The most prestigious running event in the Philippines, the 34th National MILO Marathon is back and this year is bigger and better than the last one. This year’s cause separates the 34th National MILO Marathon from its previous events, as part of the registration fee of every participant will be allotted to help provide rubber shoes to one public school per city in the different places of the country where the races will be held.

Estimates show that more than 25 thousand runners both elite and newbies alike joined the event last Sunday, July 4th. Around 800 participants joined the 42 Full Marathon category, about 1000 participants joined the 21k Half Marathon category and more than 1100 participants joined the 10k category. The 5k and 3k Fun Run was a riot, with more than 20,000 avid runners joining this categories.

I joined the event with somewhat insufficient training since I only had two weeks to prepare for the 21k Half Marathon. At first, I decided to join the 10k Run but my brother keep on  insisting that I join the 21k Category. Never ran 21k before as the farthest run I did was 10k in an event and around 17.5k during a training run, but still I managed to get myself in shape for the 21k with a personal best time of around 2 hrs. Felt good, ate a lot of carbo foods and got a couple of days rest before the event. While my brother and his friends are getting pressured since most of them will be running in an event for the first time (5k Fun Run), I didn’t feel any pressured nor became nervous whatsoever even during the event. The only problem I had is that I didn’t had sufficient sleep the night before the event, kinda got excited. Sucks, what a nice way to start a marathon.

Arrived 1 hour early before my category gun start, lots of people in green singlets are pouring in Luneta, the 42k category just left about 15 mins ago and my a lot of 21k runners are already warming up in the vicinity. After some warm-ups with my friends, the 21k guys are being assembled on the start line and people are surely pumped up to run! After some advertisements, stretching and chit-chat from the MCEE’s, the gun start was next. While I placed myself in the middle of the pack so I can give way to the elite runners in front, there are still people who positioned themselves in front even though they aren’t strong runners and even knowing that they’ll just get in the way of the Elite Runners. As soon as the gun start took off, you can already see the Elite runners leaving behind the main group as they sprint their way towards the first kilometer of the race. I took the right most side of the road running in the gutter and leaving behind slower runners than me, and managed to join a group of 3 with a good pace that I can follow, they were pretty friendly fellows too as we had a nice talk till the 8km mark in front of the Coastal Mall where the guy who were pacing us left me and the other fellow behind. After a few hundred meters, I didn’t noticed that the other guy with us were left behind too in the bend. Felt strong during the first half of the 21k route, clocking in a somewhat modest time of 1:17:00 during the 15k MyLaps mark.

While I was on my way towards the final 6 km of the race, the 5km and 3k run was already in progress. My brother and his friends were talking bout how chaotic their run was. Well, what do you expect with more than 20,000 people running all at the same time, slow runners were in front, kids and old people walking instead of running blocking your way and some student participants who were forced to join the event for grades were cheating the 5k run. As if that wasn’t bad enough, here comes a old fellow dressed in Zorro with a stench so bad people were avoiding him as he passes through Roxas Blvd.

As I was on my way for the final kilometers of the run, I felt a stinging pain on both my feet. Apparently, blisters are starting to show up on my soles and to make matters worse, water stations were already out of commission due to the 5k and 3k runners who mugged up all the water.  I didn’t bother looking for Gatorade, good luck on that one. A 21k runner, Remus Fuentes even collapsed due to heatstroke after becoming dehydrated since the last 5 km of the run, only a single water station was available which was almost out of water when I arrived located about 2 km away from the finish line. Here I took the time to rest a bit and get hydrated with water before I took off to finish the race. The start line was a welcome sight for me, making me feel that the finish line was just around the corner. With almost both my feet about to give up, I sprinted towards the few hundred meters of the race to the finish line. I was so tired I didn’t even bother looking at the official timer at the finish line, the first thing in my mind was to get a bottle of Gatorade and rehydrate! Didn’t even looked what’s inside of the loot bag for the 21k finishers.

After a few seconds catching my breath, I finally got myself together and I was very glad to finish the race in under 2 hours. At least, all the effort I had paid off since I’ll be receiving a finishers medal (for 21k and 42k runners who finish below the curfew time). The only thing going through my head during that time is “I did it, and I can do it again”. It was all worth it even though July 4 was the most exhausting day of my life… EVER!

21k Half Marathon Official time: 1:51:48 – Ranked 60th out of 963 Participant

Some updates: Sporty Techie and my fellow runners would like to give our most sincere condolences to Mr. Remus Fuentes’ Family and Friends. He died on July 6th due to “Multiple organ failure due to heatstroke”. He was the 21k runner that collapsed during the run due to heatstroke.

According to my friend Police that was on-duty at the event, a lot of people lost their valuables especially in the baggage counter. Apparently, Milo didn’t escaped the big “Baggage Counter Fail” that plagues most running events I had joined.