Last night I was invited to attend the presser for the 2011 Condura Skyway Marathon, and the good news was that the venue only changed around ten times (was actually holding on to see if it would somehow be shifted to Ortigas) Smirk. That notwithstanding,the cream of the crap of the blagging community was there, good times. That also pretty much means that you would have about 20 or so entries on the same event. So to save you the aggravation of sifting through mundane information you already probably know (because you have that unique ability to open their website) I'll just show you the highlights of the night. In bullets. Wooot.
- Nice touch to have every introduce themselves and add their blog URL before we started. When the mic was passed to Abby, was half expecting her to drop her wonderful site www.abbyjocson.com on everybody. She got shy though. I know her real blog, but I ain't telling.
- If you haven't noticed, they rebranded the entire thing by calling it the Condura Skyway Marathon, in a bid to have the race positioned as one of the premier marathon events in the 2011 Asian marathon calendar. I've ran every Condura race since 2008 ( the first one as a very fat mann) and have borne witness to its exponential growth. It used to be the MUST race every year. And the funny thing is, despite the glut of races that abound, it still continues to be.
- Calories gained from eating at presser : 1,000. Calories burned from writing this article : 1.5
- With Condura head honcho/overall nice guy Patrick Concepcion unavailable to make it to the presser, brother Ton Concepcion ( the other half of the Condura dynamic duo) was there to play host to us. While Patcon is a familiar figure at races, Ton is somehow more elusive. On a nice guy scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest, he rates a 10. Quite the amiable guy, makes a heck of a difference when the people behind an event are pure runners at heart.
Let's run for em' dolphins
- Team behind Condura 2011 - Rio De La Cruz and the SME Ironman 70.3 team. Oooh fancy.
- As you probably know by now, this race isn't cheap, with 42k maxing out at P1,250 if I'm not mistaken. 21k is at P1,150. Now, you've probably whined about it on some thread on Takbo.ph or amongst your buddies (everybody is griping about prices nowadays). Now, here's the score. First off, if there were such a thing as a premium road race here in the Philippines, then this would be it. It has long been the gold standard for races, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. Second, this is the only race in the country that passes through the Skyway. Do you have any idea how many gazillions the Skyway people charge for its use? Ultimately it's still a business, and at the very least you don't want to lose your shirt. If only to make the experience a more value-added one, it's freebies galore. For those competing in the marathon and pikermi distances, there's a 100 plus loot bag, Coors light beer, and an RFM Lootbag. Additional giveaways from Nature's Valley, Century Tuna, Cenovis Joint Guard, Lactacyd, Ponds and Clear. Also, everybody gets a big Hershey's bar upon registration. Yum
Kassy and Abby going gaga over Hershey's
- Everyone's using a D-Tag nowadays, this race is no exception. Suffice to say, have we seen the last of the timing chip?
- Condura's proprietary E-reg system allows anybody with a credit card to register from well, anywhere. I registered the same way for Powerman Malaysia. Of course, this pretty much opens the race to international participants. Cool stuff.
- There are two start lines (Ayala or BGC )and one finish line (BGC), which makes for less hassles with runner traffic. The 10, 16, and 21km categories will be releases in waves of 500 to avoid chaos.
- Oh yeah, I forgot. There's a new, 16k category for those who find 10k's boring but are still antsy for a 21k. But of course, you knew that already.
- As was last year, everyone gets a medal. Shorter categories get a fun 2 incher while the full marathon gets a badass 3 inch one. I want one.
- The onsite registration was a breeze and a joy to be part of. I think the whole process (of course depending on how fast you type) was over in less than 5 minutes. World-class stuff. We had the privilege of taking first crack at it, and the fact that you type in your own name means you can only blame yourself this time for your misspelled name in the results.
Roselle and Bards having fun with onsite reg More or less, those are the salient details for this blockbuster race. If you want to know more details that aren't here, just google my esteemed colleagues, I am not as industrious as them in posting hard details. I'll leave you with a short clip from the presser, which only took me an hour to upload. ISP Bonanza moment. Cheers everyone!