My Milo Marathon experience… Ito ang kwento ko.

It was my first time to experience the biggest and grandest marathon event in the Philippines, the National Milo Marathon in its 32nd edition. As early as Saturday, Sweetheart and I agreed to meet my cousins, Kuya Hector & Alwin to meet at Honda Cars Pasig at 4 am on race day and then proceeded to the Roxas Blvd. We were also joined by Edna, Swthrt’s officemate, who also ran the 5K. We saw the 42K runners already running along Roxas Blvd since they started at exactly 4:30am. We arrived at the race site at around 4:40 and were lucky to have parked in front of Manila Hotel. It is really an advantage to arrive early in order to choose a safer and more accessible parking area. Anyway, after getting ready to run, we proceeded to the starting area to check in. There were already a multitude of runners out there. My plan was to run easy and maintain a pace of 7:00- 7:30 min/K. I did not intend to set a new PR on this race since this will be a tune up race for my first 16K run at Yakult come Sunday. While warming up and waiting for the race to start I saw Arman, my officemate, who will be running too. The gun was fired by Mayor Alfredo Lim of Manila for the 10K runners after the opening ceremonies and few speeches from organizers and guests. I stick to my plan and was thankful that Arman decided to keep pace with me throughout the race. I appreciated it very much. It was better than running alone. At least I had someone to talk to while running. We were also running with my two cousins at the early part of the race until they started to speed up. The course was flat with one flyover to go through back and forth. The weather was great too with drizzles from time to time. There were enough water stations for the 10K event. As we were nearing the turn around point I saw Christy, Run Unlimited’s wife, already on her way back. Well, no wonder because she’s the wife of a 42K runner Vener, hahaha. Congrats Christy for a great run. Congratulations too to my classmate, Erlito who set a new PR of 56:52. Arman and I reached the finish line with an unofficial time of 1:13.

It was a good race and I was satisfied with it. Overall, my Milo experience was great! Next year, I will hope to set a new PR for my 10K or run my first marathon. See you at next year’s Milo Marathon.

Joseph, Baby, Edna, Hector

Alwyn, Baby, Edna, Hector

Baby and Edna

As for Swthrt and Edna, it was a fun run with lots of walk breaks because of the huge crowd in their 5K event. Most students from various schools just walk which made it a hard for those who really wanted to run. So after the race, ang kwento nila…. This is our first and the last Milo 5k race because next year…. They will already be running 10K, yahoo!