I'm Running a Full Marathon at the 43rd MILO Marathon Eliminations

Last year was my first time to join the MILO Marathon which, I believe, is the most prestigious and most popular running event in the Philippines and was on its 42nd year. This year, I am running again to try and finish under 6 hours to get a medal and a certificate.

The 43rd National MILO® Marathon 42k Race Route (Map)

This is me from last year's Manila elimination leg.

Photo credit : Running Photographers

National MILO® Marathon History

According to their official website, the National MILO® Marathon began in 1974 and is now known as the biggest, grandest and most prestigious running event in the country. It holds elimination events in Metro Manila and in the provinces to pick who would qualify for the  National Finals. The winners, who are crowned MILO® Marathon King and Queen, are granted the privilege to represent the country in top international marathon events. 

You might have heard of Mary Joy Tabal who gave the Philippines its first gold medal during the 29th Southeast Asian Games in 2017. She was crowned MILO® Marathon Queen for four consecutive years (2013 to 2016) and the first runner to complete this four-peat record in this marathon.

Why Join the MILO Marathon?

Many avid runners like Mary Joy join to try and qualify to join the finals, which, for this batch, will be held on January 19, 2020 in Tarlac City. Others join to at least secure a finisher's medal which one can acquire only by finishing under a particular cut-off time. 

Distances and Cut-off Times

42 km - 6 hours (6:00)

21 km - 2 hours and 30 minutes (2:30)

10 km - 1 hour and 30 minutes (1:30)

My Reason for Joining the National MILO Marathon

Why am I joining this again? Since I started running back in 2017, I've finished 5 full marathons, the first was during the Nat Geo Run 2017 and I intend to maintain the gains in health and in fitness I've achieved by running at one or two full marathons a year - one of which is this running event.

How did I prepare for it? Below is my running record found in my Runtastic account. I am not a serious runner, and I run about two three times in a week, ideally. My goal for this 43rd MILO Marathon is to just finish under 6 hours, maybe beat my previous MILO Marathon record of  5:55:31. 

July 2019 Runs - 19.23 km per week

June 2019 Runs - 16.765 km per week

May 2019 Runs - 12.29 km per week

April 2019 Runs - 14.55 km per week

March 2019 Runs - 12.52 km per week

February 2019 Runs - 18.26 km per week

Now, I've finished faster during my last full marathon at the 2018 New York City Marathon (4:59:47) when I represented the company I work with and Ryan's Run but it's not my goal to better that record. Like I mentioned, my goal is just maintenance.

To all running the MILO Marathon, I wish you all the best. Let's take heart and finish! May God's favor be upon us all.

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I Ran My First Full Marathon at 41: NatGeo Run 2017

It was April 23, 2017 when I ran my first full marathon, the full 42km and I was 41 years old. I was fairly new to running (will explain this in my back story) so my official finish time was 6:27:29. Anyway, my goal was not to finish fast, but simply to finish - and I did! 40 days. That's exactly the number of days that I had to officially prepare for my first full marathon.

Thank you, Rickpet Lens Photography, for this photo.

A little back story. December 2016, I availed of this free baseline health test at Open Access, a company that provides multilingual customer services, where I work. The test showed I had high total and bad cholesterol. Being a person who was into various sports and physical activities in the past like football, basketball, martial arts and doing Insanity workout, I then resolved to get back into some sort of physical activity.

I hit the gym and ran on the treadmill. Vividly, I remember that I ran straight for only 12 minutes - that's how long I could last running and I was already spent. My goal was to bring down my cholesterol levels through diet and aerobic exercise. That was my initial purpose for getting into running. I also tried getting back into Aikido training when I found a dojo at Makati Sports Club, but I figured, running was the least expensive between the two, although I admit I would have enjoyed the latter more.

March 13, 2017 - 40 days before the NatGeo Run 2017, our company opened the invitation to all its employees to run in this event and use the 42k category as the qualifying run for the selection of the company's official representatives to the New York City Marathon last November 2017. I signed up.

Since then, I started preparing to run my first full marathon. It was also about the same week that I downloaded Runtastic, the first running app I used to keep track of my runs and progress. Below are the runs I did from the date of the announcement leading to the NatGeo Earth Day Run 2017.

Well, I didn't qualify as our company's representative to the 2017 NYCM, but, I learned a great deal out of the experience and was able to use it as illustration in a sermon entitled 'Steadfadtly Run' from our message series entitled "Keep On" in our church at Eastwood City.

A few weeks prior to the NatGeo Run, I joined Run United Exceed 2017. I joined the half marathon where you only get a finisher's medal if you finish under a challenging cut-off time of 2:30.

#Firsttime to run a #halfmarathon. Grateful that I finished 21km under 2:30. Blessed to earn a #medal for it. I didn't think I could do it but I did! Thank you @jenaspacio for supporting me in this. To God be the glory! #rununitedexceed #rununited2017 #exceedyourself #running

A post shared by Jeffrey Aspacio (@jaspacio) on Apr 2, 2017 at 12:04am PDT

As seen above my IG post, I made it. So, there was a bit of confidence that I could finish the NatGeo Run under 6 hours. I was wrong. I learned the lesson, "Respect the distance."

There was no excuse for me. My training and experience wasn't enough for that full marathon and it has been quite a journey for me, looking back more than a year ago.

This year, my qualifying run for the 2018 NYCM was a different story. I will post about it soon and will include my one-year journey and training for that qualifier. 

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