Ong, Alvarez bag titles in 100k Ultramarathon

ABS-CBN employee Bayani Alvarez and Irene Ong conquered more than 100 kilometers from Bogo City to Cebu City to become the male and female champions of Cebu’s first ever 100-kilometer race dubbed the Century Properties 100-KM Ultramarathon 2011 yesterday.

Alvarez and Ong finished as the bests in their respective divisions among 160 hopefuls.

Alvarez crossed the finish line at the Plaza Independencia with a time of 11 hours and six minutes, way ahead of the 18-hour cut-off time set by the organizers from the 12 a.m. start of the race at the old Bogo City Hall.

The race course was plotted by one of Cebu’s very own marathoner Haide Acuna.

Ong breasted the tape with a time of 16:53:12.

Alvarez made his presence felt in the local running scene last September when he won the Press Freedom Run.

Enrique Mangas finished at far second to Alvarez after coming in with a time of 11:40.45 while Noel Tillor only managed third place with his time of 11:58.07. Kenji Yoshioka settled for fourth place after clocking 12:05.

Finishing second and third in the women’s division were Cynthia Arnaiz and Katrina Perez, respectively.

Frontrunner Magazine’s Jonel Mendoza said that out of the 160 entries, 117 officially finished the race before the cutoff.

Raffy Uytiepo, also one of the organizers, said that out of 160 entries, seven runners failed to make it to the 9-hour cut-off set in Catmon.

Organizers said they achieved their goal of having a hundred participants for the contest. Organizers were expecting at least 100 runners to take part in the race to ensure a P600,000 donation by the Century Properties Group to ABS-CBN Foundation’s Kapit Bisig Para sa Ilog Pasig.

A second leg will be held in Davao on Dec. 10 and will have marathoners negotiating Davao City To Tagum.

The real estate firm will also send a contingent to the Run for Pasig River today wherein P400,000 will be generated for a total P1 million in donation.

This race is credited by the Philippine Association of UltraRunners, which makes it a qualifying race for the Bataan Death March 160.