The Pilipinas Akyathlon took place one week after The 9 Dragons Ultra. One week. This race wasn’t on my schedule, but once it caught my eye, I knew that I had to do it. Somehow, we managed one of our best runs ever at this spontaneous and spectacular race!
Are you interested in learning how to run your best race? Look no further, because I’ve got the perfect primer for you! First, get off to a good start by running the toughest race of your life the weekend before. Spontaneously enter a second race a day or two before it starts, and see if your injured teammate wants to join you. Juggle all your reservations within minutes of the ‘no refunds’ deadlines. Make sure the timing of your new flights is as tight as possible, giving you less than 48 hours on the ground. Glance at the race profile, but plan to be surprised by the placement of hills and aid stations! *Disclaimer: Please do not actually do this – this isn’t the usual path to racing success!
Opportunity knocks – persistently
This story begins in Hong Kong, shortly after one of the most challenging races I’ve ever run. Kent and I were in a rented room in the middle of the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong Island, taking it easy after the challenging 9 Dragons Ultra. Kent was in need of some recovery: he was nursing a recurring knee pain – along with all the cuts and bruises he sustained on his big fall.
I was enjoying this rare downtime by working on some projects – but I couldn’t stop thinking about running! I’d been burning up with a desire to run ever since we finished our 50 mile race and watched our friends finish the 50k race (that we might have done too, under different circumstances).
After taking it easy for nearly a week, I felt full to bursting with energy. So I pulled up the Asia Trail Master race calendar, wondering if it might hold a clue to where I could direct my energy next. I imagined browsing the list of races and lining up a couple in the spring and summer. But there was just one race for me: the Pilipinas Akyathlon.
The Pilapinas Akyathlon is a 49 kilometer race in the Philippines: a route through the Cordillera mountain range on Luzon island, with a high point on Mt. Ugo. If this sounds familiar to you too, it should: this was the same area where we ran the Cordillera Mountain Ultra – our first international race – just one year earlier!
The Pilipinas Akyathlon was just the race I was looking for. But there was one big problem: it was in 3 days!
I set my phone down, and tried to forget what I’d seen. But it was too late. The seed of an idea had fallen into the fertile soil of my mind, and a crazy scheme was sprouting already.
It was insane! We’d just finished a race. Our flights home were booked. Most importantly, Kent was injured! He was recovering, sure, but was he healthy enough for a race? This crazy idea of mine could cost us money and time, and was probably foolish.
I zipped my lips on the idea for as long as I could, but every time I thought I could forget it, I found another reason to pursue it. We actually had the free time. Kent was in decent enough shape to jog back and forth to the local 7-11. The climate and terrain of the race were familiar. We even had all our gear pre-packed and ready to go!
Eventually, I shared my scheme with Kent. That initial conversation went about as well as you can imagine. But we agreed not to make any snap decisions, and to sleep on it. The next day, I still felt every bit as eager. And I could sense that Kent wasn’t ready to rule it out, either. So we went through what it would take to enact this crazy plan.
Time. The Pilipinas Akyathlon would take place on the final day of our week-long Lunar New Year vacation. There was a red-eye flight that would get us home right before work on Monday. So it was possible, without needing any time off. It would be tight, but workable!
Expense. Luckily, our return tickets had a little built-in wiggle room. We weren’t sure whether or not we were going to be helping out at a friend’s local race, so we bought fully-refundable tickets – just in case. A quick search found us a pair of overnight flights with a stopover in the Philippines and a cheap rental room. So, our side trip would add to our expenses, but not much!
Gear. As mentioned, we were perfectly set up to run a 50k, having originally planned to run one the previous Sunday. So gear wasn’t an issue at all.
Kent’s knee. What was a real issue was Kent’s injury. The Sunday and Monday immediately following the 9 Dragons race were pretty painful for him. But his knee got better and better as the week went on. It was a pretty miraculous recovery after how sore and how stiff he had been! Still, we thought it would be crazy for him to race again so soon. I thought maybe Pilipinas Akyathlon would be the race where I’d test myself and run alone. And Kent thought that if he was feeling fine, he might run one of the shorter distances.
So on Friday morning, I cancelled our flight home – just a few hours before it departed! With Kent’s help, I bought new flights, rented a car, booked a place to stay and begged the race director for a late entry. It felt like yet another sign when we were able to leap through all of those hoops successfully. We must have been meant to run the 2019 Pilipinas Akyathlon!
Back to Baguio!
We landed in Luzon late Friday night, slept for a few hours in Clark, and then hit the highway. After adding our new friend Sungsik to the mix, the three of us became the Korea contingent. We drove the familiar straight, speedy route over the flatlands, then up the winding roads to Baguio.
But we didn’t have much time there! It was sundown by the time we were settled in our local house. I tossed gear into our bags while Kent mixed electrolyte drinks. Then we took a short nap, knowing that we’d need to be on the road to the race site by 2 am.
After a restless sleep, I woke up with a start. ‘We have a problem,’ Kent said. Our rental car was boxed in at the top of our extremely steep driveway. As I quickly repacked, Kent began knocking on doors looking for the driver. Despite rousing the neighborhood, nobody appeared with the keys to the second car.
Our place didn’t have wifi, and the SIM card that we’d taken care to purchase at the airport didn’t work on the steep streets of Baguio. We had no way of contacting either Sungsik or the race organizer, so we had to come up with a plan B if we were going to make it to Pilipinas Akyathlon. We were early, so we could hike up to the main road and take a taxi, if it came to that. I could run ahead to our friend’s hotel to let him know the new plan.
There was no time to lose. As I ran past the other car, I realized I should take a picture so that I could explain our situation. As I began snapping photos of the offending vehicle, I felt a gaze on me. There was a woman watching from the darkened porch of a house across the street. She called out.
‘Is this your car?’ I called back. She said that it was. ‘Could you move it please?’ I asked as calmly and clearly as I could. As she disappeared inside her house, I raced to find Kent. A man emerged and slowly backed the car away. Already in our car with the engine running, we followed him out of the driveway. We were going to make it to this race after all!
After a brief stop to pick up Sungsik, we followed a taxi containing Kris from Asia Trail Master and two other Akyathlon runners downhill to the race start. Several super friendly volunteers met us at the bottom.
‘I can do this,’ Kent told me as we emerged from the car. ‘The 49k. I feel great!’
In the few moments we’d had to talk, Kent had expressed an earnest desire to run the full distance of the Pilipinas Akyathlon. We were both nervous about it. But we knew the course wouldn’t have any pain-inducing stairs. Of course I wanted Kent by my side – running together is our thing! – but only if his health wasn’t at risk.
I trusted him to know himself, and he promised that he would be okay. He also promised that if he felt any pain, he would stop running. So we paid our race fees, picked up bibs and t-shirts, and got ready to rock!
The 2019 Pilipinas Akyathlon
We were early. It was 3:30 in the morning, and we had an hour to wait. We passed the time chatting with other racers and taking pictures in the start area. The early hour, our stressful morning rush and the suddenness of returning to this place again – unplanned – made everything feel a little surreal. I pinched myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming this, perhaps on our flight home to Korea.
But it was real. Racers soon began to assemble at the starting line. We wished all our new friends luck, and at precisely 4:30, we took off into the night.
The start of the Pilipinas Akyathlon involved the usual rush. A rush of adrenaline making prickly goosebumps of my skin, and a rush of humans hurrying to form the front pack. My only plan had been to run my own race, and insofar as I’d imagined it, that meant running a conservative pace through the first half of the race. Not giving in to that dizzying concoction of nerves and need for speed was a real victory for me. I let others run past me without giving chase, and was truly comfortable with it.
The group ran as one tightly-packed ball of rotating arms and legs through the first kilometer or so, on the paved road leading over Binga Dam. The road turned to gravel underfoot, and we left the few streetlights of the town behind. Spaces slowly started to open up around Kent and I. Stars twinkled brightly overhead and the lights of hillside communities twinkled too.
Uphill to Ugo
The first half of Pilipinas Akyathlon features a big climb, followed by an even bigger climb. The road twisted back and forth over the hills until it ended at the first aid station. In my brief glance over the map and elevation profile, I’d spotted a few of aid stations, but had no idea when to expect them. So it seemed like we found the first one really fast!
My nutrition strategy was basically just to replicate my success at 9 Dragons. What was that, you ask? Eating almost continuously. Probably 5 minutes didn’t pass when I wasn’t chewing on something. So at this first aid station, I picked up a banana.
The next section was on single-track: a thin dirt trail clinging to the hillside and composed of steep switchbacks. This part reminded me of last year’s CMU, though was more thickly wooded and a bit more remote.
The race had spread out a little, but we definitely weren’t alone. There were runners both ahead of us and before us. Climbing at a conservative but even effort: sometimes we’d pass someone pulled over for a breather and at other times faster runners would push past us. I’d initially been worried about Kent, but he was climbing confidently and happily right behind me.
Dawn arrived on the ridge. And what a glorious dawn it was! The inky black of the sky overhead faded to blue. The twinkling light of the stars dimmed, but was replaced with a golden glow around the horizon. Clouds filled the deep valleys between the mountains. The mountaintops began to burn bright orange. After a while, I felt the first warm rays of the sun on my face and arms. High up on the ridge was a perfect place to greet the day!
Shortly after sunrise, we dropped down just below the ridge to the second aid station. Once again, it was a complete surprise to me! It was way out in the wilderness: it seemed amazing that the volunteers could have trekked in so many supplies, but there was water, some fruit and candy!
Pilipinas Akythlon volunteers directed traffic beyond AS2, sending 49k racers up to the left and 25k runners down to the right. For a while, we ran in the peaceful pine forest, soaking up the warm morning sun. There were lots of livestock fences to climb over, and Kent teased me about my poor ability to navigate these obstacles. We met and chatted with lots of other runners as we went.
The forest suddenly ended in terraced rice field that was a brilliant green in the bright sun. We’d returned to civilization – albeit a tiny, pretty, remote one! A lone house stood on a hilltop above the rice. ‘Dream house,’ I remember Kent saying, and we paused to admire it.
Just beyond the rice was a little village where we found AS3. This was a larger checkpoint than the previous two: perfect for the longer stop that we planned to make here. We swapped headlamps for caps and loaded up on drinks and snacks. This was where I had my first taste of a sticky coconut rice treat that became my obsession for the rest of the race!
Continuing on, we dropped down from the high ridge into a plunging valley. We skidded our way down rocky switchbacks into a gully, which we crossed on our first suspension bridge of the day! We were on our way to the most remote part of the course, and we were now truly on our own. It was an ideal place to realize that my hydration strategy was on point so far!
On the other side of the stream, we began The Climb. On the elevation profile, I’d spotted this monster climb of over 1500 meters, straight up from the valley to the summit! We were both looking forward to it. But this would be a real test of our slow-and-steady strategy. If we climbed too hard, we might wind up depleted on the long run down the other side of the mountain.
Luckily, the majority of this climb was steep enough that it held us to our steady hike. I made sure never to let my breathing or heart rate get out of control, but we also never stopped.
Up we went, through the golden grass and short bushes of the lower slopes. Up, higher and higher – back into the pretty pine forest! A plunging drop to the left revealed a secret valley, with no signs of human habitation. To the distant right, we could see the outskirts of Baguio: buildings clinging improbably to hillsides across another deep valley. We could also see what we thought was the summit ahead – a point impossibly high above us casting a long shadow.
We made steady progress, passing people who dropped off to the side of the trail with limbs and poles akimbo. False summit followed false summit, and the climb seemed to go on forever; getting steeper at every turn.
Finally, we reached the ridge. I called excitedly back to Kent that I could see the summit. We raced towards a clearing…to discover yet another false summit! This seemed to be a camping place – but now we really could see the peak, probably just a kilometer or so on.
During the climb, we’d mostly been in the shadow of the peak. Though we’d worked up a sweat, it was remarkably cool: perfect running weather. Now, as the sun beat down on the mountaintop, I started to heat up. Soon Kent and I were running through some low, prickly bushes, singing silly songs about slurpees. We’d just started a round about how some ice might be nice, when we burst into another clearing.
This was really the peak – it was Mt. Ugo! I was over-the-moon stoked to visit during the Pilipinas Akyathlon, because I’d been sad about skipping it during CMU. There were several volunteers there to scan our race chips and cheer us on to the next checkpoint, which they promised was just one kilometer downhill.
Fast over familiar ground
After a little lingering, we shifted gears and took off. The next trail we knew by heart. The descent followed the same route as last year’s CMU! Some improvements in steps allowed us to speed through the first steep section and we were soon in the shade of AS4, refilling our bottles and once again mistaking plantains for bananas.
The way down was shady, but as the morning advanced, the forest continued to heat up. So did the drinks we carried. Now we had tailwind tea!
But we were in great spirits! Feeling fresh and springy, we were able to run this section quickly. It was such a marked improvement from last year. In 2018, Kent had really suffered in the heat and as a result, we’d really slowed down through this section. This time, if anything, we sped up! Thanks to a year of great training and our secret weapon (salt tabs!), the Pilipinas Akyathlon was redemption run – especially for Kent!
We made it back to the big checkpoint at AS3 again right when we needed it. I went straight for the sticky rice concoction, and Kent immediately dunked his head in running water. We slathered on the sunscreen, expecting the route to become more exposed below. Then we were on our way again!
Down, down, down. We passed the place where Kent had cramped up last year and high-fived over the great run we were having this year. The sun shone down strongly, but we had beautiful open views of the valleys and villages of the Cordillera.
Another aid station materialized like a mirage. A little girl noted our numbers in pink ink and someone held out a cold coke to me. I reached for it, delighted, and quickly started to drink. Kent and I realized with sudden horror that this was actually a shop run by enterprising locals – and we’d left all of our money in the car! They were incredibly kind, telling us not to worry and waving us on, but we promised that we’d make it right at the finish line.
We found the next official aid station beside the long suspension bridge I remembered from our first Cordillera adventure! This was my favorite checkpoint of the whole race. The volunteers chatted with us about the race as they chopped up a watermelon, handing us big, refreshing chunks. Other volunteers were on hand to give us bucket showers and take pictures of how very much we enjoyed it.
Here we also saw Sungsik again! Knowing he’s a faster runner, we’d wished him luck at the start and promised to meet him again at the end. Aside from accidentally running up beside him near the very beginning, we hadn’t seen him since. But here he was, walking slowly across the bridge.
Unfortunately, he’d been struggling with the heat, and was sick to his stomach. He hadn’t been able hold any food down, and was feeling pretty rough. There didn’t seem to be anything we could do for him and he was determined to push through, so eventually we wished him luck and ran on ahead.
It’s not all downhill from here
I thought there was one little climb and that we’d be dashing in to the finish in no time. This is why it pays to look closely at the race profiles, because I had no idea what was coming in the Pilipinas Akyathlon. On the other side of the bridge, we turned right and began to climb. This part of the trail was on exposed white rock, and it felt hotter than ever. Even the wind rustling my clothes and hair felt like a blast from a hair dryer.
We kept commenting about how hot it was getting. But unlike last year, neither of us came undone. Instead we laughed about it, suggesting time after time that it couldn’t get hotter. I was really grateful to be here in this heat and not yet back in the cold of Korea. We kept climbing.
Rounding a bend, we saw a photographer and a bonus aid station! I tucked into some delicious cassava that had been hand-made by one of the volunteers. I was delighted to learn that I was the 5th woman to pass this point!
Because we kept expecting the finish line around the next corner, the next section felt long. I had put away my poles in anticipation of easier terrain. But the finish line was not around the next corner.
Instead, the trail sloped down again over a skree of loose rocks. Slipping and sliding, it was my turn to fall. I was safe, but a little shaken. Sungsik caught up to us as we crept through this slow and slightly scary section. The three of us reached another bonus aid station at the bottom of the hill and guzzled water before our next suspension bridge suspension bridge crossing!
This one was by far the longest and swingiest one. I started my crossing confidently enough, just behind Sungsik. But around halfway, I got spooked! Envisioning one of my poles sliding through the holes in the metal sheeting and dropping down into the river, I clutched them tightly in one white-knuckled fist. I wrapped the fingers of my other hand around the cables at every step. Knowing full-well how silly I looked and how slowly I was going, I had to laugh at myself.
Our friend was sick on the other side, so we leapfrogged once again as we began another (surprise!) climb. Once again, all we could do was laugh about the reflected heat of the white rock trying to bake us from below and hot gusts of wind blasting us from all sides.
We passed a shelter that looked like a bus stop, hilariously out of place on our thin trail with a sheer drop opposite. But we knew we were truly close now. At the top of a little ladder, we found ourselves in a village – our village! Somebody shouted that it was just a few hundred meters more, and soon the finish line was within view!
Kent and I linked hands, and ran for that banner with all our might! We grabbed it and held it aloft, more laughter bubbling out after our glorious, spontaneous and successful race. ‘Not an easy run,’ I told the race director, who asked us about our race. We’d made it across the line in 10 hours and 27 minutes: definitely not our best 50k time, but somehow, one of our most successful races.
No time to lose
We lingered around the finish line area, cheering like mad for Sungsik, who finished just a few minutes behind us. The atmosphere was festive and friendly. We sat down to eat some bit of rice and watch the end of the race. It was so inspiring to see racers crossing the line after battling through heat and over hills.
Even more inspiring was the man beside me. I still could not believe that Kent had come with! Better still, he was not in any pain at all. He was just as delighted as I was. His incredible one-week recovery really made me appreciate the miracle of the human body and what it can do. In my opinion, he’d won the day once again.
After a bucket shower and a change of clothes, we were packing up the car and getting ready to leave when I heard my name called. One of the volunteers had just named me second in the under 29 division of the Pilipinas Akyathlon! I ran – okay, hobbled – back into the race area to tell everyone that I’m too old for that prize.
But to my surprise, they instead named me number one in the 30-39 age group! Before I knew what was happening, there was a colorful sash draped around my neck and Sungsik was snapping my picture on the podium!
I was thrilled to get a special souvenir from the Pilipinas Akyathlon! And I was delighted that my strategy had been good enough for a top 5 finish! Maybe my surprise at getting an award made it even more magical. After thanking all the volunteers profusely just one more time, it was really time to go.
I talked Kent awake the whole drive back downhill to Clark. There we conducted a second cleaning and costume change in the airport bathrooms, bid goodbye to Sungsik, who was on a later flight, and went inside.
On the other side of security, we were instantly transported back to Korea. Big groups of Korean golfers stood around eating kimbap at Korean snack shops. I even paid for a package of gum with Korean won!
It was kind of an abrupt ending to our amazing experience. But we caught our flight, slept through the two bus rides home and arrived at work on Monday right on time. The joy of our accomplishment far outweighed any tiredness we felt. What an adventure!
Many thanks are due to the great organizational team behind the Pilipinas Akyathlon, who let us join this race at the very last minute! To all of the incredibly friendly volunteers and the other runners that I met. What a race – and what a community!
I loved the course and the community vibe of this race – and I know you will too! Check out the official social media for information about the next edition!