Coffee, Tea or Run?

It was a spur of the moment decision to run yesterday’s Amadeo Coffee Run in Amadeo, Cavite, a cool and quaint town lying in borders with Tagaytay City.  Coach Meriam received an e-mail invitation from one of the race organizers to join its first ever organized race in Amadeo and decided to join it after our Thursday morning 1 hour LSD at UP.  Since Max, our regular training partner had to go to an official meeting on race day, Saturday,  it was just Meriam and myself who will be joining this race.

We didn’t want to bring both our cars to the venue so we decided to just use Meriam’s SUV for the trip. We met up at Starmall, Shaw Blvd at about 4:45am and rushed to the venue because we were still going to register on-site. We arrived in Amadeo a few minutes past 6am. What was surprising for us when we got off the car was the relative cool climate, a spin-off from the cooler city of Tagaytay which is just a few kilometers away. We immediately went to the registration area, paid our entry fees and got our singlets. Lucky for me, there were XL sizes available.

As we were doing our warm-up stretching exercises, the race organizers announced that the race would start at 8:00am sharp. By manila standards, the race time would be way, way too late as the sun would be hanging above our shoulders by then. As we waited, we helped ourselves with what was apparently Great Taste (the brand) coffee in boiling pot then transferred to plastic pitchers and finally served in plastic cups. the large advertisements of the brand are all in the kiosks serving it. So why would race organizers of this town which prides itself as being the coffee capital of the Philippines be serving commercial blend coffee? The runners joked about this with the pretty ladies serving this coffee and ribbed with them that we would have preferred the ready to mix 3-in-one concoction. i had about a cup and a half of these while waiting. i don’t usually drink any coffee before a race and this would prove to be a near disaster for me at the latter part of the race.

Meriam finally deciding what to wear on race morning. She is almost, always in a quandary on what to wear a few minutes before race time. It will take another 10 minutes for her to decide whether to wear sunblock or not!

The starting line, just in front of the provincial capitol

The race started promptly at 8am and the first 300 meters is a sharp downhill so many of the runners started fast. I ran an average of 6min/km for the first 3 kilometers so thoughts entertained that i might be able to go for a 60-minute 10k, or so i thought. My last 10k was about an hour, eight minutes at last November’s New Balance run at Clark. At the turn-around 5km mark, my time was 28:30 which in my estimation would not be enough to do 60 minutes because the return route was mostly uphill. Disaster struck at the 6th kilometer when i felt some palpitation on my chest, my legs began to feel heavy and breathing became laborious. Must be some of the coffee i took as my heart-beat was pulsating more than my average while running. Moreover, the heat of the sun was definitely a bane so in order to control the sluggish feeling, i slowed down to a jog then walked some. It was then a combination of running, jogging and i walked when i got drinks from the stations.  It was like this for the rest of the way until the last 300 meter steep uphill. my watch registered 1:05:58. Anyways…

Meriam did a lot better, her time in the low 50s and placing 8th-overall among the 10k women runners!

Meriam posing with Liza Yambao, runner-up in the 5-k ladies division and runner friend of Happy Feet running club who placed 10th in the 10k mens division

Meriam recieving her 8th-placed award from an Amadeo town official

With hardcore ultra-runner and co-blogger Jonel aka bugobugo85

Jonel & Meriam in front of Provincial Hall

Fronting the food/coffee stalls

To celebrate’s Meriam getting a podium finish, we set-off to Tagaytay market to eat their famous hot-piping bulalo, rice and fruits.

Showing off her 8th place miniature plaque at the Bulalohan Market in Tagaytay City

Over-all, the race was well organized, lots of water stations, warm encouragements from the local folks who lined up the streets to watch. It would have been better had the race began much earlier to avoid the searing heat. We’ll definitely come back next year. Next time there will be no coffee  nor tea before a race. Just run.