April: Are You a Fool for Races?

By the time this is posted, I will most certainly be more than halfway to Taytay from Fort on my first long run. I’m putting in mileage for marathon training. However, it’s just more exciting and motivating to join races. April is a boom month for races, despite it being the peak of summer in this part of the world. The first weekend of April is taken up by Black Saturday and Easter Sunday, so no races have been scheduled then. However, it seems that race organizers are doing double time with the succeeding weekends.

On April 10 (Saturday) the Run for Wellness, Run for Awareness will be held at Mall of Asia. Organized by the project management students of DLSU College of St. Benilde, it’s a cheap race at P200. No singlet but if you’re looking to score a podium finish, they have awards for female and male finishers for the 5K and 10K events.

April 11’s major event is the Mizuno Infinity Run to be held at Fort. One of the key features of this race is the “Beat Your Time” challenge. The finisher who has shown the most improved time between their current finish time and last year’s wins something. (I don’t know what; I’m not registered since I’ll be in Boracay for Summit Media’s “Beauty and the Beach” event. *giggles*)

The weekend of April 17 and 18 has a combined seven race events between those two days. Saturday is jampacked with the Merrell Adventure Run (Montalban), SlimmeRun (Fort), and TailRunners: The Metro Dog Run (MOA). Sunday has two earth-themed races: The National Geographic Channel’s Earth Day Run (MOA), and The Earth Run 2010 (Fort). How confusing! I know many people who registered for one race but actually meant to register for the other one.

Now if all those races still haven’t tired you out, there are 10 races (OMG!) on the weekend of April 24-25. The Second Pocari Fun Run (Fort) is the only one that will be held in Metro Manila, though. TNF 100 (Baguio), Takbo 2010: Run for a Good Cause (Bulacan), and the Greenfield City Sunset Run (Laguna) will all be out of town. I’ll be back in Boracay on the 24th and will be at the Skyathon Run (Hotlegs Julie will also be there, yay!).

You might have a hard time picking which race to attend on April 25; my personal preference if I were in town would be the PGH Medical Foundation Fun Run (CCP). Rounding out this smorgasbord of races are the VSO Kabahagi Run (McKinley Hill), the Home Run Challenge (Filinvest Alabang), the Sunkist Healthy Heart Masters Run (Ayala Alabang) and the Highlands-Mizuno Fun Run Challenge (Tagaytay).

There is no shortage of races this month. (Hopefully there’s no water shortage for any of them, either. It is summer, you know.) Are you a fool for races? I know I am. I’ve signed up for three!

Check out a more comprehensive list of races this year at Takbo.ph.