It felt like eternity since my last run with my GF, about 20 days to be exact.  With all the hassles of changing work, turnovers, countless meetings, transferring to a new office location, settling down and getting oriented with my new job, and all the nitty gritties in between, I found it very difficult to find time even for rest.  And now that the dust had settled, I finally had some time for me, my GF, and my new running buddy, an adidas CC Ride.

It had been customary for me in the past to run from the office to wherever my heart desired.  This time was no exception, except that I’d be originating from a new point heading towards some familiar location.

I’m a total stranger to Makati City.  I guess it’s quite inevitable if you work in Manila to locate here as it is home to a lot of multinational companies.  It’s the country’s premier financial district after all.  But for someone who had never worked here before, it could be quite overwhelming, particularly the area it covers and the number of roads to remember.

For my first run since moving to Makati I decided to start easy and begin near our office and ending in my favorite place to run, Bonifacio Global City.  It’s new connecting the old, sort of speak.  The problem though is that Makati is one of the worst places to receive a GPS signal because of the towering skyscrapers that line the roads so you could just image how awful my GF405 performed while locking my position.  In fact my BB Curve 3G had much better luck with its assistance, normally getting accuracy of at least 5 meters while my GF405 was consistently beyond 10 meters.

With this initial run I found that Makati also isn’t the easiest place to run because of the number of vehicles and pedestrians.  Sidewalks weren’t as wide as desirable, air quality is quite poor, and there were quite a number of intersections to slow you down.  Long run, sure, fast run, not!

As I mentioned earlier, there are a lot of roads here which means a lot of options.  This is just the start of my “love affair” with Makati, and hopefully I find the best routes here to run.  I’m in dire need of getting back into shape as the marathon season is about to come soon!