Blogger's Note: 46 started and 37 finished within the cut off time of 32 hours. This is the statistical story of the very first edition of the Mayon 160-km Ultra Marathon held last April 10-11, 2015. Numbers don't lie. True but most times, cold numbers maybe not enough to paint a picture of the human struggles and triumphs needed for the ordinary mortals to accomplish such an extraordinary feat. We are in luck this time for two of the finishers have agreed to answer questions about their pioneering adventure. Bob Castilla (Bib No. 1 ) and Ernie Badong (Bib No. 20) finished 6th and 20th place, respectively. They are batchmates of the Bicolano Penguin (BP) in the Ateneo de Naga High School Batch 1983 ("83neans"). Both were supported in the 160-km ultra by another batchmate Allen "Por Da Lab" Tolledo. Both are veterans of more than two dozen ultra marathons in Luzon and Mindanao. The longest that Bob has conquered is the 2013 West Coast 200-km Single Stage Ultra while Ernie's longest is the 2013 Bataan Death March 160-km Ultra. Both proudly donned the row5runnin shirt. In this interview, they gamely and separately answered the questions about the 2015 Mayon 160 from the BP as well as from fellow row5runner Kevin Moral and fellow 83nean Bitoy Lorico.
