through the finish line, BH sat and winced in pain. He couldn't bend his left knee and had a hard time standing up. I asked him why he didn't want to walk the last kilometer, he goes "una kong 10k 'to, ang pangit naman kung last pa ako, diba?"

Again, men. xD


Despite that, we were able to finish the race, and I'm proud to say (so is he, actually) that BH is a 10k virgin no more. He's recovering well now; the pain isn't as harsh as it was on Sunday. :)

So there, another run done. Hopefully we get to join other ones coming up soon, and hopefully Mister Knee Pain decides to sleep in. :p