Last Sunday the San Pablo leg of the Milo Marathon Eliminations was staged and of course I together with a couple of friends from takbo.ph was there to lend our support and of course see the City of San Pablo.

The eliminations had 3K, 5K, 10K, and 21K races with the latter serving as 42K qualifiers for the Manila Finals.  Cutoff times to qualify for the finals were 1:15:00 (men) and 1:35:00 (women).

10K Perspective

It was another 10K race for me.  What’s good with Milo Marathon was the professionalism it maintained even on provincial races.  The 21K started a few seconds before 5:30AM and the 10K also a few seconds before 6:00AM.  Naturally the number of participants was significantly less in number than those in Metro Manila but the 3K and 5K was well attended by school delegates, although still less by Milo Manila standards.

Milo San Pablo was unique by having a different Start and Finish lines, although just a few meters away.

The 10K route was virtually straight but it was anything but easy—it was one of the toughest courses I’ve had with a lot of very long uphills and downhills that makes McKinley Hill a walk in the park.  The 21K was even worse and as a testament there was no female runner making the 1:35:00 qualifying time.  The GPS/aerial distance was very accurate (based on GF405 data) for the 10K so the actual ground distance may actually be much longer.

The first ¾ route of the race was excellent since the number of runners was much less but like any Milo race it becomes very crowded once you reach the 5K turnaround (last 2.5K) where you clash with the majority of the runners—make that walkers.  Since the road was quite narrow running through the crowd was very tricky and keeping a good pace was difficult.  I even had to make a full stop during the race when I ran out of room to run when the convoy of the leader of 21K caught up with me during the last few hundred meters of the course.

Finally after 48:58 (unofficial, gun-time, self-timed) I finished my Milo San Pablo 10K race.  The finish line was flooded with 3K and 5K runners and it was on a steep uphill after a 90-degree left turn so it really was a time-breaking course.  Although I didn’t finish anywhere near a podium finish I’m proud to have another sub-50 (minutes) 10K race especially on such a tough course.

For some of my friends their time wasn’t just good enough—it was good enough to place!  Congratulations to Roselle (Running Diva) and Carina for both placing 8^th in 21K and 10K categories respectively.  Congratulations as well to Cindy for finishing her first 21K!

If I was to give my evaluation for this race I would give it a Very Good remark.  I had so much fun with this race that I’m considering running another Milo Marathon leg in the province again in the future.  Thank you Milo for bringing the sport to the provinces and congratulations for a very well executed event!

Special thanks to Pepsi for the pictures of the race