I have a cycling friend who posts interesting truths (to which I am constantly nodding my head in ag

Follow my adventures as Gingah, comfort inn suites boston airport a/k/a "La Tortue comfort inn suites boston airport Enflammé," as I venture into the wilds of distance running with nary an iota of athletic prowess! If you've never tried running a 5k (much less a 10k or a half marathon), you'll see here that if Gingah can do it, anyone can do it!
I have a cycling friend who posts interesting truths (to which I am constantly nodding my head in agreement) under the tagline, "In life as on the bike."Well, in running as in life, you can either comfort inn suites boston airport define yourself or allow outside forces to define you. Either way, definition can limit or liberate. After "defining myself" at the Surftown half marathon and having unprecedented personal success at the ensuing Tufts 10K for Women , I was looking forward to the Myrtle Beach Mini Marathon to improve on my 3:09:54 time from Surftown. I fully expected Myrtle to be good to La Turtle.
I've heard it said that to be a committed runner, you have to be willing to pour your blood, sweat and tears into your sport. I believe this is typically intended to mean that you dedicate yourself to your training and you do the work, and running will return to you everything you've put into it. Unfortunately, I took the "blood, sweat and tears" concept a bit too literally in Myrtle Beach.
Myrtle's pancake-flat half marathon course, ideal running weather, and beachside finish lured me and my friend (the famous runner and amateur videographer Lola Buttercups) comfort inn suites boston airport to the East Coast golfing capital. (Even the miniature golf places are elaborate--and far more plentiful than Starbucks--in Myrtle Beach!) Even the thought of having to depart Attleboro, MA, at the ungodly hour of 3:00am for the Logan Express shuttle in Braintree to get to Logan International Airport for our 5:40am flight to Myrtle Beach wasn't enough to dampen my spirits. (BTW, Spirit Airways, I love ya, but between the nickel-and-dime pricing--I seriously thought I might need to bring quarters to use the loo--and your crazy flight schedule, you're not going to be my first choice.) We arrived in surprisingly wet Myrtle Beach, but the rain would barely last long enough for us to get out of the airport in the rental car. After we grabbed breakfast at one of Myrtle Beach's 1,247 pancake houses (seriously, WTF?), we reconned the area, then checked into the hotel and headed over to the race expo to pick up our race packets. (One of my favorite parts of this race was the ability to specify how you wanted your name to appear on you bib.)
I spent most of the non-running, comfort inn suites boston airport non-sleeping hours that weekend either comfort inn suites boston airport walking along the beach or sitting on the balcony of our hotel suite communing with the ocean. In the final analysis, the beach walking may have been part of my undoing, since these were somewhat peppy beach walks, not pokey romantic strolls. (For the latter, I need a pokey romantic walking partner...or a dog who stops to sniff something every 45 seconds. Pretty much the same thing, right?)
There's tremendous benefit in rooming with someone who keeps similar hours. comfort inn suites boston airport A 4:13am wakeup isn't for the faint of heart, and getting to the race location early is something I treasure. Some folks like to arrive at a race 15 minutes comfort inn suites boston airport before the gun, but I like to get there no later than when check-in opens (usually about 90 minutes prior to the race start). Saturday morning's Coastal 5K would be my first time running at all the day before a race--much less the day before a half marathon. Different approaches work for different runners, and I tend to taper the entire week leading into a long race: light cross-training, walking, but no running. So far, it's worked for me, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to try a new approach this time, especially since Surftown comfort inn suites boston airport gave me a nice "easy" target (3:09:54) to beat. I'd felt good all week, so what could go wrong? (You can hear the maniacal laughter already, can't you? Well, simmer down; we'll get there.)
My goal for the Coastal 5K was to be intentionally pokey; just a light jog with walking intervals--basically what I call iPod Intervals (run for a song, walk for a song, repeat until you cross the finish line). I wasn't going for a PR or even to run the full distance (though I certainly could have done the latter). It was an easy, flat out-and-back course, and as difficult as it was to hold back, I kept the horses in check. Lola, on the other hand, chugged away from me early in the race...and managed a nice little PR. She's like the Energizer Bunny: she just keeps going and going and going...
So far, so good. We headed back to the hotel and a little walk down to another hotel where our "free" race weekend breakfast buffet awaited. True to most "free" food, it was worth damn near every penny we didn't pay for it. Granted, comfort inn suites boston airport their biscuits and gravy were actually pretty decent; unfortunately, the kitchen couldn't keep up with the demands of a buffet. (What's really scary is that the hotel typically charges about $13 a head for that buffet. comfort inn suites boston airport Thanks, I'll gladly fork over cash for food that's actually good. Fortunately, we had plenty of options in that department.)
We spent the afternoon reconning the half marathon route. The good news: pancake-flat, as promised. comfort inn suites boston airport The bad news? Until the final five kilometers, it looked like a seriously boring-ass route. The first mile was on the perimeter road of a shopping mall, then the rest of the course included running around a big upscale-looking industrial park, then around the ring road of an big entertainment complex (Broadway comfort inn suites boston airport at the Beach), and a veritable crapload of distance along Grissom Highway. We noted the 10-mile marker near the intersection of Grissom and Oak. The rest of the course would head straight toward Ocean Boulevard, past our hotel at the 11-mile mark (oh, the humanity!), and down toward the 2nd Street Pier, where we would turn onto the boardwalk and head back toward the finish line on the boardwalk at 8th Street. From there, comfort inn suites boston airport exhausted and likely sore, we would need to ride the shuttle back to the shopping mall near the airport, where we would have parked the rental car at the race start, then drive back to our hotel. No matter how we tried to find another way, that was pretty much the only feasible way to do it. (Not that the prospect of a post-race stroll of about 14 blocks or so back to the hotel was all that inviting, comfort inn suites boston airport but it sure sounded shorter.)
Over an early dinner, Lola mentioned she'd read that Zola Budd, the famous South African barefoot runner from the 1984 Olympic Games, typically ran the Myrtle Beach Mini Marathon. We hoped neither of us would be the Mary Decker of the race. (Granted, that was an Olympic 3,000-meter race on a track oval; we would be running 18 more kilometers. The odds seemed comfort inn suites boston airport to be in our favor. Seemed to be. ) As I recall, we changed the subject rather quickly. Not that I'm even remotely superstitious or anything...(knock wood)...
Sunday morning dawned much like Saturday--clear skies, low humidity, temperatures in the upper 40s/low 50s, very light breeze... perfect running weather. comfort inn suites boston airport I felt before this race much the same way that I felt before Surftown: a little nervous at the prospect of running 13.1 miles, hopeful for a good race, always wondering comfort inn suites boston airport if I trained enough (the answer is always no, even if you have), but reminding myself that whatever I did or failed to do, there was nothing I could do to at this point but say a prayer, repeat my race mantra ( Hebrews 12:1 ), and put one foot in front of the other.
As I stood in the 14:01-15:00 pace starting corral with Lola, a woman several feet to my left started shouting, "Ginger! Ginger!" Lola and I looked at each other and smiled. Was it a good omen, perhaps? Granted, she pronounced the R, so I didn't think it counted.
As the race began, comfort inn suites boston airport we started slowly toward the start line, taking a few minutes to get there from our corral. As we approached, the incessant (loud) noise of the pre-race music and the rather annoying race announcer (who has quite a future with NASCAR) cut out suddenly. Just as I was about to cheer the welcome silence, I noticed that the loss of power to the PA system also meant a loss of power to the pumps for the inflated (and now slowly de flating) start line arch. As the runners ran through the gradually wilting arch, they held it up--some for practicality, some undoubtedly for luck. I couldn't help thinking it didn't bode well.
Once past the finish line, I started my Nike+ and my iPod. Within seconds, it was clear that my iPod, cued up to my half marathon playlist, was suddenly possessed. Instead comfort inn suites boston airport of simply playing the music, I heard the familiar voice I like to call GPS Bitch announce the song title, artist, album, genre, then proceeded to name the rest of the menu options. "NOOOOOOO!!! WHAT THE FUCK?!?!? DON'T MESS WITH MY TUUUUUUUUUUNES!!!" I tried to make it go away and finally had to reboot the iPod. That did the trick. So instead of Aaron Copeland's 47-second "Fanfare for the Common Man," I started my second half marathon with a two-minute panic attack that looked alarming like a toddler's tantrum (minus the tears and floor thrashing), followed by the theme from "Chariots of Fire." Meanwhile, we trudged along the mall's ring road while my shins and calves argued against running and I told them to STFU and reminded them that after the two-mile mark, they'd feel fine. I repeated to myself for a few minutes that I could stand anything for two miles.
Well, I was wrong. At the one-mile mark, before we were even all the way out of the freakin' mall, I had to slow to a walk. I picked a point at which I would start running again--just before we crossed the road into the upscale-looking industrial park. I eased into a slow jog at the selected point, figuring that if push came to shove, I could go the entire race running for one song, walking for one, and on and on.
And then it all went completely, utterly wrong. On the entire race route, comfort inn suites boston airport all thirteen point freakin' one miles of it, there was one divot in the road surface. I know because