Palmetto 200

The Palmetto 200 is a new race for South Carolina. It’s a 200 mile relay race from Congaree National Forrest, near Columbia, to Folly Beach. Teams can range from 4-12 and there are two divisions: Ultra Teams (4-6 runners) and Relay Teams. My friend, Jeff, and I are putting together two teams. I’ll keep you informed about the training and what we’re doing as we move to the race start on April 30.

In general, for a 12-person team, the race organizers suggest that runners be trained for a half-marathon and work on the speed for a 10K. I see the biggest challenge in getting runners who aren’t used to big distances or 2-a-day workouts to work on dialing in their nutrition. There is some experimentation needed in putting in a 10K race effort in the morning and then putting in the same kind of effort twice in the next 24 hours.

Big Hairy Goals

Are you ready for Cooper River Bridge Run Training?

I love big hairy goals - the ones that are so monstrous that they can be downright scary. Besides tackling them myself, I love helping others attain theirs. A new athlete, David, contacted me a few months ago after looking at the Charleston Running Club’s website. He saw I was coaching our Couch to 5K clinic and decided he wanted to take part.

Couch to 5K is not a big deal for most people but David was and is a big guy. He decided it was time to take off the excess weight. By the time I met him in the beginning of November, he had already dropped over 30 pounds. As of this week, he’s dropped 61 pounds. And he is still a big guy and has a long way to go.

One of the things he shared with me is that he wanted to do the Cooper River Bridge Run and he wanted to raise money for the YMCA in his hometown for a program that gets kids active. I understand that feeling. David wanted to time himself at the beginning of his training and compare it to his actual bridge run time. Yesterday morning, we set out to see what his benchmark was.

We couldn’t have picked many mornings that would have been colder. My friend Steve and I parked our cars downtown and then had my friend, Allan, drive us to Mt Pleasant. We met David and started towards Charleston. He started out very quickly and didn’t run very far before he started walking. We talked some more about pace and what that should feel like. At one point, coming off of the bridge and into Charleston, he ran for over 15 minutes - the longest such period of continuous running since David left high school. Eventually we finished the 10k in 1 hour 58 minutes and 2 seconds. He was very happy to be done and when I took him back to his car, he was on his way to buy new running shoes.

Cooper River Bridge Run training begins January 9. More information.

I Love Living Here

'Winter' in Charleston

I love living in Charleston. Recently, I received an email from a runner in Naples, Florida who is visiting here next week. She wanted to know if there were indoor tracks available to the general public. After telling her about the one I know of I pointed out that we’re in South Carolina, not Maine. We pretty much run outdoors year round. In three years, I’ve run indoors once because of the weather - we had 2.8 inches of rain in 1.5 hours, right at the time when I would have been running.

This week, the Charleston Running Club began a Couch to 5K program. Part of our mission is to encourage running in our community. I’m coaching the clinic, along with Irv Batten from On the Run running store. Irv has been a fixture in the Charleston running scene for over twenty years and regularly at the top of the leaderboard. Many clubs wouldn’t start a training program at the beginning of winter. Here, it’s one of the best times to run.

I also began track workouts again after taking November off. I have one new athlete and some returning. More will join us again after the first of the year. Not only are my athletes back on the track - I am as well! We’re all looking forward to cutting down those 5K times.

Cooper River Bridge Run training begins in January. Sign up now.

Marathon and Post-Marathon Report

Charleston Runs Marathoners - We missed a few at our post-race dinner.

Everybody at Charleston Runs arrived at the start line healthy. We did have one runner with a nagging knee issue but she was able to complete her training. Some of our athletes ran much faster than they expected; some were dissappointed with their performance. I’ve spent time with most of them, reviewing their training and what we might do differently the next time. All had a great experience and all are looking at the future.

Yesterday, a few of them did the Turkey Day run here in Charleston. One of them set a new personal record for the 5K distance. This was after a month of standing down, no track workouts, and even multiple days off. Amazing what recovery can do for you!

Charleston Run’s Noah Moore on Live5

Noah Moore appeared on WCSC Channel 5 and talked about why he’s running the Marine Corps Marathon. Great job, Noah! If you’re reading this as a note on Facebook, click on ‘View Original Post’ to see the video at CharlestonRuns.com. (Give the video a few seconds to load.)

Four out of Seven

Seven Charleston Runs athletes entered the Carolina Children’s Charity 8K this weekend. FOUR of them walked away with hardware. All were age group awards - one first place, two seconds, and one third. I don’t know who was more excited - them or me.

Hell Hole Swamp 10K Gator Run

I’m sad to say that my athlete didn’t do as well as we expected. The day was not hot and there were about 100 people in the field. There were three things that contributed to not meeting his goal time of 50 minutes.

• Road Surface - 4 of the 6.2 miles were run on dirt/gravel roads. Maintaining a smooth stride is not possible.
• Preparation - As a coach, I didn’t have the athlete running as fast as maybe I should have. However, I don’t push athletes beyond a level that hasn’t been demonstrated.
• Pacing - The athlete started out running a 7.45 first mile and his goal was an 8 minute mile. He never really recovered and wasn’t able to adjust his pace adequately.

Obviously, we can’t do anything about the road surface, it is what it is. Preparation - we’ve already begun addressing this for the next race. I’m pushing him a little faster in workouts but not so fast that he’ll break down. For me, it means carefully monitoring his workouts and races. The pacing will come with race experience. He was very excited and the field was small which meant he ran his own race most of the way.

More Half-Marathon Results

My athlete training for the More Half-Marathon in NYC on April 26 didn’t record a score for the race - and neither did anybody else. The temperature at race time was 92 degrees so the organizers cancelled the full marathon and didn’t score the half-marathon. My athlete told me she crossed the start about 5 minutes after the gun and crossed the line in at 2 hours 2 minutes. And this was in the heat. She was justifiably proud of herself. She’s 52 and ready to qualify for Boston when she runs the Marine Corps Marathon in October.

Team Boot Camp at the iFiveK

Team Boot Camp entered four teams in the local iFive:K - 2 6-person teams and 2 2-person teams. Everybody was scored individually and the team time was an aggregate of all team members. Everybody did great and Teams 1 and 2 placed 2nd and 3rd in the 6-person division. Team 1 was coed; team 2 was all female. The winners of the division were all male.

Out of the 12 runners on those two teams, I coached seven of them in the last 5 months in distances ranging from the 5K to the marathon. A few of them said they set new personal records in this race.

One of our runners was a last minute substitute. She is in her fifties and ran with the original runner’s chip, who is 34, with the ok of the race organizers. I explained that she wasn’t going to screw up the 30-39 age group awards by running with that chip. However, we never thought about the fact that she could place in her own age division. If she had run with her own chip, she would have won her age division by at least two minutes.

As it turns out, one of our team members won the 50-59 age group and in second place was a woman I had coached recently in the Cooper River Bridge Run. I will proudly claim that 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place are Charleston Runs athletes!