On February 27 to 28, I ran my fourth ultramarathon in the Tagaytay to Maragondon 50k Ultramarathon. It's been a week, and I'm currently on recovery as I've suffered an injury during that race. But I'm getting ahead of myself, so let me just tell you what happened.

The start point is at Ayala Serin Mall in Tagaytay with the finish line at the Maragondon Plaza in Maragondon, Cavite. The gun start was supposedly at 11pm but it was around 10-15 minutes late. I had a good start. There were sixteen runners in our team and between all of us, there were four support vehicles so that was enough. During the first 10km, I passed by the support crew four times and skipped them all because I was still feeling fine. Anyway, I had my Simple Hydration with me, so I was all set. It was around the 13th km when I first made a stop at the support crew and had a sip of water and a couple of bites of chocolate. Then I continued my run. I reached the 20th km in around 2 hours and 25 minutes, so that was still a good time, I think. 

It was around the 23rd km when I felt a sharp pain in my left ITB. It was so painful that I had to stop, do some stretching, and massage the area for a couple of minutes. I tried to run again to no avail, and then I power-walked which slowly transitioned to run, and it worked. When I stopped for a drink, the pain was there again. I took a couple of pain-relief meds on the next support crew stop. For the next hour and a half, I did the power-walk and run thing because the pain would resume every time I stopped to drink. It was hellish. Eventually, the meds worked its "magic" and the pain on my left ITB was completely gone. My legs were almost numb that I found my stride, and I got to run in my usual race pace again. I walked for a bit on a steep uphill part of the route and chit-chatted with another runner (I didn't catch his name) until we get to the ice cream station. I grabbed an ice cream and ate it as I walked. I resumed running again, and eventually caught up with one of my team mates, Boom, and decided to pace with him until the finish line.
I honestly don't know what I was doing here
Photo Credits: KRProd

The route was easier compared to the previous ultras I've done. It was mostly downhill with very few rolling hills which were not that steep except for the one before the ice cream station. I clocked in a new personal best for a 50k ultra, which was such a relief given the circumstances. A small part of me felt bad though, because I knew that I could have done better had I not been injured. But I'm just gonna leave it at that and try again next year.

Of course, this would not have been possible without the help of our support crew who was there from start to finish. Thank you sooo much to Set, Jessa, Akim, and Nate, for the water, meds, chocolates, chips, and the words of encouragement. Thank you as well to the rest of the Team SCR support: Wyatt, Desmond, Joven, Sirril, Becky, Annette, and Ralph. 
Photo Credits: Wyatt

I guess that's that. Kudos to Run Mania for another successful ultra event. The race results are available here. Congratulations to all the finishers, especially to my team mates from Team SCR and Team Ayala Triads who participated in the event!
rank: 192nd out of 480 runners, official time: 7:20:49