Tag Archive for myrtle beach marathon

The change of plans have been changed part 2

September 15, 2011 planet3rry No comments

In my relatively recent post titled Marathon Uncertainty, I wrote about 2 different scenarios that dealt directly with my running. One was the lack of funds to register for the Flying Monkey Marathon in November and the other one was on whether I should run the Scholar’s Run 5k to continue the streak of running it every year since 1998 and I had the funds.

In regards to Flying Monkey, I’m sad that I won’t be able to run it this year. I need to contact the race director to see if allowed past runners to register early, because after thinking about it, I never received any emails from him talking about registering for the race, how tough the course is, why training is futile, blah blah blah.

But instead of crying monkey tears, I quickly looked around to see what other possible races I could run. They had to meet some basic criteria. One, I wanted something more than a 1/2 marathon, but would be open to running one if that is all that was available. Two, cheaper the better since there’s no corporate sponsors trying to woo my athletic prowess at the moment. Email me if you are a corporate sponsor looking for a marketing pawn at races. Will Run for Cash (or other shiny things). Three, as close to home as possible. Since we are living by a strict budget (no more slush fund marathons), I have consider costs such as gasoline and lodging (of course, by myself… sleeping in the car at race start is perfectly cool with me. I lived out of my Celica for a month in 1993 when I worked in Nags Head, NC).

So far, nothing has stuck. There’s Chickamauga Marathon, but it’s close to $80 and according to their website, registration is closed. So that one is out. There’s the Rocket City Marathon in Huntsville, AL which has been on my list of “Marathons to Run” for a while now. It’s only $50 through Sept and $60 through October, so for a marathon it’s registration cost is reasonable. Only thing is that it’s about a 4 hour drive, so would need to budget for logistics.

I’ve also started looking at the spring marathons. There’s the Knoxville Marathon, which would be pretty darn close. It’s $65 through end of November and I do have a score to settle with the course as the last time I ran it as an Official Pacer, I had my only (but very valuable) DNF.

Another contender is the Myrtle Beach Marathon in February. Although the logistics are much more complicated (i.e. airfare), it’s where most My Lovely and Talented Wife’s side of the family lives. Plus race weekend corresponds with when David-In-Law will be upgrading his eldest son to Version 13.0 (What? Seriously?). It’s $75 through October 17th, then goes up to $95. We can get ridiculously cheap airfare tickets through Allegiant Air from TYS to MYR by jumping through all of their hoops to actually get the cheap seats but we have to act quickly.

As for the Scholar’s Run 5k, I did not run that race thereby ending all the consecutive runnings of any one race since I started running in 1998. And since I didn’t run the Scholar’s Run, the incentive to run the Reindeer Run 5k in December would only be for actual training benefits and not all the cool swag that is offered in the Triple Crown of Racing door prizes.

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Myrtle Beach Race Report

February 21, 2005 planet3rry No comments


Training Motto: Destination Knoxville
As part of my training for the Knoxville Marathon, I ran Myrtle Beach since all the logistics fell into place.
Here is the grade:
Expo/Registration: C ; The lay out of the expo and registration had something left to be desired. It was a little maze with not very much help in where to go first. You had to mill around the expo displays to find the registration in the back of the main room, this was where you picked up your number. You then had to go back out, through the crowd and expo to go to the chip table, which you then had to go to another table for chip verification (and there was a problem with everyone’s ages). They you had to go to another room to get the shirt. So with a couple hundred people in the lobby area, it was rather packed and difficult to first figure out where to go and then how to get there. The saving grace was that one of the sponsors, a local brewing company was giving out beer, to those of age… of course.

Race Goody Bag: B ; No plastic bag full of paper literature or a sample size of aquaphor or tylenol 8-hour. Nope, the only paper stuff you got with your number was medical information. The reprieve was you got a bag… a blue ergonomic saddle bag big enough to hold a good sized book with a cell phone pocket on the strap with the race logo.

Weather: A- ; The weather was great. It started a little cold about 30 degree at start time 6:30, rose to 49 in 2 hours and was low 50s by noon. It was warm in the sun but with a slight breeze, the shady parts were cold. If it had been cloudier, I think that would have been ideal, especially at the end where there was no shade for the last 5-6 miles.

Course: C+ ; You don’t get to see much of the ocean, just a bunch of hotels. There was (it seemed like 2 miles) of road around mile 17-18 where the top layer had been peeled off and was very uneven. You could see the beach here, but were concerned about footing.

Volunteers: A+ ; They were OUTSTANDING! They were everywhere and always cheering the runners.

Official Course Support: A ; Aid stations were well marked and there were ambulances at a number of locations. The police were awesome and saw a couple of them chewing out motorists for not listening. “HEY HEY I didn’t tell you could go! What were you thinking!?”

Finish Line Spread: C ; Not a whole lot of food for the runners afterwards, but it was appreciated. Dasani water in cans is not very good.

Shirt/Medal: B+ ; The shirt design was nice, nothing too over the top. They stuck with simple and it paid off. The medal was a rectangular medal with the number “8″ and was nicely done. I’ll try to get a picture of it soon.

My Race: C+ ; Race time was 6:30. The alarm went off at 4:45 and I tried to reset it for 5:00, I woke up at 5:30 (whoops). Thankfully, I made it to the race start with about 5 minutes to spare. I heard a gun go off before I saw the start line and it was for the wheelchairs… I wish that I had been there earlier, apart from less stress, I could enjoy the prerace excitement a little more before starting out. Given the forecast for weather, I had foregone my ‘almost tights’ and chose the shorts, I had a longsleeved coolmax shirt under a short sleeved shirt plus hat and gloves (it was cold). If figured I could ditch the gloves and shirts (they were cheap) if it got too hot.

My plan at race start, run but not race the first half, then switch to run/walk for the remainder of the race with more walking after 23.

Miles 1-4 [0:42:34] The first few miles were fairly crowded, although not “running on top of you” crowded, but there were a lot of people. There were a bunch of discarded shirts and gloves on the road side although it hadn’t warmed up that much. At this point, I was running comfortably, just checking out the scenery, listening to people’s conversations… At the mile 4 water stop, one of the runners was running in the middle of street and decided to discard her water. So, she dropped it right at her feet. Little did she know that a faster runner was passing her at that moment and it splashed on her. The fast runner said “thanks” very sarcastically and passed her by a few strides. The water-dropping lady said “sorry” kind of meekly, obviously not meaning to have splashed her. About a 0.1 of a mile down the road, the water-dropper caught up to the other lady (as I was closer to the pace of the faster lady). I couldn’t tell what was being said, but I thought to myself that a cat-fight was going to happen and I had front row seats. Nope, oh well.

Miles 5-9 [1:35] Despite getting to see all the hotels on the boulevard, a lot actually happened on this stretch of 4 miles. At mile 4, I had the “sensation” that I needed to go to the restroom. However, there were long lines at the portajohns and didn’t want to really stop and wait. I knew I would to feel as I had to “catch up to speed”, so I waited for the right moment. At about mile 5.5 there was a group of 5-6 people huddled in the street. as I got closer, I realized that it was some person on the ground receiving some form of treatment. When I got to the scene, they were performing CPR on the runner, a male. As I passed, two other runners where running in the opposite direction to help out. My first aid/CPR has expired and I knew there was nothing I could really do to help, plus there was already a crowd around him. Less than a minute after passing him, I heard ambulance sirens, good thing for him too:

The portajohn lines are still long, and I hate to use them since (I won’t say all) women can’t go behind the building, so it takes more time off of their run for either 1 or 2. I had the idea, we are passing by the race headquarters hotel, why not stop there, there was a bathroom right in the expo area. So I dashed towards the door into the building and it was locked. Uh-oh. I quickly read the sign and it said something about the other entrance… okay, to the other entrance. I get into the lobby, now what? I think the people that were spectators of other runners thought I was funny-looking. I get into the lobby, looking at the signs for “restroom” and an arrow pointing me to a convenient locations. No Arrows, Uh-oh. But wait, a bar. Every bar has to have a restroom near it, for those who drink copious amounts of alcohol. Ah-HA! A restroom, and guess what, NO LINE. I am out of the door and back on the course in about 3 minutes, too slow by NASCAR pitstop times, but I was well pleased.

Mile 9, we are now on 17 business, which is the main roadway for businesses, and most of the streets are blocked off and supervised by police. However, there is one intersection that has no volunteers or police, but does have 3 impatient busdrivers. Highway 17 is a divided road, the right most lane was coned-off for the runners, leaving the other half of the northbound lane for vehicular travel. Well a gap opened up between runners and a very large passenger bus stuck its head out and made it to the other lane. His buddy, taking his lead, also made it out to the other lane. The third guy made it halfway, before he came into the path of the runners, a few who went around him, I saw a number of runners stop and some others were able to hop the sidewalk to avoid him. I was lucky to not have had to break stride for those guys.

Mile 9-13.1 [2:17] At mile 11, I saw on a info sign that it was 8:32 and 49 degrees. So we had been running 2 hours and it had risen about 20 degrees, I hope this wasn’t a trend! I decided that I would start the run/walk at mile 14 since it would coincide with a water station, it would make the transition easier. I could feel the first inkling that my legs were getting tired, but I still felt good.

Mile 14-20 [3:28] When I moved to the run/walk, I picked up the pace without realizing it. I went to a ‘run 9 walk 1′ interval and my pace at Mile 15 was 9:58, Mile 16 9:31 and Mile 17 9:44. I paid for it later, by 20 I was ready to switch to a run 4 walk 1. The road was really bad for about a mile around mile 18, it was like trail running except that it was asphalt. We were still protected by shade for most of the way, that wouldn’t last much longer.

Mile 21-25 [4:32] I switched to a run 4 walk 1 for a brief time, then went to a “walk for as long as I wanted, stretch and then run for a while” strategy. I carried with me two advil liqui-gels just in case I needed it in the later stages, which after this incident, will switch to Tylenol and use Advil the next day. They had been stored in my key pocket in my shorts and had been softened up nicely, at the mile 23 water station, I stuck them in my mouth to get some water to take them. Well, one of them burst in my mouth. What foul tasting goop, but let me tell you, it works. I could taste very little for the next few hours and had the aftertaste for quite a while. It the joy out of the Whopper Jr I had after the race.

The home stretch… I stopped with 1/2 mile to go to stretch and collect myself to make a good run for the cameras. The finish is two turns, the first turn is off the main road onto the road leading to the stadium (minor league baseball) at mile 26, 0.1 of a mile later is the second turn which is the straight away for the last 0.1 ot the finish. Right before the second turn, a guy cruises past me…and I thought, why not? So, I picked up the pace and was gaining on him. With about 30 yards to go he realizes that I am right on his heels and does his kick, and takes off. I finish right after him in a net time of 4:45:20. I congratulated him on his nice kick at the end.

At first, I wasn’t happy with my time, seeing that I want something more like 4:30. But I reminded myself that it was fine, it had been 2 years since my last marathon and I had forgotten somethings about being in the race of this size. I was glad that I had ran it, as it was a “dress rehearsal” for Knoxville and I know somethings that I need to work on before 3-20. Personally, it wasn’t hilly enough for me. The lack of hills, works the same muscles over and over again and I think made the last couple of miles a little tougher.

My legs have been sore, but not “I can’t walk down stairs” sore. I really to get back to running either tuesday or thursday, very light. I am skipping swimming today, although the weather is going to make huge pools outside!

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Back from the dead

February 15, 2005 planet3rry No comments

I have communed with the computer demons and have reached a conclusion. I must exorcise my old hard drive! On sunday, I went out to Best buy to purchase a 80GB HDD that after rebate would set me back only $40, something that I can handle. After playing some dosey-doh with my existing hard drives, my computer is back online! Woo-Hoo! I am now in the process of taking stuff off the corrupted drive and moving it to the new drive. I have come across that some of my American Samoa pictures are corrupted, but I have back-ups. It looks like Eric's pictures are all intact, so that is a relieve. I will have spend some time installing some software, like Office. Hopefully, and I mean this lightly, that I will have some new stuff for you next week, make that late next week. I know that some of you are going through Eric withdrawals right now… let me just tell you that Jen got a great picture of him!

I did not run all weekend due to the rain and cold. I am being a wuss and I know it. I really should have ran Saturday morning, but it was rainy and 40, so I was not very motivated to do a training run. As a result of Saturday, I am not in a short and quick taper period. Huh, what?! Marathon 101 in session, your teacher… Professor T-money aka Daddoo. The taper is a period of time, usually 10-14 days, before a marathon where the runner decreases the distance and amount ran per week. It is intended to rest the body and thereby having peak strength/stamina on the race day. I can see that you are already doing the math in your head… the Knoxville Marathon isn't until March 20th, that's FOUR weeks away. Congratulations, your intuitive thoughts have figured out that I am doing a marathon very soon, err, Saturday to be exact. On Saturday, I am going to run the Myrtle Beach Marathon for the second time. It didn't start out as this, I was originally supposed to run Straw Plains 1/2 marathon and Jen was going to Myrtle Beach for two Mary Kay events. When her transportation fell through, i.e. flying was too expensive, she decided to drive and I stepped up to be her driver. Now, I had originally tried to sign up for the half marathon, but it had already met its 2000 person limit. So, it was either run the marathon or run the 5k on Friday night. I was not going to pay $30 for a 5k, that is outrageous, so I signed up for the marathon. I can use this as a training run seeing that it will still be 4 weeks out from Knoxville. I should not have any ill effects from MB Marathon unless I get injured badly during the race. Myrtle Beach is really flat, so I doubt that any of that will happen. It will give me a good idea of how I will do at Knoxville, kind of like a dress rehearsal.

Miles for 2005: 91.2

Eric had a good weekend. we didn't get to go outside at all but he had some fun times inside playing. His language is improving every day. He can clearly say “Bubble” and can blow bubbles using the wand. He does the Ring-Around-The-Posey dance and falls down when we fall down. He is pretty strong too. He can carry almost 2 quarts of water from one end of the house to the other. He wanted to help filling up the humidifiers, so I let him. we noticed yesterday that Eric has been eating a lot the past few days, perhaps the onset of a growth spurt here. Jen said that he'll eat a whole banana by himself. He enjoys eating at the dinner table with Mommy and Daddy (Daddoo) but doesn't have the patience to stay there the entire time. Eric knows how a door knob works, but since all of our door knobs and light switches are a little higher than normal homes, he can only grab the doorknob, but can't turn it yet. When we sign “Old MacDonald” he can do the E-I-E-I-O except he says something like AH-E-AH-E-AH.

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You can't tune a tuna

January 20, 2005 planet3rry No comments

But you can sure find a bunch of crap on the internet about them. I am currently updating the numbers for the American Samoa report that I am writing for work. There is a bunch of information on the internet about tuna and tuna accessories. Luckily enough, I only have to concentrate on the Starkist and Chicken of the Sea since they are the canneries in American Samoa. Bumblebee Tuna, of Ace Ventura fame, is canned in Thailand as is most of the other tuna sold in the United States. I have been doing that all day long so now I am taking a break from the fishiness.

We are forecasted to get some snow in the next few days. Saturday is supposed to be rainy and then transform into snow overnight. Seeing that I need to do my long run on Sunday morning, I am just so thrilled! It will be most yucky running the 18 miles that I need to run. Today isn’t very sunny right now, but tonight I will be on the treadmill after Eric is asleep. I can try to get 5 in tonight, but that is 2 more than I like to do on a treadmill.

I currently have a choice to make. On Feb 19th I can either:
1) Run Strawplains
or
2) Be in the Myrtle Beach Marathon and use that as a race rehearsal for Knoxville.

The biggest problem that I see with running MB is that it is 4 weeks out from “The Big Show” and even though I know that it is far enough away from Knoxville to not be a problem, I do not think that I would really benefit from running that far.

I’ve also done MBM before, so it wouldn’t be anything new. But I can’t get out of my head that it would be a nice monitored, water/gel supplied course that I could get a relatively good idea on what to expect in Knoxville.

Jen and I watched American Idol in St. Louis last night. It was typical AI preseason show although I thought they showed the judges extremely mean to some of the contestants (some rightly so) right before them. Not much else to say about that since it is too early and we are watching it to see the “train wrecks” that tried to audition. (I would be one of them)

We then watched Point Pleasant on Fox, which was rather interesting. Without going to the homepage to read the actual discription, it seems like a story about a chick whose dad might be The Man Downstairs born to a mortal woman. She apparently has some effect on other based on her mood, and influences those around her. Much like a Jedi Mind trick, if she is happy everyone else is happy. It’s like a Carrie meets X-files in Kingdom Hospital with a hot younger (and older) cast that only Fox can cast (re: Dark Angel, The OC, X-Files, etc). I am going to try to catch the second episode to see if it is worth watching.

I might have a Physics tutoree, not sure yet but maybe.
Cheers

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I vunt to suck your blood

January 19, 2005 planet3rry No comments

Yesterday was a really long day and I did not get to see Eric at all. Poohey.

I made it into work at a decent hour yesterday, hopefully I am on schedule again. Seeing that I woke around 5:30 yesterday and today. Although today my eyes were very heavy and I proud that I did not fall back into bed for that extra 5 minutes (read 15 minutes) of sleep. Jen and I have a Free Trade coffee – French Roast in the rotation right now, that helps with the 5:30am sleepiness. Also, Jen earned a FREE under the cabinet CD/Radio player from Mary Kay, so I can now have a radio in the kitchen in the morning. To hear the inane conversation of the local radio stations does help with staying awake in the morning, it’s my daily dose of pop culture.

I started to plan my route for the Mr. Arfns Marathon, which is only a run that I started back in 2001 when my friend Devaney was training for the Marine Corp Marathon (His first). He came down to Knoxville for my birthday which happened to coincide with his Marathon Training, in fact, it was his long long training run. So as an incentive, I told him that I would run with him and so I constructed the Mr. Arfns Marathon that ran from Volunteer Landing to Faragut for a total of 26 miles. I even produced T-shirts for all of the runners, each shirt was unique. Funny thing though: I have yet to wear mine once. Regardless, we had 6 runners at the start and due to schedules, it was just me and Devaney at the end. We did a 4/1 run/walk routine, which is run for 4 minutes and walk for 1 minute and we did this at Devaney’s pace. Despite it being a slow pace for me, I think the experience is what allowed me to achieve my marathon PR time of 4:09 at Richmond that year. Anyway, this past December, one of the runners suggested that I should bring it back which I had been contemplating because I need a long run of 20+ mile for the Knoxville marathon training. So, yesterday, I started downloading jpg off of mappoint.com so that I can construct maps to figure out the actual course. I’ll then use a program called USA photo maps to figure out the distance so that I do not have to drive the course to find out the mileage. Although Knoxville has a strong running community (we have been called “Little New York” by Runner’s World) the roads here are not runner-friendly, hence our extensive but choppy Greenway system. The course is ran on some Greenway, some sidewalks, and some fend-for-yourself roadways but it will get me from one end of the city to the other with stops at convenient stores on the way. In 2001, we actually had a support crew of Jen and Andy that drove to places along the course with water and bagels. I am not sure if I will have that same support this year, so I want the route to run past these places so that I can replenish when it is necessary.

While thinking about my training runs for the marathon, I saw that my Church’s Blood Drive was on the 26th and that the Calhoun’s 10m was on the 29th. Since I wanted Calhoun’s to be a race rehearsal and warm-fuzzy, I have come to realize (the hard way) that when I give blood, I will not perform well at a race a few days after the donation. So that I can still give blood but also race Calhoun’s I decided yesterday that I would stop by Medic before I went to go tutor. It wasn’t a bad experience, although it was not a very good one. First of all, I was not prepared because I had on a long-sleeved tshirt AND a sweater. So I had to take my sweater off, so I was in a Umbro Tshirt and Corduroy pants (goofy lookin’). Next, I had a new employee, which she did a fine job, but when it came to declare that I had been out of the country to American Samoa, it took about 5 minutes to get the correct wording on the paperwork. Good news though, I do not have to mention it again (you usually have to declare leaving the country for 3 years). Next, I am usually a good bleeder. I have easy veins to find, but yesterday, it took me over 12 minutes to donate a pint. In fact, the lady had to come over after about 5 minutes to “fish” for a better connection into the vein. But I finished, I got my Tshirt, Cookies and soda and was off to tutor.

my second job that I have is that I tutor for the athletic department two nights a week. On Tuesdays, I am at the Math Lab and on Thursdays, I have appointments. In the Math Lab we get a variety of different classes. Most of the classes are the basic classes that the student has one or two questions about the homework. I have yet to have a student who is completely hopeless at learning the subject. I really enjoy tutoring and when Jen becomes a Elite Executive Sales Director and I can retire in two/three years, I would love to continue to tutor, it would be a great part time job.

So a new dilemma has arisen. In Feb, Jen is going to Myrtle Beach for a debut of some of her consultants and this falls on the same weekend as the Strawberry Plains Half-marathon. So, do I let Jen take Eric to Myrtle Beach, or do I watch Eric over the weekend and NOT run the race or do I go with them and run the Myrtle Beach Marathon as Dress Rehearsal for Knoxville (it would 4 weeks away, so I could run it slowly and be okay). I have run Myrtle before, so it would not be a new marathon and it would be $65 as opposed to like $12-15 for Strawplains.

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Myrtle Beach Marathon 2001

February 17, 2001 planet3rry No comments

Training Motto: Reach the Beach
My training was a little different for this race. I ran half of what I ran for the previous Richmond Marathons, but I did have three 20+ mile runs including a 22 mile trail run in December. I believe these runs helped me with stamina as I did not hit my wall until mile 24, but in terms of speed I was a little slow. I bumped into a friend of mine from Virginia and ran with her for the first 18 miles or so. The weather wasn’t bad as forecasted, little to no rain, overcast but the wind was murder. From mile 8 to about 17 there was a head wind to fight and the bonus was that from miles 8 thru 10 the headwind was 15-20 mph. The course was pretty flat and the volunteers were very friendly, no music though. No “Chariots of Fire” for inspiration! Another race and no PR, I finished much stronger than my previous 2 races, so it made up for it in the end. I was happy with 4:23:35.

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