Running Bitoy: My Fumbles in the Valley Trail Challenge and a Race Recap

My Fumbles

This is how my GPS map looks like

This is how it should look like. Find the difference.

I fumbled twice in this race. Well, the first one is my tendency to be lost. I have a very very poor sense of direction. I got lost thrice in this race.

Notice that line jutting from point 2? That's me getting lost.

The first was with the chase pack in the early part of the race which wasn't our fault because there was no marshal to point us where to make the right turn. I got lost again in the second half of the race somewhere in the field before being signaled to go the right way.

Was the discrepancy between loop 1 and loop 2 that big?

And the last, was when I missed the creek in the last part of the race. I'm chalking it up to the lack of marshal in the crucial turning points of the race and my short term memory loss. I should have remembered, shouldn't I? I was beating myself up after a fellow runner burst my bubble by telling me they were calling me when they saw me on the wrong direction. But I had my iPod on so I didn't hear them. Upon realizing that, my ego shrank to the size of a Mentos dragee. It felt like the word cheater was stamped on my humongous forehead. I asked the organizer, Sir Jonel Mendoza, if I could return my finisher's medal and explained I missed the turn towards the creek. He asked me to keep it. The organizer has already cleared me. So I kept it. But I still didn't feel like a finisher.

What made me feel better was when I compared my graph for the 1st part of the race and that of the second and saw the discrepancy wasn't that big. That happened after two weeks. So now, I can rightfully claim to have finished this race.

Graph showing straight line. That's how long I inadvertently stopped my Garmin.

Now, the second fumble could have solved the dilemma above. I inadvertently turned off my Garmin watch after the 40km mark. I am not sure why I did it and I didn't even notice it immediately and thought that I was just too slow to get my mileage going. My Garmin says I finished 53.82 kms in 7:52:39 while if I deduce the total hours based from the start time to the finish one, it would equal to 8:39:50. Therefore, I lost around 47 minutes of recorded mileage. I don't think I was walking when my watch stopped recording. So I might have run close to 4 kms during that time. Notice the straight line in my graph. There's no way I could have traversed that straight mainly because, I am a big failure at exploring on my own.

RACE RECAP

Despite the mishaps, I thought this was a great race. This was a lot easier than TNF 100 but still difficult. Now, I'm contradicting myself. I would love to do this again sans the minus points it has.

Plus points

New Zealand!

Cotton field

1. Route - Lovely, lovely route. Some of the best sights a runner can enjoy while running. I loved the New Zealand part of Nuvali and the cotton field was a feast to the eyes.

2. Water stations - They were enough to accommodate the runners and the volunteers were helpful too. I appreciated that even though there weren't enough kilometer marks, the volunteers knew how far yet to go.

3. Head organizer - I appreciated that Sir Jonel was very approachable unlike the organizer in the other ultra trail marathon that I joined who was aloof, Sir Jonel was down-to-earth and cares about his runners.

Minus points

1. Marshals - I thought there were not enough to cover all of the critical turning points of the route. Okay, I am partly to blame why I got lost on the last part but still...

Tie a yellow ribbon around a Meralco poste

2. Trail signs - I thought some of them were hard to spot and I wish they were bigger and more visible. Kilometer marks are a welcome help too.

3. One source of truth for pre-race info - There were things I never knew about that I only found out on race day. Registration by email was a viable option instead of travelling all the way to A Runner's Circle in Manila. All you had to do was send in a copy of the deposit slip. Another was the free shuttle ride from Makati to Nuvali. I wasn't able to attend the pre-race briefing so how I wish there was a place online where all these important details were posted.

Regardless of my misgivings, this is one of my favorite races to date and would look forward to join the next outing.

Special thanks

*Diorez Digal and family for hosting me for a night

*Shosan who gave me a lift when she saw me walking with my big bag in Nuvali even the assembly area was already near

*Roch for singing the worst version of Chasing Pavements when I called her because I was getting bored

*Family and friends for the thoughts and prayers

Outtake Pics