Greenfield City Run

When you hear of Greenfield City Sta. Rosa, you probably think of the alternative exit at SLEX when you’re headed to Tagaytay or maybe the outlet shopping malls at Paseo Sta. Rosa. It wouldn’t occur to most of us to run there so we runners were curious when the Greenfield Great Escape run was first announced. Despite the new and unusual race venue, the race was handled by veteran organizers Coach Rio and Vince Mendoza so we were assured of a well organized event.

The half marathon wisely was set to begin at 5AM. I was a bit skeptical that the early gun time could be pulled off but true enough, the announcer was calling a minute-by-minute countdown and at exactly 5AM, the starting gun was fired. Given the summer heat and how early the sun rises nowadays, this was a big plus for the race. The 1st 4km led us through the Pramana village where some new age type music was being played through loud speakers. The music was nice and soothing but not the best to pump you up for a race. A nice touch was the presence of bamboo torches or sulo that lit the way since it was still quite dark at this point. It was a flat, slightly downhill route that led us close to the Greenfield exit at SLEX and soon we were at the turnaround.

We later on crossed the busy Sta. Rosa-Tagaytay road to get to the area of the Mamplasan SLEX exit. Along this road, a sound system was also set up where more upbeat and running appropriate music was playing. We passed Laguna Industrial Park on our right and the road to Verdana on our left and we headed north to the Mamplasan exit where we did our turnaround after 13.5km. I had been hitting my target pace up to this point but it was getting hot and it was a slight incline back to Paseo so I slowed down. Runners started overtaking me and I would take a break in every water station to squeeze a piece of foam on my head and take water. Pretty soon a marshal was encouraging us that there was just 1km to go. I did my best to sprint and I managed to squeeze out my fastest lap in the last 5km to hit the finish line. My time was better than Condura but still off my PR. I’ll blame the heat this time around.

After the race, I refilled my water bottles and attempted another 5km to hit my long run target but with the treeless route and the sun mercilessly beating down on me, I called it a day after only 3km.

What I liked about this race:
- Started exactly on time at 5AM to beat the heat and the treeless route
- Fresh race venue / route
- Little touches to make the run more enjoyable like torches along the route when it was still dark and music along an otherwise eerily silent route
- Kilometer markers synchronized perfectly with my Garmin auto lap
- Finisher’s medal that I can show off to my 3-year old son when I get home
- Freebies!
- Ample parking at the venue
- Shuttle bus from Manila to Sta. Rosa
- Online registration

What could be improved:

I couldn’t think of anything to improve on with the race organization itself but certain things about the venue could be worked on:

- Long line entering the parking area at 4:30AM. I thought the guard was handing out parking tickets but there was none so I didn’t understand why there was a long queue of vehicles
- I asked the guard which restroom was open at this time and he seemed clueless. Fortunately a maintenance man pointed me in the right direction.

Overall this was a pretty good race and I’ll look forward to joining the next edition.

After the race, I saw friends Jaymie and Miguel, JunC and Mariel who had just put up their unique he-said, she-said running blog. We were later joined by Jay who had just completed an extra 9km to run a total of 30km.