Run United 1: Our First Fun Run Experience

March 4, 2012. Mall of Asia. Run United 1. 500 m Dash

That’s my second son on the photo. He’s a typical child, only active when it’s wrestling time with his older brother.. he loves playing though but you can’t consider him sporty.. he was actually scared that day.. afraid he would not be able to finish the race… but he did!

For my first born, it was a different story.. he is competitive, excelling on his studies and still managed to play basketball and always ready for any physical activity. Sadly, I never got the chance to catch his running gig…. the boy runs fast..less than 3 minutes for 500m dash.. and that was his first time.

Mine was another thing. I joined the 3k run and oh boy it was exhausting! I managed to finish it a little over 30 minutes and I am first timer too! It was really a first time experience for us to join a fun run. And for a family who was not that active, we really took some time off to prepare for the run. Almost every day (two weeks prior to the run) we would run around Pasig Rainforest, test our endurance and see how much we can do. For the first few days, I survived with the help of Alaxan FR.. after a week, my body’s adapting. When we started practicing, I can only run/jog/walk for 600 m but 2 weeks after, I was able to finish a 3k run! That’s quite an achievement for me. The same goes to my second born as I mentioned he is not that active. The first few days of our practice, he would have a hard time running around the 240 meter oval at the Rainforest. He finished a 500 meter dash and I was so proud of him. As for my first born, I kinda expected that he can do it real fast, I just didn’t expect that he can outrun me.

Here are some of our photos from Run United 1:

My boys with Nina and her son together with the other kids running for the Ceelin 500m dash.

My sister with her son and my second born finishing the race:)

The boys at the 500m dash finisher’s safety booth (?) I don’t what it is called but that was a secured place where the kids went after the race. Accompanying adults need to claim their child/kid before the staff let the child go. You have to show the claim stub to the staff. And that’s a really cool move for me.. but there is a tiny hassle on this one. I just noticed that for parents to fetch their kid/s they need to walk a few meters and go through the expo. I wish on the next run, they would provide a small opening where parents can go inside so as to fetch their kid/s. And oh, another thing I noticed, the 500m dash started late. The assembly time was supposed to be 6 AM and the gun shot was at 7 AM but it started around 7:30. I guess some kid runners need to wait for their parents to finish their respective race..But I have to commend what they did during the run as they sort the kids base on their ages.. kids ages 9-12 (boys) run all at the same time, then followed by girls ages 9-12, then boys 4-8, then girls 4-8.

There was so much going around the expo but we never had the chance to roam around.. with these two Ceelin protektodo toddlers in tow.. it’s not just possible.. specially that we drag them from the custom mattress at 4 in the morning.. Lesson learned.. leave the toddlers at home unless they will be joining the run 🙂

Our experience was so much fun that we will be joining the Run United 2 2012.. definitely! I’d still go for 3K.. my goal is to lessen my run time.. the kids would still go for 500m. Maybe next year, we will join a different category or we might even join the 21k run.

and yes, this will be the start of   more fun run ahead. 

P.S.
Get your Run United 1 race result/ chip time through RUNRIO E-COM:

type RESULT RU1/DISTANCE/BIB NO/NAME/BIRTHDATE send to 09229992444.

sample:  result ru1/3k/14235/pehpot pineda/02011982  

The official results will be posted in Unilab Active Health and RunRio Facebook fan pages starting March 12, Monday.