My Birthday 10K

With Peach after the race

Workday Devil Mountain Run is a race that is very close to my heart, being my very first official road & 10K race, which I did on the exact same day of my birthday last year. It was also the first race that I did with a good friend, Peach Villacarlos, who ran the 5K, then later on ran her first 10K herself, after finishing a few 5Ks in between.

2010 Race

Since it was my first race of that distance, I set an automatic personal record (PR) with the following results:

Finish time: 53:31

Age Group Place: 24/54

Overall Place: 241/651 

Not bad for a debut race, which also served as a training run for my first ever half marathon in San Francisco three months later.



This year, I surprised myself with solid 8-min/mile splits for the first four miles, which, as far as I can remember, was something I've not even achieved during past races & training runs. Except for mile 5, where I felt a little breathless so I had to slow down at a water station, I really felt good throughout this race. It also helped that I set pace alerts on my Garmin watch each time my pace fell below 8.5mins/mile, to guarantee myself a sub-50 min finish time & a PR.

2011 Race

True enough, I shaved almost 4 minutes off my PR, with the following improved results:

Finish time: 49:40
Age Group Place: 19/47
Overall Place: 134/647

It's also my first race with my Newtons and I totally rocked 'em! On to my next race going for a sub-45-minute finish!