Heroes for a day; Runners show up for Justice League Run

A group of friends take their time as they close in on the finish line. (CDN PHOTO/ CHRISTIAN MANINGO)

Runners from all walks of life gathered at the SM City Cebu open parking lot yesterday for the highly successful Justice League Run Cebu leg.

Around 2,000 participants took part in the unique superhero-themed running event organized by Global Procurement Inc. (GPI) with the help of race director Joel Juarez of Coco Running.

Runners enjoyed the race mainly because of the authentic Justice League superhero-designed singlets. The featured superheroes were Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Batman and Wonderwoman.

A Child in a Batman costume sprints to the finish line while her parents look on at the SM City Cebu open parking lot. (CDN PHOTO/ CHRISTIAN MANINGO)

Among those who joined was the Jabines family composed of Donovan Jabines, his wife Doreen, and their three kids Daniella, Danikah and Diego. They were all smiles when interviewed by Cebu Daily News after the race.

“It was a unique experience for us even if we are avid fun runners here in Cebu,” Doreen, a Human Resource (HR) officer, said. “Especially the kids, they enjoyed the run because they got to wear capes, masks and costumes of their favorite superheroes. They also got nice treats and freebies.”

A young couple holds hands while taking a breather during the Justice League Run Cebu leg. (CDN PHOTO/ CHRISTIAN MANINGO)

Aside from families like that of Jabines, others who participated in the 3-kilometer, 5k and 10k fun run were groups of friends, officemates and die-hard running enthusiasts, all of whom  enjoyed treats after the race from sponsors such as Slurpee, Big Bite Purefoods TJ Hotdog, Goldilocks, Zalora and Islands Souvenirs. All finishers also got special medals after the race.

Event host DJ Jiggy Jr. shows off his own Superman singlet. (CDN PHOTO/ CHRISTIAN MANINGO)

Organizers from GPI were delighted with the result of the race. They also announced the holding of a promotional running event for the movie Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice next year. It is scheduled in the second week of March.

“We are very thankful to the Cebuanos for joining the run, we already expected that we can draw our targeted number of runners considering Cebu has the biggest running community outside Manila,” GPI Marketing Director Marites Fragante said. “As far as I see, everyone’s happy with the run. We are looking forward for next year’s running event and we hope that we can add more excitement and more prizes.”

Although the running event was purely a non-competitive foot race, the top three winners in each distance won special prizes.

The winners were Paul Makiling (44:48) and Sheila Aligway (53:34) for the 10k division, Noel Narvasa (22:05) and Mereeis Ramirez (21:03), for the 5k race and Gerson Casinillo (10:54) and Jessel Ochia (12:09) for the 3k category.