Discovering STRAVA

I'm a very competitive person. In races, I would seek out runners ahead of me and try to overtake them as part of my motivation to finish at a faster time. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes my "impromptu competitor" out sprints me in the end. Either way, it's a healthy way of bringing out my competitive side in sports.

STRAVA is a new source of fueling that competitiveness in me. Thanks to @RoadieManila, I've signed up and have been uploading my Garmin bike rides for about 2 weeks now.

This morning I made my first serious attempt at becoming King of the Mountain (KOM) of the Camp Aguinaldo Fast Climb segment. It's a 700 meter climb with 1.8% incline grade that bikers and runners use for hill intervals/repeat sessions. I warmed up on my first climb, taking it easy and planning out where I will pour everything out and when to change gears when the climb starts to settle.

On my 5th try, I gave it my all with heart rate peaking at 169bpm (I maxed at 170bpm just after that segment ended). I felt that I did enough to beat the 1:34 record set last May 12 by another STRAVA member.

As I uploaded this morning's bike session to STRAVA, my jaw dropped as the Agui Fast Climb segment top notchers were recalculated: I finished in 1:36, two seconds shy of the current record.

Darn it!

It was, however, good enough for joint 2nd place (with 3 other members, including @RoadieManila).

I will DEFINITELY be back in Camp Aguinaldo next Saturday for another attempt at that segment. Hopefully, the KOM title will be mine (insert evil laugh here).

This is war.

And just like that, I'm registered for a 10k race!

To boost my training for my July14 duathlon, I have (stupidly?) registered online for a 10k race 2 weeks before it. Such is the convenience of Runrio races that registration is easy.

I'm a proud member of World Vision and what it stands for, so I'm more than happy to join this race that they're organizing on the 23rd of June. It's going to be held in BGC so logistics won't be a problem. I'll be joining the 10k event only as this will be a gauge as to how I'll attack the run legs of my next duathlon (a 6k and then a 3k).

This will DEFINITELY force me to sked my intervals and tempo runs again.

Here we go!

Next Race: Phil. Duathlon Series Leg 1

Yup, I just registered for this at Life Cycle Greenhills today.

6k run.

30k bike.

3k run.

The sked for the race is timely as it'll FORCE me to train seriously again. My runs are still wanting of tempos and interval training so I welcome the change from "training mode" to "training to race mode" from today until July 14th.

See you there!