Bob Mann: 2024 Myrtle Beach Marathon

Sat Mar 2, 2024

On Sat Mar 2 2024, I ran the Myrtle Beach Marathon in Myrtle Beach, SC. I've realized that I've been running in beach towns a lot lately. Gulf Shores, Biloxi, Rehoboth Beach, and now Myrtle Beach. To be honest, these towns all look somewhat alike. Not that there's anything wrong with that. They've all been enjoyable marathons and enjoyable weekend trips. Just a weird coincidence, I suppose.

The travel to Myrtle Beach was fairly simple, as far as marathon trips go. I had a cheap and quick flight to the Myrtle Beach airport, and my hotel was within 5 miles of the airport, as was the packet pick-up and the start and finish lines of the race. I arrived mid-afternoon on Friday and had plenty of time for a short shakeout run near the beach. This was followed by dinner and an early bed time.

The weather on Friday had gotten somewhat nasty. It started as a light mist, but by the time I went to bed it was pouring rain with howling winds. The forecast indicated that the rains would last until midday Saturday, or in other words, about the time I would be completing the marathon. It appeared as though I would have a lot of running to do in the rain.

I woke at 4:45am Saturday to prepare for the race. Thankfully, the forecast had been wrong. The storm had already cut back to a light mist and it had completely ended by the time the race began at 6:30am. This is not to say that it was dry morning. There were puddles everywhere and it was still awfully humid. But nonetheless, it would be much more pleasant than running in a heavy rain.

The start and finish lines were outside of the stadium for the Myrtle Beach Pelicans, a single-A farm team of the Chicago Cubs. I've done a few marathons where we finished inside the stadium, but that wasn't the case here. We were out in the parking lot. And since the parking lot of the stadium was used for this purpose, race parking was at Broadway At The Beach, a shopping and entertainment complex down the road. Thus a decent walk was required to get to the start area. Well, the larger the race, the more complicated the logistics get. This race had 1500 runners in the Full Marathon and 2500 in the Half Marathon. So while it wasn't huge, it was certainly larger than some that I've done.

It was still rather dark at the start. The wheelchairs started at 6:30am, with two waves of runners starting at 6:35am and 6:40am. I was in the 6:35 crowd, and we started right on time. For whatever reason, I got off to a slower start than I have been lately. My first mile was completed in 9:26, and that was my fastest mile of the day. (!) I typically keep a pace of 9:30 or better for 8 or 10 miles in a marathon, but this time I only did it for one mile. I'm not entirely sure why, since I was feeling fine. That's just the pace that my body felt like running at. And since I don't aim for any particular finish time, I just run how I feel like running. And apparently I felt like running slow on this day.

We started in the center of town and ran south along Kings Highway (the main drag that runs parallel to the beach) for a few miles, going around the airport, to our first turnaround point at about Mile 6. From there, we came back towards the shore, now running north up Ocean Blvd, parallel to Kings Highway, but the first block in from the ocean. This is the road that all the hotels are on, and we eventually passed right by mine around Mile 10. For a brief half mile stretch or so around Mile 11, we moved even closer to the shore and ran along the boardwalk. On a clearer day, this might have provided a really nice ocean view. But it was still quite overcast on this day that the scenery wasn't the best. The boardwalk was also not a straight line, but rather a windy, curvy path. That was slightly annoying.

After about a half mile of this we got back onto Ocean Blvd and continued north. Around Mile 12 we passed within shouting distance of the start/finish area, so this is where we split from the Half Marathoners. So of course, this thinned out the field quite a bit. Soon thereafter, I passed the halfway point in about a time of 2:10, which is a little slower than I've been doing. But not by much. So yes, generally the same ballpark as usual.

We continued north until about Mile 18.5, then turned back south. My pace continued to dip and dip and dip. But in a very normal and expected manner. In these later stages of the race, I was drenched with sweat from head to toe. I had taken to dumping water over my head at the aid stations. So I was just a soaking wet mess. But nonetheless, I felt just fine and was pleased with the way I was plugging along.

Eventually I reached the finish, and my final time was 4:37:00. While that's not speedy, it's not awful either. That time fits in logically very well with most of what I've been doing for the past bunch of years.

The course was very flat. But the humidity was rough. The scenery was fine, although it would have been nice to have a little more time with ocean views. Running on Ocean Blvd was just far enough away to not be able to see the water.

I met a couple of folks on the day who make me feel less crazy about doing all these marathons. At the recovery area afterwards, I met a man who had just driven all the way down to South Carolina from Ottawa, Canada the day before. He ran this marathon, and then was immediately driving up Newport News, Virginia to run another one the following day, and then drive back home! Myrtle Beach was his 101st marathon, all since 2016. And during the race, I spent a bit of time running and chatting with a woman from the Chicago area. She was about 10 years younger than me and said that this was her 295th career marathon! It's the people like this who make me seem sane by comparison!

That evening I spent some time at a country & western bar called The Bowery that is even now still promoting the fact that the country band Alabama was their house band back in the 1970s.

Overall, I thought the Myrtle Beach Marathon was a fun and well-run event. I haven't chosen my next marathon yet, but I'll do so eventually.

And now the photos. Click any image to enlarge.