My first official backlog blog post. Even these backlog posts are backlogged. hahaha. To be specific, it’s my late Milo Marathon post – 5 months late and in time for the Milo Marathon Finals! LOL. Just so you know, I didn’t hold off on my blog post because I had a disappointing performance like last year. Just been real busy!

at the 2012 Milo Marathon Manila Leg

I normally don’t put a lot of planning into my half marathons aside from my training plan. Carlito and I usually tackle them with a pretty chill mindset. But Milo was different… I needed to redeem myself at this race, and I needed a stronger finish than ever before to be satisfied. Also, I needed to know I could push myself faster.

Planning for a PR

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail

-Ben Franklin

I wasn’t going to have failure this year. Trainging-wise, I put in the long runs I needed thanks to Cathy and Carlito. One of the runs was even an uphill run! But a PR isn’t built on long runs alone. Now there’s probably nothing new on my plan for runners out there. It’s just stuff that makes sense, I think.

• Weekday Cardio. There were days I braved 9AM heat to run to Katipunan and back home because I woke up late. lol. Why did I say cardio and not run? Because the two weeks prior to the race, I spent 1-2 times a week at the condominum pool. There was even a day I had a solo aquathlon, swimming almost 500 meters, then rushing out to run 5-km outside. lol. #noexcuses ang mindset when it comes to training!
• Weights. Flashback to my first year in running. I spent a lot of time at the gym on my off-running days back then. I went back to this routine, but with my limits on time, I just focused on my legs and core. So it was practically everyday leg day! I made sure to keep the day before my LSD a rest day, and the day after as a light training day.
• Food/Nutrition. I generally kept an eye on what I was eating, and made sure to keep my protein up especially on heavy training days. A new development on my nutrition plans has been chia. I took around 4 tablespoons of chia everyday leading up to the race, and one tablespoon in my pre-race hydration, and two in my in-race hydration.

My Chia-based hydration plan!

• The Competition. Not the Kenyans. LOL. While I agree that an athlete’s toughest competitor is himself, there’s no denying that the legion of runners on the road would be a challenge to overcome. Carlito and I thought about how to take on the special challenge that the Manila leg presented – high volume runners, and the hydration choke points. Based on that, we adjusted our run-walk strategy, and decided that Carlito would carry all things necessary to minimize our stops at the hydration stations.
• Pray. Offer it up to God. Accept that there will be things beyond your control. On that note, I also had a healing priest bless my knees the Friday before the race. 🙂

Don’t Stop Me Now

First things first. WE WERE NOT LATE TO THE RACE VENUE. I was really excited for this race, and I guess it reached Carlito. hahaha. We’ve been late way too many times to races… and given our PR goal, it was best not to stay too far back of the pack. When that starting gun finally fired, everyone wanted to go for a running start as quick as possible. I knew it was going to be a different race.

I’m normally not so fired up during a race. Instead, we’re usually chatting about random things during a run or taking photos – more like friends catching up rather than athletes. In that sense, it was a race unlike anything we’ve shared. We were definitely quieter, and we had a more intense aura. And instead of swapping stories, we were swapping instructions: run, walk, takbo hanggang dun (run up to that point), slow down, inom muna (drink), kain muna (eat), weave left/right, etc. We were taking this run seriously.

With the volume of runners we encountered, it was going to be at least an hour of weaving in between other runners. We were on high alert for most of the race – always looking for an opening to run in between or potholes/obstacles to avoid. We almost always ran past hydration stops to avoid those choke points, then we took the chance to hydrate some distance. This made sure that we weren’t forced to slow down longer than we needed because of the crowd. We couldn’t be slowing down for photographers either – which is why there’s so few photos of us running. hahaha.

our only race photo

But all the preparation was worth it. By the time we passed the halfway mark, we realized we were making good time. We loosened up a bit, and gave ourselves some quick congratulations for our good start. But it wasn’t over yet, and there was still a PR yet to be realized. So we soldiered on, sticking to our strategy. With Carlito leading the way as my pacer, I knew it could be done.

My new Half Marathon PR – 2:13

So, how well did we do? Well, not only did I finish within the 2.5-hour cut-off, I set a new personal record at 2:13:11 (chip time) – finally breaking my longstanding 2:19:59 record which I set at the Goldilocks 45th Anniversary Run in 2011 (wow, has it been 2 years already?!).

A PR at a Milo Elims race does sound more impressive than a Goldilocks one, doesn’t it?

-paraphrasing Cathy (Cathletic).

To my friends, sorry for this really late post. Here are all the photos of us that I have 🙂

our only race photo

My new Half Marathon PR – 2:13

My Chia-based hydration plan!