Myrtle Beach Half Marathon Race Report
I think over the past year or so I have moved too far down the path of being a Tri-snob. I love racing tri's, all the gear, the training, the intensity of transition. Running races have slipped down the list of things to do. So my buddy Richard convinced me to sign up for the Myrtle Beach 1/2 Marathon on 2/18/2012 and since this was "just a half" I figured what the heck, it would be a good training day. Queue the ominous music and the "it's just a flesh wound" hyperbole.... I then convinced my buddy Jody to do race as well since it was "just a half marathon." Long story short I had a great run, met my goal time, and had fun...but I also learned a valuable lesson about planning and preparation.
My goal was to break 2:00 overall and based on the training run I had a few weeks back I knew that as long as I did my part my goal time was in the bag. To say I didn't take the race seriously would be a bit of an understatement. I was pretty much treating the day as a long training run. Note to self, take races seriously...really. More on this later....
Jody and I checked into the expo and picked up our bib #'s (mine was #4512) and found that the expo had a couple of vendors giving away free beer. Free...Beer... And this is why I started training and racing! Anyway, after a pint or two we headed out to grab some dinner. During this portion of our adventure I discovered that evidentially SC still allows people to smoke in restaurants. Really? Smoke while eating? How crude! We eventually checked out 4-5 restaurants before we found one that had outdoor seating away from the lung-charring smoke that made hung from the rafters like a thunderhead. The aptly named "Dirty Don's Oyster Bar" had a decent menu and the promise of fresh air out on their patio so we sat down and promptly ordered more beer (remember when I said we weren't taking the race seriously...) and seafood nachos. The nachos were...interesting. Actually they were pretty good, except for this really weird piece of "seafood" that I am not sure actually came out of the ocean, or lake, or maybe a pond...
Anyhow, we finished dinner and our drinks, and headed back to the hotel. At some point during the walk back we figured out that we didn't have a plan for breakfast in the AM. Now I am a zealot when it comes to good pre-training or pre-race nutrition. A bagel, banana and peanut butter is my standard meal. Yeah, didn't have any thoughts of what I was going to eat the next morning. So we headed to the expo and managed to find a vendor selling clif bars. We also discovered that the race organizers didn't have nutrition on the course (I was just planning to grab a gel or something from the aid stations) so we picked up some GU gels as well.
The nice thing about staying at the host hotel is that we didn't have to get up too terribly early, well considering the race started at 6:30 and I am normally done with my training by that time it wasn't early for me...
I chowed down on my clif bar and we walked the 1/2 mile or so to the race site. Nothing spectacular about the pre-race festivities except that that guy that was singing the National Anthem actually stopped about 1/3 of the way through said "did I mess that part up?" and then started the Anthem over again. Wow...
I seeded myself in the 2:00 time group and was ready to go when they finally got us started. First couple of miles were at a 8:15 - 8:30 pace until we settled into a comfortable 8:40 groove. Made the half way mark at 55:46 which with an even split would have put me in the 1:52-1:53 range...Awesome! Right around this point I decided that it might be a good idea to have a gel...you know, just in case... We were cruising and Jody and I were keeping the same pace up until mile 9 or so, and that's when my wheels just came off. Evidentially a clif bar and one GU gel IS NOT enough nutrition for a big dude like me to run a half marathon. I bonked hard. It felt like I was running in molasses the last 4 miles. I still managed to keep a sub-10 minute pace but I had no gas in the tank and had to walk for 30 seconds or so several times. Amazing what will happen when your body runs out of fuel!
I muscled through, cursing myself through my clouded mind the whole time for being an idiot and not paying attention to proper nutrition, even if it was "just a half marathon." The good news was that once I made it to the finish line there was chocolate milk...and beer. I love the MB Marathon, going to keep that one on the list to race next year! :-)
Oh, and I did manage to meet my goal of breaking 2:00...
| 1170 | 755 | 4512 | HOLCOMB, DUSTY | M | 01:58:29 |
http://www.irondusty.com/2012/02/myrtle-beach-12-marathon-race-report.html
Comments
Sounds like some good lessons learned! Nice to see that you still pulled out the time goal. And at least they didn't cancel the race as they did because of snow (2 years ago, I think)!
Glad to see that there was beer before AND after the race.
Dusty,
Just saw this as I have not been to the race report forum in awhile. Nice job hitting the goal.
There's always some lesson learned thanks for sharing as I plan on doing my 2nd 1/2 marathon later this season with my wife. This thread has given me some good guidance on a place to start for nutrition.