Brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want something badly enough. They are there to keep out the other people. - Randy Pausch ( 1960-2008 )

Kilometer 878: 34th National Milo Marathon - Manila Eliminations

Posted July 4th, 2010 by wilson

First off, I’d like to extend my congratulations to the Milo people for an excellently handled race. I expected the 3 loops to  bore and confuse people. Well the former did happen, but Milo has to be given credit for proving me wrong in the latter. The route still sucks big time though.

This race certainly didn’t go as planned for me. I never got into the rhythm, never got in the zone. I was only in sub-4 contention for just about the first two hours. It was so bad, that I ended up actually being happy for having eked out a 4:37 finish.

It wasn’t just that the course proved to be way tougher than what I expected, or that the weather was a bitch this morning. Truth is, a lot of things went wrong for me in this race - not just in the race itself, but apparently, in the preparation for it too. So many, in fact, that I’ve yet to find out what exactly they ALL are. For certain, my run logs and Garmin data files are due for a very close review.

Do I feel bad about the race? Of course I do. It was a very important race, and I bungled it it-big time. But I don’t feel that bad. I certainly felt worse in SCSM, where I was injured. More than the race itself, I feel worse for the fact that I can’t seem to put in a consistent performance for this distance - I mean, I’d have a bad race(Singapore), followed by a good one(Hong Kong), and then it’s back to a bad race again. Consistency is something I still badly look for.

Ack. I’ve got a lot of things to figure out and do before CamSur.

Race bib

***RACE SUMMARY***
Event: 34th National Milo Marathon - Manila Eliminations
Date/Time: July 4, 2010, 4:00am
Venue: Roxas Boulevard
Length: 42 kilometers(full marathon)
Time: 4:37:00(unofficial)
Racer/Bib Number: 40113

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Filed under:Races

2 Responses to “Kilometer 878: 34th National Milo Marathon - Manila Eliminations”

  • Haide Says:
    July 5th, 2010 at 1:31 pm

    Hello Wilson,

    So many runners, even the strong ones fell short of personal expectations yesterday.

    The 3-loop course, although flat in most parts was both difficult and boring. The course killed all my motivation for a new PR. It made me want to go to bed and sleep. I had no pain, I just didn’t want to do another loop after the second round.

    Lesson: when designing a marathon course, please do not make runners run in circles.

    Congratulations! 4:37 is not that bad. Others had it worse. =)

  • run unltd. Says:
    July 5th, 2010 at 9:58 pm

    Perhaps it’s the loops that killed you all, I’ve had that experience from the botak42 last year. Congratulations to you and William for finishing strong.

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