Myrtle Beach Marathon

 

I set out to achieve four goals at the Myrtle Beach Marathon 1) Beat my last marathon time at Kiawah Island by 30 minutes, 2) Run the entire marathon, 3) Finish where I didn't "look like I got hit by a baseball bat at the end", 4) Have Fun.

1) Kiawah in December was my personal worst marathon time (not preceded by a 112 mile bike ride). Saturday's 4:12:30 was almost 35 minutes faster than Kiawah.

2) With no runs longer than 12 miles in preparation for Kiawah, the last 6 or 7 miles were filled with walk breaks. With exception of the 5 or 6 steps required to get a Gu and a cup of Powerade down and kiss my bride, there were no walk breaks.

3) After Kiawah my good friend Rick Rikard told me that I looked like I had been "hit by a baseball bat". I may have to wait for the finish line photos for proof but I felt like that was not the case.

 

4) Have Fun. I had the best "Team" support of anybody on the course, my daughter-in-law Jessica was out there running her first marathon, we all missed the sub 20 degree wind chill weather by 14 hours, my plantar fasciitis was being held in check, I was also experiencing this event with a dozen great training buddies and another marathon was in the bag, how could I not have fun.

 

Since I only managed only one 20 mile training run in preparation for Myrtle Beach my biggest concern was establishing a marathon race pace. I took the long runs done before my last 20 marathons and figured the pace for that run and compared it to the actual race day pace of the associated marathon. There were some great race days and there were also a few poor performances. So, I deleted three each of the best and worst ones. The ratio of the long training run pace to the marathon race pace worked out to be 0.97. Using my only 20 miler this time multiplied by this factor determined that I should run 9:38 miles. I wasn't happy with this slow of a pace, so I used the best case result and decided that I would shoot for a 9:10 pace. However, as early as mile 3 I realized that that was going to be too fast and settled into a more comfortable 9:20 pace. At mile 18, I recorded my first of four 10 minute miles. I sat down tonight and calculated my overall marathon pace. Unbelievable as it is, it was exactly 9:38 miles!!! Every now and then we ought to pay attention to history.

 

After heading back to our hotel, we enjoyed playtime at the indoor waterpark, naps and showers.

 

 

 

Then we went to Outback - now there's a good sized dinner table! After outback we used our free coupons (from the race) to go each get a doughnut at Krispy Kreme