I ran The Pint Station Saint Patrick's Day 5k in Easley, South Carolina on a lovely spring day.

My leprechaun singlet is from Ultras.com.



This race had prize money on the line so I went out fast! Way too fast! My first half mile was at 5:14 pace and I definitely felt this mistake on the hills later on in the race!



Alas, there was no free beer but this was my first visit to The Pint Station and they have a good selection.



I enjoyed some Healthy Food Truck food:

Lifetime Personal Best at 15k!

This is the face of a personal best effort!



Based on recent training and race performances, I felt fairly confident that I could get a PR here. I knew what my target goal pace needed to be (6:15 per mile) and had a solid race plan... don't go out too hard, stay on pace. The first half of the race was fairly uneventful, I stuck to my plan and hit my planned pace, holding myself back during the first mile. The day started to warm up as the race progressed, I grabbed water at each aid station, and drank some and poured it on my body for cooling. Mile 6 was my slowest of the race and had a lot of parts exposed to full sun. That's also where I started to feel the discomfort of the effort. Special thanks to the lady with the garden hose in the final section of neighborhoods. I finally started up the ramp to the Hart Bridge.



Over the winter my training included running up Paris Mountain in Greenville, SC... and as I was making my way up the Hart Bridge I kept saying to myself "Paris Mountain! Paris Mountain!" because the Hart Bridge aka The Green Monster is not as big or steep as what I had been training on. But it still hurt! Over the top I pushed onward to get back up to speed, then cruised a little bit on the downhill to gather myself, and finally cranked hard over the final flat quarter mile.







I ended up out-kicking the two gentlemen in the yellow bibs:

My first Green Valley Road Race was 10 miles of challenging rolling hills on a beautiful perfect weather day... low 50s and overcast with a slight breeze.



Photo credit: Stephen Moore

I felt really good and strong during this race.


Photo credit: Stephen Moore



I am super pleased with how this race went. I am definitely feeling fit and this 10 mile race was a great challenge to have in the schedule prior to other bigger races coming up soon.

The race swag included a really nice Adidas pullover from the Greenville Running Company:

The Springs Run 2024 was a nice event at First Magnitude Brewing Company with enjoyable weather for post-race festivities. "Bear In There" was the new beer this year and I drank it out of my new mug.





Racing is fun when you are feeling fit. I went out with the leader and settled in behind him. I was able to stay with him for a while but eventually he pulled away. I finished 2nd Overall with a nice course PR.

The race was held on February 3, 2024.

Results: https://runsignup.com/Race/Results/26...erpage:100

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/10689112581

That was awful!



The Jacksonville Marathon, "voted the fastest marathon in the south", is typically held in December... which means it has potential for highly variable weather. I don't recall the race ever filling up, so this is a nice local race to register for at the last minute if the weather looks favorable. This plan needs accurate weather forecast to be effective, and registering as late as Wednesday before the race. I knew this. But when I looked at the weather forecast on Monday it looked like 55 degrees for race time. I haven't raced a marathon in a long time and got excited and decided to go ahead and register for the race. By Wednesday the forecast had changed to be much warmer with potential for rain. And by Saturday we had a classic warm and humid Florida morning. If I had followed my plan I would not have signed up!




But while warm, I am not blaming the weather for this day's outcome.

This is how I expected to feel for the whole race based on my fitness and confidence level:



My hip flexors started hurting about mile 10. Uh oh. That isn't good. This was pretty frustrating given my fitness level. Over the next 10 miles things just kept getting worse and worse as the legs gradually failed me.

In the next race photo I was still running, but barely.



When I tried to walk they hurt even worse! At about mile 22, I was resigned to walk it in and forced myself to get thru the "pain transition" so my legs would settle into walking mode.

I finished, but I walked about 4 miles. I didn't even try to run the last little bit on the track in the stadium.



So what the heck happened? I was good on nutrition and my fitness was there. I even stayed in a hotel in Jacksonville the night before to eliminate the early morning drive. I think I just wasn't fully recovered from the 25 mile training run I had done less than 2 weeks prior to the race. That training run had felt great! Some life events had caused that run to get delayed and fall closer to race day than was wise.

This was the 40th year of the Jacksonville Marathon. The idea of a long sleeve race shirt was nice, but in this case it was a little disappointing to get a low quality tech shirt with a crappy neck collar.



The Ameris Bank Jacksonville Marathon was held on December 10, 2023.

Results: https://my.raceresult.com/271620/results

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/10359670025

The training run that did me in: https://www.strava.com/activities/10306307045