Kilometer 878: 34th National Milo Marathon - Manila Eliminations

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 [...]

Tags: 34th National Milo Marathon, 42.195K, full marathon, Manila Eliminations

This is part where the Milo people are supposed to say “Joke lang”

Oh man.
Just when the entire running blogosphere is singing praises to Milo for “modernizing” the well-loved series(even letting them “get away” with a hundred percent increase in registration fee), they unleash this upon us

Three loops, Milo, seriously?
Personally it feels like Milo took 3 steps forward, and 2 steps back. I mean, forget about the timing [...]

Tags: 34th National Milo Marathon, 42.195K, full marathon, Manila Eliminations

15 minutes - in the wrong direction

I have always associated breaking the four-hour barrier with qualifying of the Milo Finals. It was a pretty good pair. The Milo Finals is the most prestigious and exclusive of all the local races. Four hours is the time-standard for the full, the very same way 2 hours is for the half, 1 hour is [...]

Tags: 34th National Milo Marathon, 42.195K, Boston Marathon, full marathon, Manila Eliminations, National Finals

Anecdote

When I arrived in Hong Kong for the SCHKM, I of course, had to go through the immigration booth at airport.
I didn’t have any worries whatsoever. My passport was already of the convenient machine-readable type(they do give people with non-machine readable passports a hard time sometimes), and I had accumulated enough “stamps” from quite a [...]

Tags: full marathon, Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon

Wanted: Flag Carrier

How many road races do we have yearly? 40? 50? Indeed, I daresay that currently, we must be the “run-craziest” country in Asia, or at least in its Southeast region.
Surprisingly however, we are not really in the international marathoning map. Japan has the Tokyo Marathon. Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Hong Kong have races sponsored by [...]

Tags: full marathon, Philippine International Marathon, Quezon City International Marathon, Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon, Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon, Subic International Marathon

Biggest Loser Asia

One of the few TV shows that I currently follow is the Biggest Loser Asia(Tuesdays, 9pm, Hallmark Channel). It certainly is different from the usual reality shows like PBB or Amazing Race where the contestants are all artistahin and most would probably get showbiz careers after the contest. It is certainly worlds away from the [...]

Tags: 21K, 42.195K, Biggest Loser Asia, full marathon, half marathon

Kilometer 779: Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon 2010(Part 2 of 2)

Join the race, feel the energy
I think I already mentioned that the field in the SCHKM is going to be strong. I didn’t realize however just the extent of that strength until I ran the last 6 miles of the event.
I make it a point to encourage other runners struggling during the full, especially during [...]

Tags: 42.195K, full marathon, Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon

Kilometer 779: Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon 2010(Part 1 of 2)

Pre-race
I arrived in HK for the marathon on Friday evening. I got my race kit from in Victoria Park on Saturday morning, a process which was largely hassle-free, but also significantly less “exciting” than that in Singapore - the SCHKM expo after all, was held weeks before.
I was careful not to repeat the mistakes I [...]

Tags: 42.195K, full marathon, Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon, Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon

Lessons from the Lion City

It has been said that the marathon, when compared to other races, is a different animal. Well, a marathon abroad is different from a local one in many aspects as well, as I discovered. Here are some lessons that I learned from the recently concluded SCSM. I’d be keeping these in mind in my future [...]

Tags: full marathon, Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon

Kilometer 706: Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon 2009(Part 2 of 2)

Going home
I began to walk. It wasn’t easy, but I knew(I experienced the pain before in training) that with warm up I would be able to run again, even if painfully. An Indian guy(whose name I unfortunately didn’t get) passed beside me and encouraged me to run, saying “mind over matter” over and over again. [...]

Tags: 42.195K, full marathon, Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon