Myrtle Beach Half Marathon: Race Report

This past weekend I ran the Myrtle Beach Half Marathon, while supporting some other teammates who ran the full marathon (among others, Sarah and Es).

Friday we ventured down, picked up our packets and such, then went to dinner with the team at a great Italian place (thanks Sarah for your expert random selection!) After dinner, we met up with the others staying at a teammate's beach house up in Sunset Beach. We hung out for a while, then all ventured to bed around 10:30 (to be fair, I didn't go to bed until about 11:30; I was up talking to Sebastian since I couldn't sleep). I set my alarm for 4:00

3:55am, I was wide awake, panicking as I thought I missed my alarm. Standard race day procedure... I always wake up 5 minute before my alarm in panic. I pinned my race number on my shirt, tossed on another pair of pants over my race day outfit, along with my arm warmers and a hoodie. Went downstairs for coffee, a banana, and started drinking my Gatorade. We were out the door by 5am to drive the 30 minutes to the race. I'll forgo the details of the person I was driving with getting lost as he decided NOT to follow the person that grew up there... but we got to the race at 6:10, for a guntime of 6:30. Not ideal for me, but alas I gathered my gels, met up with Jason, Lori, Es, and Dude prior to the gun. About 5 minutes later, we were off.

I started out running with Lori, Jason's wife. Mile one ticked by at an easy 11:30. Due to being late and not having adequate time to ehm.. take care of business, I had to slow down a bit just after mile 1. If the saying "I have to pee like a race horse" is based on fact... I feel extremely bad for horses. Port-a-potties were every 2 miles along the course, but I noticed a huge line of people waiting prior to race, so I figured those were going to be filled at mile 2. I knew I couldn't hold on until mile 4, so my quick race day decision skills spotted a Burger King. Yep, ran in, went to the bathroom, and ran back out. Luckily, others had followed suit, so the BK employees didn't think I was nearly as nuts as I felt. I settled into a good grove now that business had been taken care of, and maintained 10ish minute miles for the next 5 miles. I felt awesome, and couldn't believe how easy it felt to run. Around mile 4, I had a slight issue with my jaw rattling around a bit from impact and causing pain, but I was able to tune out the pain and continue going.

Just prior to the 8 mile mark, it happened. I must have been relaxing my upper body too much, because suddenly my jaw dislocated. sonofa... Extreme pain. I stopped running and tried to figure out what to do - my jaw was essentially locked up. Every step hurt as the impact travelled directly from my feet to my jaw. Luckily, there was an aid station at 8. I looked at my watch, saw 1:36 at the 8 mile mark, and was happy with my race to that point. I sat down at the medical tent, iced my jaw, got it to work again, and took some ibuprofen. I continued to ice my face as I waited for the pain killers to assist. Another runner came in to get band-aids for some gnarly blisters, and looked at me like I was crazy for icing my face during a running race. Oh well. 45-50 minutes ticked by, and I figured I was fine on time to walk the rest of the way. So, I walked from mile 8-13, and jogged the last .1.

Given the mid-race siesta and walking, I am okay with a finishing time of 3:22:13. I know I had a great race up until mile 8, which surpassed what I thought I would be able to do with the lack of run training. I'm not sure whether my nutrition was good or not - I did feel a bit of cramping towards mile 7. I felt like I was on target with nutrition, but maybe was low on salt. Hard to say, considering I hadn't run that far since my accident.

I'm happy with a 12.8K time of 1:36. Good start to the season.