A new queen is crowned

It took all of four years before Cebu’s running queen, Mary Joy Tabal, finally snatched the Milo Marathon crown.

Tabal qualified for the Milo finals after winning the Cebu leg of the eliminations in September. Last Sunday, Tabal toed the starting line with a personal best time of two hours and 57 minutes in the full marathon.

By the time she crossed the finish line in 2:48:00, Tabal not only broke her personal record by nine minutes, she also broke the Milo Marathon women’s record set by Jho-An Banayag seven years ago by 16 seconds.

“We were targeting a sub-three hour run but I was surprised that I was way faster than our target time. I think my body’s perfect condition contributed a lot,” Tabal told Cebu Daily News.

In the months leading to the Milo finals, Tabal, speaking to Cebu Daily News’ Dale Rosal, said that 42K is not her specialty and she faced major adjustments including losing weight, endurance training and muscle conditioning.

“I think this is the perfect time to correct the mistakes I’ve done. We’ve been focusing more on our endurance training. (Coach Philip Duenas) wants to strengthen my legs, which is the usual part of my body that gets injured.”

Six minutes and 27 seconds or the time equivalent of one and a half kilometers separated newly crowned Milo Marathon queen Tabal and fierce rival and now dethroned former back to back (2011-2012) women’s champion Mary Grace Delos Santos.

None of them would admit it, but the two Mary’s are fierce rivals, pitted against each other by their respective fans, each claiming to be the rightful queen of the road racing circuit.

Tabal once told me, after placing second to Mary Grace at the Adidas King of the Road finals in Singapore last October, there is no rivalry. It’s the sports reporters and their friends in Cebu’s running community who insist on a rivalry that does not exist. “Sila ra gyud anang rivalry, Ms. Friends ra gyud mi tanan.”

Rivals or not, there can only be one queen. The Milo crown settles it. The reigning road running queen is, without a doubt, Mary Joy Tabal. That is, until the crown gets snatched once again and a new queen gets crowned.

In the meantime, the new queen took home the champion’s trophy, P250,000 plus P20,000 for breaking the Milo course record and the grandest prize of all – an all-expense paid trip to the City of Lights and a chance to compete with the world’s best marathoners at the Paris Marathon in the spring.

All-Women Ultramarathon 50K

Did you know that the only all-women ultramarathon in the world is in Cebu?

Already on its 3rd edition, organizers of AWUM or the All Women Ultramarathon 50K, are again calling on all female runners interested in going beyond 42K to save the date for next year’s race.

The 2014 edition could not have fallen on a more perfect date, March 8, which also happens to be the World Women’s Day Celebration.

AWUM is organized by the Cebu Ultrarunners Club, but it is supported by almost all running clubs in Cebu’s tight knit running community. Clubs provide volunteer support, food and hydration station every two kilometers, making AWUM the perfect debut race for women runners aiming to finish an ultramarathon for the first time.