I have a confession to make. I suck at presscons. Absolutely suck at them. I am quite possibly the worst blagger to invite to these things. For some insipid reason or another, I keep on missing them. Either my car gets a flat, I'm assigned OT work or I have some family thing. There's always something going on. I have like a 10% attendance rate, and sooner or later I'll be declared persona non grata by race directors and PR people alike. I never get em goodies. Sob.
So you could just picture the smile on my face when they told me that the presser for the upcoming San Mig Coffee Bay Run Dash for Health ( okay that was long) was at Congo Grille at El Pueblo. That's like... .. two blocks from my house. Yessssss. Finally. No way I'm missing this.
I wonder who's that runner?
One more miss and goodbye presscons foreverrr.
Scheduled at 7pm, I cockily thought to myself, Nah its a 3 minute drive from my place. Why rush? Of course, in a move reeking of sheer time management genius I totally forgot that it was Friday uwian. Smart. So there I was , stuck in bumper to bumper traffic going to a resto that's roughly a kilometer and a half from my house. Great. I still have a Nat Geo hangover.
Oh the horror.
So after like nearly 20 minutes, I finally get to the place. And guess what? Much to my consternation evil manong guard curtly stonewalls me at the entrance with a "Ser, pono na poh and parkeeng dito. Weeting na poh dito, weeting." Weeting for parking would have entailed me adding to the already ginormous traffic jam. Apparently, Mr. Murphy has a secret crush on me and follows me around wherever I go.
Shunget ni koya.
So to make a long story short, I brought the car back home and tempo ran from my house back to the resto, a vain attempt to somehow temper my unexplainable tardiness. Of course, I had to run in jeans, leaving my poise on the pavement in the process. Good thing a lot of familiar faces greeted me when I came in, denizens of the running blogosphere in full force.
The faces behind your favorite blags
Que, Gail , and Vimz of Kulit on the Run with hubby Art
So let's cut to the chase. After having way more than my fair share of sisig and chicken, the presser proper unfolded. Takbo.ph first lady Que did the honor of introducing the GM of San Mig Coffee, and he gave the requisite welcome remarks. Kind man. I wish I had him as a Tito.
Que in the house!
Tito saying something about San Mig
Soon after, things were turned over to the comely Marketing Manager ( or so I think, the exact title eludes me) of the brand and she gave a quick primer on the product line. Three things I learned : 1. The San Mig Coffee "healthy" line is tops in its market segment 2. Good ol' Piolow is no longer their endorser, thus visions of a grand showdown dissipated into thin air quicker than it was conjured, and 3. Presenting to a rowdy, predominantly male blogger crowd is an exercise in restraint. Lol.
Deep breathly. I can do this.
Soon after, it was a pleasant surprise to see that Ian Alacar would be assuming Race Director duties for this race. Absent from the mainstream scene as of late, it was nice to see him around for a change. For long-time followers of this site, you may recall that Ian was the race director when I first conquered the ultramarathon distance at Botak awhile back. Fun guy.
Happy mems with Ian and Sideshow Bob
So what are the essentials you need to know about the race? It's going to be held on May 23rd, Mall of Asia grounds. But before you dismiss it as just another MOA race, hold your horses. It's being touted as the first race to have a route that actually cuts through the Manila baywalk. 3k and 5k distances cost P450 a pop, while the 10k and 15k races are at P550.
Race is actually bang for the buck, you get a fancy Unibersidad-made singlet that would probably cost as much as the registration if bought as a stand-alone. And the cool part about the whole thing is you could order your race kits over the phone, delivered COD by WWW.express. The number to call is 795-1777. Niiice.
For you freebie/perk hunters out there, I'd rather that you find out for yourselves what's in store for you during race day, but to give you a quick heads up there would be photobooths, bottomless coffee, loot bags, seminars, and dare I say, free massages?
So there you go. Registration starts April 17, 2010 to May 19, 2010, call the number I mentioned earlier for more details. If you've never run around the bay area, this is a good race to actually try out the local scenery. Hope this helped everyone, I'll see you on the road!
Requisite Gingerbread photo-op with Ian and Marketing gal.