Running for Fitness

This coming November 21, Sunday, I will be one of the participants of Haribon Foundation's Million Hectare Challenge. I will be joining the 5-kilometer race and I hope my time will be decent enough compared to other runners in the event. Yesterday, my wife and I went to see a similar fun run in SM Mall of Asia grounds to observe how the organizers managed the event and for me to see what are the best times by first place finishers of the race.

2 Kilometers - around 20 minutes
5 Kilometers - 24 minutes
10 Kilometers - 34 minutes.

First place finishers of 2 and 5 kilometers were Filipinos but the first and second place finisher of the 10 kilometers were Kenyans (I think, judging by their looks). According to one of the organizers of the event, the first place finisher of the 5 and 10 kilometers race were familiar faces of previous races. We were told that these participants are training for a bigger competition, probably a marathon within the coming months. Even kids as young as 12 and 13 years old finished within 35 minutes of the 5-kilometer run.

So in order for me to have a decent time for the 5k race, I have to finish within the 40 minute mark. I hope I can make it. I have been training once a week (its not enough though) and have been finishing 15 minutes for a 2.5k run (with great effort). If my pace is consistent, I estimate to finish the 5k run within 35-40 minutes. So, I have 14 days left to train more and hopefully I will have a good run on the 20th.

After the Haribon Run, I am planning to run regularly and join more running events. Hopefully by next year, I can compete with the 10k run. If I can do 40 minutes for a 5k run, I can probably do 1 hour and 30 minutes for a 10k run. That is way much slower than the Kenyan time of 34 minutes but I am not planning to outdo a Kenyan. These people have been running all their lives. I just plan to be physically fit so that even at the age of 70 years and up, I can still run and join races and inspire my wife and children to be healthy and enjoy sports like I do.