Rather than create an entirely new post, I'm just going to revise this one. Home now from Myrtle Beach and getting back to life and work.
I ran the Myrtle Beach Half Marathon last Saturday with three goals in mind:
1 - Run the entire race with no walk breaks
2 - Beat my personal best time of 2:16:29
3 - Run a 10:00 min per mile average or better for a finish time better than 2:11
Myrtle Beach posts both chip time and gun time, but uses gun time for their official record. I use chip time since it is a more accurate record of my time on the course. Basically, "gun time" means the clock starts once the gun goes off, where "chip time" means that the clock starts when the runner actually crosses the starting line at the beginning of the race. For a runner like me, who starts closer to the back than to the front of the pack, gun time can add quite a bit of time in races with a lot of people. In the case of the Myrtle Beach run, it took me 2 min. 32 sec. to get to the starting line after the gun went off.
As for how I did in accomplishing my Half Marathon goals...
For goal #1...For the first time ever I completed a half marathon with NO walking breaks. The last couple miles were very rough, but I remembered the words of comedian John Pinette, "Ravioli's and a nap". I also thought of a young child whose family attends my church. Aiden Welling is a five year child. Last year his mother noticed a hard lump in Aiden's abdomen. When they had it checked out they found that Aiden had a malignant tumor. The doctors caring for Aiden and Aiden's parents chose an aggressive course of treatment and Aiden has had many struggles over the past year. Things are optimistic at this point, but he still has many challenges as he now prepares for radiation treatment and a bone marrow transplant. Aiden had no choice but to go through the struggles he's gone through. So if he can have the courage and perservance to go through this, surely I can keep running a couple more miles. It didn't have to be fast, I just had to keep moving forward.
For goals #2 & 3...My gun time was 2:06:57!! While my chip time was 2:04:25!!! That's an average pace of 9:25 per mile for the 13.1 mile course.
So, by the will of God, I accomplished all three goals at Myrtle Beach. I decided to drive home a couple of days earlier than I had originally anticipated. Myrtle Beach is a nice place to vacation, but there's only so much interesting about it when you're there by yourself, and I did those things the first few days I was there.
Back home now, I went out yesterday for a slow run. I was able to get almost five miles in (4.98 to be exact). I was actually happy about the fact that I was able to keep the pace nice and slow for the 50 minutes that I was out running. It's a little funny to think that I now consider a 10:00 min. per mile pace as "a little slow" for a 50 minute run.
I do have to continue running in order to keep pace with my goal of running 1000 miles this year, and to train for my next half marathon. Next on my list is Lexington, KY. As of right now I plan to run Lexington just for fun with no real goals in mind other than to have fun and enjoy the run. But I think anyone who reads my blog knows that will probably change.
I ran the Myrtle Beach Half Marathon last Saturday with three goals in mind:
1 - Run the entire race with no walk breaks
2 - Beat my personal best time of 2:16:29
3 - Run a 10:00 min per mile average or better for a finish time better than 2:11
Myrtle Beach posts both chip time and gun time, but uses gun time for their official record. I use chip time since it is a more accurate record of my time on the course. Basically, "gun time" means the clock starts once the gun goes off, where "chip time" means that the clock starts when the runner actually crosses the starting line at the beginning of the race. For a runner like me, who starts closer to the back than to the front of the pack, gun time can add quite a bit of time in races with a lot of people. In the case of the Myrtle Beach run, it took me 2 min. 32 sec. to get to the starting line after the gun went off.
As for how I did in accomplishing my Half Marathon goals...
For goal #1...For the first time ever I completed a half marathon with NO walking breaks. The last couple miles were very rough, but I remembered the words of comedian John Pinette, "Ravioli's and a nap". I also thought of a young child whose family attends my church. Aiden Welling is a five year child. Last year his mother noticed a hard lump in Aiden's abdomen. When they had it checked out they found that Aiden had a malignant tumor. The doctors caring for Aiden and Aiden's parents chose an aggressive course of treatment and Aiden has had many struggles over the past year. Things are optimistic at this point, but he still has many challenges as he now prepares for radiation treatment and a bone marrow transplant. Aiden had no choice but to go through the struggles he's gone through. So if he can have the courage and perservance to go through this, surely I can keep running a couple more miles. It didn't have to be fast, I just had to keep moving forward.
For goals #2 & 3...My gun time was 2:06:57!! While my chip time was 2:04:25!!! That's an average pace of 9:25 per mile for the 13.1 mile course.
So, by the will of God, I accomplished all three goals at Myrtle Beach. I decided to drive home a couple of days earlier than I had originally anticipated. Myrtle Beach is a nice place to vacation, but there's only so much interesting about it when you're there by yourself, and I did those things the first few days I was there.
Back home now, I went out yesterday for a slow run. I was able to get almost five miles in (4.98 to be exact). I was actually happy about the fact that I was able to keep the pace nice and slow for the 50 minutes that I was out running. It's a little funny to think that I now consider a 10:00 min. per mile pace as "a little slow" for a 50 minute run.
I do have to continue running in order to keep pace with my goal of running 1000 miles this year, and to train for my next half marathon. Next on my list is Lexington, KY. As of right now I plan to run Lexington just for fun with no real goals in mind other than to have fun and enjoy the run. But I think anyone who reads my blog knows that will probably change.
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