Soliloquy's Archive Files: Corregidor International Half-Marathon: One for all. All for twenty one.

December 19 (Saturday)

At approximately 6 in the morning, organizers, participants and volunteers meet at the dock. We idly spent our time taking pictures of ourselves while waiting for the boarding time.

We got in the boat an hour after.

It was just a short ferry ride. As we were nearing the island, a guy gave us a brief narration of the Philippine history during American colonization.

When we arrived, tranvias were waiting to take us to our hostel.

We had an ocular inspection of the entire race track by afternoon. It was a chance for me to take some shots too.

By evening, a carbo-loading dinner was served (mash potatoes, carbonara, spaghetti, pancit, puto, rice and chicken).

And to warm the cold evening was a tall bonfire.

December 20 (Sunday)

The main event.

At around 6am, we were all deployed to our assigned station. It was drizzling. I thought that we are going to get soaked. But thank God, the universe conspired and made the weather perfect.

I was at the hydrating station with Pio, my partner. Too bad I wasn't able to take any pictures at all as we were so busy. I even barely see who were coming.

Since we got finished early, we got picked up via van and was brought to the the finish line (actually, at the dock) where everyone else were waiting. By the looks of the terrain, I could tell that it was truly an exhausting, physically-draining and challenging marathon. But at the finish line what I witnessed were faces of triumph and glee of the runners after finishing the entire 21 km track; and the faces of camaraderie.

Everybody was probably exhausted and famished by noon. We had lunch while Edward Tito Kho was announcing the winners.

Ranked first was Dandelion Bumahit who finished the race for 01:19:01, with a pace of 03:45min/km.