Last Sunday, I ran at Bulacan Master Heroes Day Run 2026, which took place in the city of Malolos, Bulacan. As you can guess, the event was held to honor the courage and sacrifice of Philippine national heroes while promoting health, fitness, and community unity. The event was supposed to take place on August 30, right before the Heroes Day, but it was cancelled because of the storm that resulted in many parts of the city being flooded, including the route for the race. Running in the rain was one thing, but you can't even run when the road is flooded. Because of that, the event was moved to September 20.
Anyway, it was the first 10-kilometer race that I participated in since February this year during Homecredit Takbo #ParaSaLife, so I was very eager to beat my official race time of 59:06 in this event. At the same time, finishing the race in less than 1 hour would entitle runners to an exclusive Sub 1 Finisher Shirt, so more reasons for me to chase my personal best.
I arrived at the venue at around 3:40 A.M., just about 50 minutes before the race started, and immediately, I went to the Claiming booth to claim my race kit, since I hadn't had time to claim it before the race. For some reason, claiming my kit became a huge headache because it took a long time before they could find my name on their list, and by the time I got my kit, about 15 minutes had passed. Then it also took some time for me to deposit my belongings at the baggage counter and go to the bathroom to make sure I wouldn't pee myself while running, unlike what happened in the Hydrox Diarrhea Incident in Beijing. That has left me with about 25 minutes to warm up before the race, mainly focusing on my legs. I was not able to do warm-up exercises for my upper body because my attention got diverted to the post-race dance performance. Little did I know that not having an upper body warm-up would bite me during the race.
As soon as the dancers finished their performance, all the 10km runners quickly moved to the starting line. Given the volume of runners, I can say that there could easily be a thousand runners who participated in the 10 km distance alone, resulting in me having a much lower start than I was expecting, but after the first 400-500 meters, I was able to run at my desired pace of below 5:30/km. But as I was about to reach 4 kilometers, I suddenly felt a stabbing pain under the lower edge of my ribcage. That's when I realized that I was suffering from a Side Stitch. The usual suspects for a side stitch include eating a large meal before working out or the lack of a warm-up, but I only eat a single piece of banana before the race, so I can rule out that the cause was my lack of warm-up.
And so, for the next 2-2.5 kilometers, I ran while enduring the pain of the side stitch before it was gone, but as a result, I had to lower my pace while also heavily depleting my stamina, making it hard to run at the same pace as when the race began, as you can see in the pace chart. Still, I was able to reach the finish line in around 57:40 minutes. And so, along with the medal, I was also given a makeshift sub-1 medal made of paper. Later on. I learned that there has been an issue with the timing chip system, which resulted in the unavailability of runners’ official chip-time records, and that makeshift medal was the solution they came up with to identify the runners who made it to the finish line in less than an hour.
Right after that, there was a little stage parade for runners who were able to reach the finish line in less than an hour, probably to use in a montage by the organizers, and maybe to get an estimate of the runners who will receive the exclusive finisher shirt.
After that, I don't really spend that much time roaming around the different booths within the venue. I just waited for my colleagues, asked the event photographer to take some pictures of us, and then we proceeded to go home. I just have to wait to get my finisher shirt within the next two weeks.
That was it for this post. Thank you, and see you at the next one.