Special thanks to Dr. Christopher “Ultra Doc T” Montaos, for the pictures

Part 2: Dasmariñas to TagayTay from a Different Perspective

Around 6:00AM somewhere between KM 31 and 32 the KM 0 group was joined by “fresh legs” for the journey to Tagaytay.  This was the real challenge to the runabout as the elevation and gradient begins to rise.

Then came the laborious counting down of the kilometers, one at a time, surely but surely we’d get there.  By about Km 53 we we’re finally greeted by a welcoming sign…

Finally just before noon our 56K ultra adventure ended.  Same route for me, but with different company.  It may not have been a very fast runabout but it managed to give birth to two new ultra-runners Doc T and McCoy.  Later on I found out that they were actually the only two “newbies” that completed the entire 56K journey—I was expecting that more Km 0 runners completed it as well (as they were mostly ahead of us) and knowing this fact made me more proud of what these guys did.

Doing an ultra is not an easy task and I’m glad that we who already had experience with it got a chance to share the experience.  Congratulations Doc T and McCoy for finishing your first ultra!   I’m proud to be with your company and am honored to have shared the experience of your first marathon distance, and later your first ultramarathon runabout.   It may not be an official race but now you’re both officially ultra-runners!  Congratulations as well to the “fresh legs” whom all completed their 20K++ runabout!  Talk about a bunch of dedicated runners!

The end of an ultra-runabout… thank you Doc Eire for being the generous host for the end of this adventure (and the tasty champorado)

* Courtesy of Carina “The Flying Boar”

Calorie-wise I noticed that I took in a lot more fluids and food during this runabout than my previous one. Aside from this time being more humid than the previous, it seems that the longer you run (time-wise) the more calories you burn (as expected) thus wanting more food. It was good that we had support vehicles for this trip (thanks to James and Doc Art) so we didn’t have to haul our supplies ourselves and it’s a good fallback for those who can’t continue the run.

As for my GF405 I knew it wouldn’t last the journey with GPS on so I stopped tracking from Dasmariñas (since the kilometer markers were pretty accurate anyway) so I still had batteries to spare when we got to Tagaytay—a first!

It was a long and difficult weekend but it was fun and very much worthwhile. New ultra-runners were born and new bonds were formed. Until our next adventures guys!

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Yet Another 56K Ultra Weekend:

• Luneta (Km 0) to Dasmariñas, Cavite (approx. Km 30) in Pictures
• Dasmariñas to Tagaytay from a Different Perspective