Fun but looking for a better NGC Earth Day run

Jude Turcuato, Head of Fox 

International Channels, during 

warm-ups. Behind him were the

Miss Earth beauty pageant 

participants.

Last Sunday's National Geographic Earth Day run was fun.

Most of the people who participated in the fifth edition of the annual event will admit that they had fun.

I had fun.

Except when I and thousand of runners negotiated the "dark" parts of the route.

Most runners who participated in this even would agree that it was difficult if not dangerous to run when visibility is very bad.

I saw runners negotiating the Buendia fly-over under a very bad lighting conditions. This was the same when runners negotiated a long stretch of road right after the starting line.

The races, except the 3k event, can be considered as night runs because of the times the runners were sent out.  The gun start this year was very early. The 42k participants were sent out as early as 12 midnight. This was followed by runners in the 21k, 10k and 5k.

Miss Earth crown aspirants participated in the 3k

event.

So next time, if the organizers will try to do a "night run" they might as well advice the runners to bring their own head lights and other paraphernalia for the sake of safety, which should have been foremost in the minds of the organizers.

Running at night or very early in the morning requires different paraphernalia so that motorists, especially in a country like the Philippines, can see the runners. Or at least the runners can get the attention of the motorists.

A midnight run for the 42K runners.

The organizers of this annual event were actually fast learners. A few years back they were lambasted for using plastic cups. This year, there are no plastic cups. That is good.

Next year, if the event is held anew. I hope that there will be better lighting.

And better system of distributing the loot bags.

Imagine lining up for another 20 to 30 minutes after running a 21k or a 10k event just to receive the loot bag. And for some of the runners, they lined up under the fiery summer sun.

But as I said. Everyone had fun. But running in the Philippine can be more fun if the organizers can make it a little better.

Even photographers Anthony Yu and Ado Yap, I believe, had fun taking the photos of the events as shown by their photos in this blog.