My Way of Living + Time

Play Through The Pain : The BDM 102 Race Report (Part 1)

Out of the night that covers me, black as the pit from pole to pole. I thank whatever gods may be, for my unconquerable soul.
- From William Ernest Henley's Invictus

While this seems like the start of something special... .

There's always a story behind a story. And isn't that the fun part?

Prologue

D-Day ,7:00 am.
As the rest of the brave Bataan Death March 102k Ultramarathon warriors were already on their way to Mariveles, Bataan for a full day's rest before the madness begins at midnight, I was, er, in Ateneo. Giving a talk. Yup. gotta love undelegatable work on a Saturday. Which just so happens to be the day of the biggest race of my life. Aaah. Ce'st la vie.

The Support Crew

After some last minute vacillating and a lot of hemming and hawing over supplies, me and my support crew finally left Manila. As I had mentioned in a previous post, my ragtag team was led by best buddy AJ, who they used to say was a dead ringer for Christian Bautista (when he still had hair), immortal internet legend Tito Caloy, and AJ's friend RV. Who at the time, I did not know personally. A near-stranger helping you out on a life experience? Awkward! Suffice to say, he's a tremendous, stand-up guy. And given the circumstances, if you told me that Grimace was to be my support crew, I would have said yes.

Team GBM!

How about meh? =,(

Somewhere in the middle of Pampanga, 4pm

AJ : Just to put things into perspective, from the Petron where we started in Mandaluyong up to this point, that's 102 k already. Ganun kalayo tatakbuhin mo.

GBM : !!!!!!!!!! (x_x)

Villa Imperial, Bataan. 6:30 pm.
So we finally made it to our hotel, if you want to call it that. Most of the Takbo.ph gang were there already. I had Googled the hotel a day before, and it said it "wasn't DOT accredited". I should take these portents of things to come more seriously next time. I had made arrangements with "General Manager" Susan in the crudest way you could imagine (through text, duh. What online reservation?), and told her we would probably get there at 2pm. Given that we got there nearly 7pm, I asked the affable and "machika" caretaker (the only "Hotel" "GM" I've met in pambahay and tsinelas) for a discount.Gave 50% off. Pero secret lang daw. Well, guess the secret's out then. :)

The accommodations were well, yeah. I'd rate it a half star. There was an orchestra of flies in the room, making it a veritable malaria trap. "Babaygonan" na daw muna. I promptly made a beeline to Abby's place to seek refuge with her team while AJ and the team went out to buy some supplies.

With ultra monsters Dennis and Vener upon arrival

Fun before the storm?

Villa Imperial, Bataan. 8:30 pm"Babaygonan" essentially meant that our room would turn into the virtual Auschwitz of flies afterward. They must have thought that it was better to run BDM 102 with me. I tried lying down, was sneezing within 30 minutes. Visions of that creepy crawlie hotel scene in Ocean's 13 came to mind instantaneously.

We'd rather run BDM!
Villa Imperial,Bataan. 9:00
About to leave. Tito Caloy sort of wanted to loosen up. And we all know what that means. The rest of the crew promptly acceded. Gak.

Pangparelaks muna!

Na relaks nga!

Just what I need, a wapaked crew chief.

KM 0, Mariveles, Bataan. 10 pm.
We arrive at ground zero without much aplomb. Souvenir photos at the line and with BR were being snapped incessantly as one could sense a palpable feeling of nervous anticipation in the air. Just a couple of hours more!

With the one and only BR

Ominous sign of things to come? Tito Caloy could care less.

142 brave warriors. How many will make it?
KM 0, Mariveles, Bataan. 11 pm.
As promised, given that BR had dubbed this an international race, the national anthems of the participating countries were played. Nope we didn't have Martin Nievera or Charice Pempengco singing. Instead, BR gave us a full-throated rendition of not only Lupang Hinirang, but the Star-Spangled Banner as well. Raucous applause followed. For the record, no one volunteered to sing the Japanese national anthem.

BR beats Martin any day.

Km 21, Somewhere in Bataan. 2:13 am.
Okay. Still a bit surreal. After talking about this race everyday for several months now, I still couldn't belie ve that I was actually doing this. Was running under the pretext of making good time while under the cover of night. I took great pleasure in doing my best Sir Amado Castro impression in race walking the first 10k uphill. I was actually outpacing some dudes who were running, much to their consternation. Funny, I ran into them later and they resorted to race walking as well. Fun. Was occasionally bolstered by Abby's crew ( Joni, Z, Carins, Pepsi and Carina) screaming "Go Sweetie!!". Such sweet gals. P.S. It was dark. Really dark. The blinkers that we had bought for P149 from Ace Hardware were working perfectly. Steal of the year. P.S. #2 : Tito Caloy is shnoozing in the car while AJ and RV were busy recording everything I drank and ate. Joyride much?

P149 blinkers are the bomb
Km 42, still somewhere in Bataan. 5:31 am
Hit the marathon mark at just over six hours. This is usually game over for most people, myself included. It's a little bit hard to fathom that I'll have to do it all over again plus a near-half mary. I shuddered at the mere thought. But I got myself into this, now I have to back it up. Dhen z and Sam had just passed me somewhere, both of them au naturel in full Bataan Superbods mode. Slight cramps were coming up from time to time, and I had to rely on several efficasent oil rubdowns from AJ.
Up to this point, I had ran a good portion of this stretch with BDM 2009 veterans Ronnie de Lara/ Runnerforchrist, Raiza Tulan and Odessa Coral. Amidst the eerie silence, the casual conversation helped immensely in keeping me sane. Some fun sound bites :

GBM : So Raiza, how did you train for this?
Raiza : I was in Boracay yesterday, sunbathing.
GBM : !!!!

Sir Ronnie : So how come I don't see you listed on TopBlogs anymore?
GBM: Well, I had mine removed. Loads of those sites are SEO-driven, Google-ad moneymakers that don't even remotely resemble blogs. So what's the point right? You could try Alexa though.
Sir Ronnie :Is that a free service?
GBM: Of course, you just type in your site and it gives you your ranking in the whole world. You can even download a widget to put in your blog. Fancy, eh?
Sir Ronnie : I can't believe we're actually talking about this after running for 6 hours.
GBM : Me neither. We're weird.

Raiza : Hello there support crew friends. Are those jellybeans?
AJ: Er, um, they're Skittles...
Raiza : But I like jellybeans!
AJ: Um, but we don't have jellybeans...
Raiza : I don't eat Skittles!
AJ : !!!

Raiza likes her jellybeans.We were also jarred from time to time by an ambulance-riding BR barking out "THIS IS YOUR FINAL WARNING", Robocop-style, to runners ahead of us who weren't running in single file. Whew.

I just realized that Robocop was also bald... .. KM 50, still somewhere in Bataan, 6:45 am
After more than 7 hours of running, I finally reached the first and only pitstop. BR had prepared some goodies for the runners. It was a fun scene actually, because it resembled more of a camp. Carina was cooking noodles for Abby, who was about 5 kilometers away. People were making a beeline to take showers. I was thinking, no freaking way. It would be hot soon, and people here were chilling. I couldn't stay too long here, am not as strong as these people. So I made a quick wardrobe change (into my Botak Ultra singlet, just for fun) changed socks (no blisters, thank you BodyGlide!) white nyort nyorts (homage to OJ Giron) and promptly sped off.

Nearing Km 50... .

Quick wardrobe change at KM 50 camp... .50 down. 52 to go. The sun was slowly making it's way up the early morning horizon. This is it. This is what would separate the men from the boys. I'm bracing myself for the pain. The suffering.

Little did I know, it would be coming much sooner than I thought.

(to be continued)

Blog, cooking, Life, life and running, marathon, pep talk, race, running, and more:

Play Through The Pain : The BDM 102 Race Report (Part 1) + Time