I have written a lot of articles on marathons, and my mom insists that I write one on my experience of running my first marathon. If you have read my other articles, you know that I have never wanted to run more than necessary for 5k training, so a marathon was never on my mind. I knew in the fall of last year that a teammate of mine had been training for the Myrtle Beach Marathon so she could qualify for the Boston Marathon. When she talked about her long runs, which then were about eighteen miles long, I thought that I would rather die than run a distance like that. Then comes January and the start of a new semester in college, another teammate on my team told me she signed up for the Myrtle Beach Marathon as part of her New Year’s Resolution. She asked if I wanted to join her, and I was baffled. It took me a few days and some inspiration to sign up. Also the increase in the amount to register was a factor, so I figured why not and signed up eight weeks before the marathon date.
My teammate and I found an eight week training schedule online that we decided to follow leniently. We agreed that we needed to follow the weekly mileage and the long run, but other than that, the other runs during the week were based on what we ran with our team and what mileage we had left to complete the goal for the week. When I told my mom about my spontaneous registration for the marathon, she instantly supported me and started giving me advice about training and fueling. It definitely helped that she had experience that made up for my ignorance. Eventually, my teammate and I found a hotel that was somewhat near the start, and we split the cost. My mom bought a pack of gel from online and sent it to me to try and see what I like before using it for the marathon. She also sent me a package with body glide and a strap-on water bottle for the long runs.
The first week of training was easy with our longest run being ten miles. I had to run that on my own time since I was gone in Baltimore for my sorority. It’s funny to look back at the run and see how then it was my longest run that I have ever accomplished (previously it was nine). The next week I had to run twelve miles on my own in cold temperatures since I had a meeting with my internship advisor that conflicted with the time that my teammates wanted to run.
In Clinton, SC, finding routes to run twelve miles on was much harder than I anticipated. I mapped out a route before running it, but it was short a mile. I had to run another loop to meet the twelve mile goal. It was a scary experience, running through a neighbor with dogs that chased you. I knew of this route from previous seasons and knew some dogs in the neighborhood that were friendly and ran beside us, but on this run there was a new dog I’ve never seen before. I hoped he/she was friendly, but by the way the dog was close at my heels and growling, I knew I was in trouble. I kept running at my pace with an elevated heart rate and hoped it would go away and not chase me down, and fortunately it did. After that run, I swore I would never run in that neighborhood by myself again.
The next week, my teammates and I found a trail called Swamp Rabbit in Greenville that was thirty plus miles long. It was a popular trail for runners and bikers that had different trail heads where you could start. We started where the grocery store was and took the trail right towards the city. This direction of the trail was difficult, especially for a long run. It was full of hills that went mostly up, and before then we thought it was a good idea to run six miles out and back to get the twelve miles total. My teammates who were in better shape than me left me behind. I had no problem with that since I did not feel like going sub eight for each mile. They got far ahead of me to the point that I got lost. I looped around a playground accidentally and found myself at the zoo. I knew I was lost. Luckily, I found the signs and followed them directly back instead of trying to find the shortcuts we followed previously. I ended up a mile over what I wanted to run when I got back to the trail head. I was a little annoyed, but thirteen miles did sound better than twelve. I enjoyed a good feast of Mexican food shortly after that.
Another week goes by, and my teammate and I sign up for the local half marathon to reach our long run for the week. This race would be my first official half marathon, and my mom came up to see it. She came the day before and brought my birthday presents early since I wouldn’t be home for my birthday. We got a pasta dinner that night along with my teammate. The next day, we got up bright and early to find that it was just 24 degrees F! No amount of clothing could keep me warm. I felt cold the entire race and wouldn’t be able to warm up until I had showered and was in my bed much later. The race was very small, probably about fifty people total including the runners in the 5k race. The run was not memorable. The course was on main roads that were not policed off. There were two police officers on motorcycles for the whole race who would occasionally pause traffic to let us run through an intersection. The race got so spread out that the officers couldn’t help everybody cross the roads. Volunteers that pointed the direction of the course did so in their heated trucks with their arm out the window for the brief second I ran by. The water stations were not well placed: one being at mile four and the other at mile eleven. I had to stop briefly at mile eleven to drink the water that cost me some seconds on my time. I was under eight minutes for the first six miles before I hit a half-mile hill at mile ten. I had slowed down after that, but I finished in 1:45:30, averaging 8:02 per mile. Not bad for my first half in awful weather conditions. I treated myself to some Waffle House and then Chinese food when my appetite wasn’t filled.
Following the half, I went with my other teammate to the Swamp Rabbit trail to run our sixteen mile run for the week. I had my water bottle with me so we could stop occasionally for water and stretch breaks. Instead of going out and back, we went six miles out the easy direction that was flat and back and then two miles out the other direction we ran previously and back to finish with sixteen miles. It was ultimately impressive with it being both of our longest runs we’ve ever run. We treated ourselves with Smoothie King and went out for Mexican food back in Clinton with other friends. Although we weren’t hungry for the meal then, we got our appetite later after being out and decided to stop at Waffle House for a second dinner as well as support Zeta’s philanthropy, the proceeds went towards breast cancer awareness and education. We were hyped from our accomplishments and talked about running twenty miles the next week instead of sixteen again like the schedule said to see if we were capable and to feel more prepared for the marathon.
That Monday following our sixteen mile run was not encouraging in the slightest. I woke up that morning to get ready for my classes feeling like I hadn’t slept at all and just felt all-around awful. I pushed through though hoping I was just recovering from the weekend’s fun activities. I get a Snapchat later that day from my teammate saying she was testing positive for the flu. I then of course figured I had the flu since I had been with her a lot recently with our training for the marathon, and we also happened to share my water bottle for the run previously. I went to the doctor shortly after, and the test came back negative. The doctor still thought I had the flu because I had all of the symptoms, and so he prescribed me medicine to treat it like I had the flu. He told me to take the next few days off and isolate myself until my fever was gone for 24 hours. Of course that pained me because I hated that I would be behind in my training, and I thought I wouldn’t be able to recover in time to run my twenty mile run at the end of the week. I took that day and the next day off.
I went to the trainers on campus to get my temperature checked to make sure it was going down. She told me it was possible I had last year’s strand of the flu and that’s why the test came back negative since they only test for this year’s flu. I guess that’s a good thing? My fever went down the next day, and I went back to class. Later, my teammate came back to school in time for our team meeting with our coach. He announced to us that he was given a job in sports information for our college and would be unable to coach us anymore. We were unprepared for this and left to schedule our own workouts and times to meet. Afterwards, I talked to my teammate, and we agreed we would try and stay on schedule and run our twenty mile run over the weekend. It was a struggle to finish with us still recovering and trying to find water after discovering the water fountain made specifically for the trail didn’t work. We finished it though, and we were glad we still ran it because now we knew were capable of at least running twenty miles of a marathon. When we came back from the run, we would find that we were sunburnt and had new tan lines from our tank tops.
We were now on our tapering before the marathon with two weeks to go. Everyone is looking forward to their spring break plans while we were nervous for the marathon. We were relieved that we were now lowering our mileage and looked forward to our “short” twelve mile long run for the week. Even though it rained on us for the whole twelve miles, we did enjoy celebrating our last long run of our marathon training with crepes. The week of the marathon we only had a seven mile run, and let’s just say we took it real nice and easy and took our tapering seriously. After all, we have to run 26.2 miles in two weeks ALL IN ONE RUN. Cut us some slack. The first man to ever run a marathon did die, so we’re taking the extra precautions.
The Friday of spring break my teammate and I loaded up my car and headed down to Myrtle Beach, a three and a half hour drive. I mostly jammed out while my teammate slept. We got stuck in Myrtle Beach traffic, but eventually we got to the expo. It’s a pretty big expo, and I’m already being called out for looking too young for my age. I guess I don’t look old enough to be in college…? News flash, I already know that. You’re probably the billionth person to ask if I’m twelve (I’m 4’11” if you’re wondering why I’m rambling). I digress.
The expo is huge, and we get in line to pick up our race bibs and shirts along with our race bags complete with a yeti! There are several little shops featuring running wear, gels, shoes, watches, stickers, other races, you name it. I did not get anything thanks to the marathon registration and hotel bill. It was all adding up. Anyway, we left the expo and went back to the hotel to run two miles on the treadmill in the hotel. Why did we run on a treadmill in the hotel? Because it was cold and windy outside. Let that be some foreshadowing for you. Afterwards, we meet my parents for dinner at Olive Garden; of course for a pasta feast. This was when I realized how unprepared I was for the marathon. My mom was giving me advice about when to fuel during the marathon and what to eat for breakfast and when to take Advil during the run since my hips would be hurting. I realized I forgot the package of fueling my mom bought me, I only brought a banana for breakfast from my college dining hall, and I didn’t have any sort of Advil or ibuprofen. My mom scolded me, but luckily the course had aid stations with gel, and my teammate offered me one of her bagels. We were both afraid to use Advil during the run since it is considered a blood thinner. We left Olive Garden and went straight to bed since we had to be up and ready at the starting line by 6:10 AM.
The next morning, our alarms went off at 5:00 AM. I got into my usual routine before a race and ate my banana and bagel with peanut butter. We dressed very warm because there were expected winds of 25-30 mph in the 38 degree weather. We left at 5:50 to go to the start. We decided to drive since it was cold, and the start was over a mile away. There was lots of traffic to get into the parking lot. 6:10 was rapidly approaching, and we’re worried we would not get in after the security check. We tried to find another way into the parking lot, but every other entrance was blocked off because of the race. We’re panicking at this point, and so I decided to park at the gas station on a corner near the start. We both prayed that my car wouldn’t get towed. We hurried to the starting line, and we had to wait twenty minutes before we could run. My nerves were going crazy; I could feel the butterflies in my stomach. Of course there were no latrines around and I just hoped it was nerves and prayed the feeling would go away. We got optimistic with the weather because the crowds helped create heat around us. We thought it was warming up.
The way the course was set up was, for lack of a better word, very shitty. We started on one street that took us around onto another street that we had to be on for ten miles before turning around back onto the same street to finish. There were also various out and backs in the course that demeaned my self-esteem. We stayed with the four-hour pacing group which acclimated a crowd. This was probably why we felt warm enough to think we could ditch our jackets. Eventually, we got ahead of them to get some elbow room, and you could feel the temperature difference immediately. The weather was more apparent along with the wind. We didn’t think the wind could get any worse until we turned onto the street we were going to be on for ten miles. It just so happened that the direction we were going on this ten mile straight-away was directly into the wind. It was so miserable. The wind had only been this bad for the Myrtle Beach Marathon twice in the years it’s operated. There was one point that the wind was so bad that we couldn’t move. It literally stopped us in our tracks. You can talk all you want about pushing through the wind, but I want to see you get through this gust! This gave a runner nearby time to make short joke to me. He said he wished he was my size because apparently being shorter helps you with the wind. Later, we find fuel at mile eight and share the gel, and then we fueled again at mile fifteen.
My hip started hurting around mile eight, and I knew it was only going to get worse. If only I listened to my mom and brought Advil. At mile twelve we stopped for water, and at mile nineteen I started to get ahead. I got water again at mile twenty, and then the course took me onto a trail beside the road that was a nice break from the wind. I didn’t want to walk much; I just wanted to finish the race. I stopped for water again at mile twenty-two, and this was when I realized it hurt more to stop and start again than to just keep running. The station took me to another out and back on a street that was not encouraging at all. I passed the water station at mile twenty-four with pain and got onto the very long stretch up to the finish line. This stretch felt like infinity, especially since it took you past the start line and around to a stadium area. I got cut off by some cheerleader coming to run in their friend finishing the half marathon, and then I finally cross over the threshold with a time of 3:51. I got my big medal and waited for my teammate to come in. She finished in 3:54, and then we posed for a picture. We found our other team mate later and found out she ran a qualifying time for the Boston Marathon! If I ran 16 minutes faster, I would’ve qualified too. Maybe next time, maybe.
Walking through the finish line shoot, I had to take my time. It felt like I was getting stabbed in my hip. We collapsed on this little hill nearby for a while. I found some pizza the race offered to runners, and then we took pics in front of a banner and called it a day. We walked to where my car was and luckily it wasn’t towed! The roads were back open so we could get back to our hotel and crash. Later after our naps, we would venture out to Captain George’s for the buffet where I would eat many clusters of crab and some mac and cheese. I’m not ashamed in the least. Now you’re probably wondering if I’ll be one of those crazy marathoners. I don’t think so. Maybe call me in a few years when I get convinced into another one.
good a blog!