Marathon #42: 2026 Myrtle Beach Marathon

I'm excited to share that I have just finished my 42nd Marathon: the 2026 Myrtle Beach Marathon in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. A classic oceanfront race winding through the heart of the Grand Strand!

Race morning greeted us with a thick, soupy fog you could practically swim through. Draping the whole course in a dense cloud, it was otherworldly down by the waterfront where the ocean simply dissolved into a wall of mist just past the dunes. You couldn't see where the sand ended and the sea began. The air was cool and damp at the 7:00 AM gun, sitting right around 60°F, and honestly it felt like perfect running weather for the opening miles.

I should have known that calm couldn't last. As the sun climbed, it burned the fog off in a hurry, and the back half of the race turned bright, sunny, and surprisingly hot. The temperature shot up into the low 70s°F with the sun beating straight down on the exposed stretches of road — a brutal swing from the cool, foggy world I'd happily settled into for the first 13 miles.

• C Goal: Finish
• B Goal: sub 3:15:00
• A Goal: sub 3:07:00
• Stretch Goal: sub 3:05:00

As I do with most races, I went out locked in on my target pace of about 7:05/mi, and for the first half I absolutely nailed it. I clicked through the 5K in 22:43 and the 10K in 44:45, rolling along through the fog feeling strong, smooth, and in complete control, give-or-take a few seconds per mile.

Then the fog lifted, the sun came out, and one by one the wheels started to come off. The heat crept up on me, and somewhere around the halfway mark my legs turned to lead and my breathing grew labored in the rising warmth. My once-metronomic splits began to drift, and I could feel that the back half was going to be a grind. By the time the oceanfront opened up bright and blue like this, the morning fog was already a distant memory.

I had to stop and walk several times over those final miles, something I always hate to do, but my body left me little choice in the heat. I hit the wall hard, and my pace fell right off a cliff — my slowest mile crawled in at a painful 9:22, a far cry from the 7:02 I'd been cruising at earlier in the cool. The gap between my fastest and slowest splits really tells the whole story of this race.

Smoothed out, the toll the sun took is plain to see: a flat, steady line through the foggy first half, then a long, steady climb in pace as the heat wore me down in the second.

Digging deep, I gutted out the closing miles, alternating running and walking until I could finally spot the finish. With the line in sight, I managed to scrape together one last gear and push it home with a smile and a fist in the air.

I crossed with an official time of 3:23:00. Not the day I'd drawn up when I set out at 7:05 pace, but given how quickly that fog gave way to full sun and heat, I'll happily take a finish in the low 3:20s and call it a hard-earned battle with the conditions.

The heat clearly took its toll on the whole field, because even with my second-half struggles I still came in 150th out of 1,977 finishers, and 10th in my 40-44 age group. Not bad for a day that did its very best to cook me!

After cleaning up and refueling, I incremented my tally!

Next up, we have marathon number #43 in Anchorage, Alaska on June 20th. Stay tuned!