I WAS not there during the start of the races in the Manila leg of the National MILO Marathon held last Sunday, but I made it to the awarding.

It was for the simple reason that all the races in the different distances, including the qualifying race for the national finals set in Cagayan de Oro late this year, started early morning, too early for someone of my age I guess.

But even as the runners ran under the moonlight and with no sun to aggravate the summer heat, as expected, the winning times for the 42K race were slow, even for the champions, Florendo Lapis and Lizane Abella, who are both from Cebu and also won for the first time after several tries in the past.

Lapis could only clock 2:42.33 while Abella negotiated the same distance in 3 : 21.05, a far cry from their personal best of 2:31 and 3:12 respectively, both citing the hot and humid Manila weather as a factor.

But Lapis was thankful it was a flat route that was laid down for the race but the heat for him was still stifling compared to Cebu where he says it is cooler.

Both champions are bound for Thailand this June for a marathon race as they will be joinibg the 7-11 team.

But I guess come the national finals on December, when it is much cooler, we will see faster times from the qualifiers.

I was surprised to see two familiar figures among the top 10 female finishers in the 42K distance.

First was 10th placer Liza Delfin who was the National MILO Marathon champion in 1996, also the last time she said she competed in Milo races.

Liza, now 54, trained only three months for this race as she wants to compete in the Asian Masters.

The second figure was Olympic swimmer Jenny Guerrero, now a coach of the UP swim team.

I was just with her last Thursday at the orientation seminar I did for the 9 Filipino Olympic volunteers and Jenny was one of the Olympians who shared time and experiences with the volunteers.

One innovation I like for this year’s edition of the race was the post awarding presscon held by the organizers with Milo Head Carlo Sampan, race organizer Rio de la Cruz, and the two 42K winners, who both earned 50K each for their victories, in attendance.

But sorry, no plans yet of sending the national champions to the Boston Marathon as was the practice before, but then who knows? Runners would certainly be motivated by that opportunity.

In the past, sportswriters would do ambush interviews with the winners wherever and whenever they could, and it was good the results of the races were already posted near the media tent, where breakfast was provided to all sports media present.

That was where I asked Carlo and Rio if there will be more changes and innovations in the future races.

On his part, Rio says improving the technical aspects of thecrace will be a continuing effort but his focus will be making the event inclusive for all, thus his introducing the 1K kiddie run and the family category.

Carlo reiterated his goal of providing access to sports for Filipino families , not just in marathon but in many other events through the Milo sumner sports clinics .

But he surprised me when he also shared that he is now into introducing the use of data analytics to help runners improve their performances in future races.