LESZL Gitaruelas may have had a traumatic experience in the Kota Kinabalu Climbathon two years ago when she suffered cramps and dropped out of the race 1.5 kilometers away from the finish line.
After two years, she came back all prepped up for the task and made a complete turnaround and pulled off the best finish among the Filipino runners in the mountain run’s 22nd edition last weekend in Sabah, Malaysia.
Gitaruelas, Cebu’s marathon queen, finished at fourth place among the 75 runners in the women’s division from all over the world and came home P30,000 richer. Two years ago, she failed to finish this race and last year skipped it to focus on her marathon career, winning 16 straight titles. This year, she thought she’d give it another shot.
“I had a good feeling going into the race that I will make a good performance,” said Gitaruelas, who outclassed frequent Kinabalu participant Merlita Arias, who has permanently left the marathon to train for the mountain race.
Poor performance
Arias, who finished at ninth place last year, made a disappointing 10th place finish last weekend, failing once more to make it into the Top 5.
Gitaruelas also outshone the much-hyped Everest summiteers Carina Dayondon and Janet Belarmino, the first Filipinas and Asian women, who conquered Everest’s
summit, whose confirmation to join the race turned the event into a media frenzy in Malaysia. The duo finished 16th and 17th respectively.
France’s Corinne Favre topped the women’s race followed by Danny Kuilin Binti Gongot of Malaysia and Yuri Kambara of Japan.
The race, dubbed as the world’s toughest mountain race, tests a racer’s endurance as they are made to navigate through the mountain with an elevation of 13.432 feet above sea level. Racers first tackle an eight-kilometer uphill climb, before adjusting their stride to go downhill to cover a total distance of 21kms.
Running an 8km race on a flat surface may not be so tough for Gitaruelas, but running up a mountain is a different story.
“If I run on the road, it will only take me about 20 minutes to finish eight kilometers. But I reached the summit in more than two hours,” said Gitaruelas.
Feat
Gitaruelas reached the summit in two hours, 28.51 minutes and arrived at the finish line with a total time of 3:49.35, 12 minutes behind the third placer.
“Going up the mountain is hard especially if you start running out of air because of the altitude. But getting down is harder. It targets another muscle so you need to adjust
again,” she said.
Gitaruelas and Arias along Maia Estela Diaz, Mona Lisa Ambasa and Merlie Edulantes—Cebu’s all-female squad, traveled to Malaysia last July 25 to acclimatize and practice twice every day with headcoach Francis Cosgrave.
Despite not making it to the Top 10, the Cebu team still finished the race with Ambasa at 13th place, Edullantes at 18th and Diaz at 26th. Only 31 runners of the 75, who signed up for the women’s division reached the summit, the rest did not reach the peak and failed to finish the race. (MCB)
