BDM (Bataan Death March) Test Run 52km

This is the 2nd leg of the BDM test runs. The 1st one was held last Jan. 25, 2011 and was not able to join since my father passed away. The 2nd leg which was on Feb. 12, 2011 started at the 50km BDM marker at Abucay, Bataan and went all the way to the 102km marker in San Fernando, Pampanga.



We rented a van and was promptly at our gate by 2am. After loading my stuff we proceeded to pick up Dok, Yob and Oli and was off to the NLEX Shell Station for our early breakfast. We met there with the group of Mot & Laarni with Suzanne as their support.

Left Shell past 3:30am and headed to the San Fernando exit all the way to Dinalupihan. We took the Gov. Roman Superhiway to Abucay. There were already several runners with their supports converging at the 50km marker. After a short briefing by the Bald Runner we were off just before 7am. Our initial pace was a bit high at 5:30min/km. Told Dok to bring it down to just 6min/km. We stopped for our first break at bdm marker 60km. Then we asked Eric the van driver to wait for us at every 5km. The sun was up and was fast heating up when we reached the Dinalupihan junction (BDM km. 68). Took our chance for a photo group pic with BR and other runners at the monument.
The stretch of straight highway from Dinalupihan to Lubao seemed endless. Left side of the road was a gravel road and I opted to run on the asphalt road taking extra caution of upcoming trucks & buses which would not seemed to notice runners ahead. With me was Meljohn (Boypra) tagging along and i was very thankful to have company pacing each other. Our support van was to stopped every 2km marker from here on. After about 40km we were already in a walk run walk mode. We just targeted to run up to the next bdm marker then walk for about a couple minutes then ran again to the next marker. It was a relief from the busy highway when we were approaching Bacolor town. There were also some shade from the trees alongside the road.

There seemed to be some extra energy left in us when we reached bdm km. 97 about 5km to San Fernando. We managed to run the last 2km left. We reached km 102 after 6hrs 43min. We were all aware that this 2nd leg of the BDM 102 on actual race day would be excruciatingly painful and hoping that the weather would be not that hot.