The Subic International Marathon (SIM) has one of the toughest road race courses in the Philippines. It is held within the vicinity of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA). It starts in the center of town right in front of the fairly new Harbor Point Mall, goes past the Subic Airport then goes through the forest where you make a U-turn right outside Ocean Adventure and go all the way back where you originally started from.
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| Subic Marathon 2013 Course Map |
Sounds easy enough, but once you enter the forest, you will need to go up steep ascents that can go on up to 120m and that seemed never-ending.
The Preparation
By this time, I've learned my lesson about getting proper training before taking on these long-distance races. So I signed up for the 5th season of the Milo APEX Running School.
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| Milo APEX Running School Season 5 42KM group |
I also joined several races like the 8KM Immuvit Challenge in Nuvali which was a semi-trail, semi-obstacle run (much like the Tough Mudder)
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| At the river crossing portion of the Immuvit Challenge |
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| Right after jumping over a (supposedly) burning log |
With a couple of friends, we joined the Bull Runner Dream Team race. It's a 21KM race for teams of 3 who all need to cross the finish line together. It was a test of patience and team work, and it was all loads of fun too going back to the same place where I ran my first marathon!
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| Team MGM at the TBR Dream Team Run! |
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| With my girls and Coach Jim after finishing the 21KM event at the 36th Milo Marathon National Finals |
Finally, I joined the 32KM Rizal Day Run at Camp Aguinaldo, hosted by the Bald Runner. To complete the race, you need to go around a 7-kilometer loop inside the camp 4.5 times before turning into the Grand Stand where the finish line is setup. I finished the race in 3hrs35min and came in 5th overall under the Female Category.
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| Running in Camp Aguinaldo during the Rizal Day Run |
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| Happy to finish! |
I even sought out Coach Titus who specializes in massages that loosen the ITB. I had 2 sessions with him before race day and he even recommended several exercises that should be able to help get rid of ITB for good (that is, if I religiously performed them on a daily basis).
At this point, I was feeling confident I'll be able to conquer SIM without a glitch.
Well...
These Three Things
If I were going to have to do 3 things differently about this race it would be these:
#1: Driving to the venue
Subic is 2-3 hours outside of Manila via NLEX and SCTEX. At the time, I thought driving to and back from the venue will be manageable to do within the same day. The race starts at 4:30am so if we leave Manila by midnight, we have time to kill by the time we arrive in Subic. So that's what I, with 2 of my running friends, did. And I drove.
I thought 5 hours of sleep earlier would be enough rest for my body. What I didn't know was that by driving, I was putting (at the time) unnecessary stress to my legs. Did I mention I drove a manual transmission car? Yes. So despite it being a fairly easy drive, I was still using up energy I was supposed to be reserving for my race.
One good thing that we did during the drive was to make a food stop so that I can load on some more carbohydrates, which proved valuable later in the race.
If I will do this all over again, I'll book a room in Subic so that I can take my sweet time getting to the start line.
#2: Peaking too early
So we arrived in Subic around 3:30am. I initially thought of taking a quick nap once we got there, but that proved impossible to do. I was already excited, nervous and anxious and the organizers were also blasting music through the sound system to welcome runners who've started to arrive. I did try to calm down a bit, but it was hopeless.
At around 4am, I decided to do my warm up stretches and some drills then headed to the start line to wait for the gun start.
I was through the first 10KM in under an hour (~57 min), then was done with half of the marathon in a little over 2 hours (~2hrs 9min). I didn't even notice that I was going too fast because I was preoccupied with keeping pace with the crowd of people surrounding me during that part of the race. I reached the U-Turn at the gate leading to Ocean Adventure in 2 hours and 30 minutes. I took a quick break to hydrate, load up on sugar and stretch, before heading back.
Then my calves and hamstrings started cramping up. In the next hour and 45 minutes I struggled to keep an even and easy pace because my muscles couldn't cope with any more of the ascents.
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| The course elevation map during the SIM 2013 |
Well, I didn't drive 3 hours during the wee hours of the morning just to call it quits, did I?
#3: Heat Training
We didn't need to worry about heat during the first 3 quarters of the race course because half of it we ran before the sun was up, and there was a considerable amount of foliage during the next quarter. However, I was not ready to deal with direct sunlight and dry air during the last 10KM.
Right after you pass the Subic Airport, while heading back to the start/finish line, any form of shade suddenly disappeared. Even though the road was right beside the bay, there wasn't even a single hint of wind, which was really odd.
If the 120-meter ascents weren't punishment enough, running the last 10KM under the unforgiving sun was torture.
As a general rule, I avoid running when it becomes too hot. When you live in Manila, you know what I mean when I say hot. Aside from the risk of getting skin cancer because of too much exposure to UV rays, you are also exposed to all kinds of other elements full on like pollution and the permanent humidity in the air. So it makes much more sense to train either really early in the mornings before 8am or at night when the sun has set. Races that I join start early in the morning anyway so the need for heat training isn't really necessary if you think about it.
So it was already past 8am and the sun was already up high in the sky. Water at the drink stations have warmed up and all the ice has melted so you can't even get relief from the heat with a cool drink because there was none available. It also didn't help that I was running on very sore legs that are threatening to cramp up every time I moved them. I was stopping almost every 5 minutes because it was all just too much to take.
Just before we turned the last corner before the last 2Km stretch to the finish line, the 2 friends who came with me appeared. They've been waiting behind a post after they've run 21KM (just for training) waiting for me to come around. I was so relieved and overwhelmed to see familiar faces, I started to cry like a baby. I can still clearly remember how I blurted out in tears that "It's so hard!!!" Luckily, they still had their wits with them and they were able to calm me down. They accompanied me on the last stretch offering words of encouragement and consolation, and just making sure that I keep my feet moving.
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| The orange crew to the rescue! |
At this point, I just wanted to finish the darned race, so when I finally caught a glimpse of the finish line, I called on every ounce of energy I still have left in me and ran all out until I finally crossed it with a time of 5:09:35. Yay! It was at least a (miraculously) new Personal Record once again!
I went straight to the medic tent and it took me a good 20-30 minutes before I could stand up again. I couldn't even straighten my back because of the soreness that I felt all over my body. I was walking like a stooped old woman with a very bad case of scoliosis (no pun intended), it was almost too hilarious to witness except that I was truly in pain.
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| Barely standing but still smiling! |
I still feel very lucky because I had friends who looked after me that day. They took me to have lunch at the nearby mall before we drove back home - I had my friend drive this time. Once home, I was flat out until the next day. I was so dehydrated I couldn't even sit up. I had a fever and the shakes, and it took me a while before I could get up to get some food and liquids inside me until I felt better.
So will I run the Subic Marathon again? Absolutely! This race poses a challenge that you will hardly get when running races in Manila. It demands a kind of discipline that I've yet to attain both in training and in the actual race. It's a true test of endurance and will power. I admire the PMA Cadets who ran the race that same day because they just made it look so easy that I'm quite embarrassed to admit that I had to struggle through it.
So yes, I will run it again, definitely! The more important question is WHEN that next time will be. For sure, when that happens, I will be better prepared for it and will be able to meet its demands head on both physically and psychologically.
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