BI-LO Myrtle Beach Marathon - RunMarathon

this was the worst race i have ever had. i had fears that it would turn out bad, i did not think it would be this bad. I thought 4:30 would be a worst case scenario. i have been having ongoing hip problems for a while now. anything over 7-8 miles is problematic. right on cue, the hip starting tweaking at 5-6 and by 7-8 i knew i was going to have problems. to confuse issues, it was the LEFT hip. recently my issues have been the RIGHT hip. that was an interesting observation. another observation is that when i stopped (on a whim) to grab a speed limit sign and cross a leg over my other knee an sit back stretch (don't know what it is called), the pain immediately went a way before returning with a vengence after 1.5 miles. i stopped to stretch again, same result. no pain for another 1.5 miles or so. i repeated this pattern and at mile 14 noticed i was feeling pretty good. our half time was 2:13 and i felt pretty comfortable that i could at least run an even split. i know ryan really wanted to come in under 4:30. things went down hill fast thereafter. the time in which i felt good between stretches started getting smaller and smaller. until it was painful to run 5 minutes straight. i put my interval timer on 5:2 to run: walk and i couldn't even continue that. i finally walked about 1.5 miles straight from 18.5 to 20. that is also about the time it started raining. great. if someone had driven by and offered me a ride at that point, i would have seriously considered taking it. in addition to being in pain, i was embarrassed. i ran my last marathon in 3:58. i never thought i would be at this point right now. we ended up gutting out the next 6.2 miles with the 5:2. there were times when it hurt so bad i just felt like the wind was getting knocked out of me. ryan was also struggling with knee pain. in the end, we crossed the finish line holding hands (it was valentines day after all).

i think i discovered some valuable clues for figuring out this hip thing. for starters, it can be stretched away. i can't imagine if it were a joint issue, that would be possible. another tip that it isn't a joint issue is that it switches hips from time to time. that screams to me of a muscle issue. one is tight for a while, than the other? i don't know, clearly i am not a doctor. also the stretch that helped with it, will lend me some evidence of which muscle is the culprit.

i will never register for a winter marathon again. ever. training in the cold was miserable. IF i do one again, it will be in the fall after tri season.

i find a hip high post and spent about 15 minutes stretching my hip on it. i felt much better afterward.


hip pain


the race was VERY well volunteered. tons of friendly volunteers at all of the MANY fluid stations. if you finished this race dehydrated, it was your own fault. plenty of port a johns as well. ...i think the event actually started early. that was fine by me.