Miami Half Marathon

Chris and I ran in two races in Florida, Miami on January 30th and then Melbourne on February 6th.  I'm just writing about Miami right now, then I will write about Melbourne a little later.

We got up super early the day before the marathon to go to the airport to fly to Miami.  Our flight was due to arrive in Miami at 4pm.  We were a little concerned because as soon as we arrived in Miami, we would have to go to the expo, which closes at 6pm, to pick up our race kits for the next day.  What if we were delayed?  We were thinking we'd have to go straight to the expo from the airport, suitcases in tow, that would be a pain.  Lucky for us, we had a tail wind and we arrived about 20 minutes early.  We got a cab from the airport, went to our hotel, checked in and then walked over to the expo, it was only about a 10 minute walk.  The expo was like any other, lots of booths, people selling stuff, nothing out of the ordinary.  We picked up our bib and shirt then cruised around.  The race shirts were really cool!

Then we got to thinking about how to get to the start on race day.  When we initially signed up for the race, there was an option to buy transportation tickets to the start.  Of course, we did not do this.  We walked over to the booth, they had no more paper tickets, but we were able to get on a list for a one way ticket.

Race Day.  Got up at 3:30am... waaaay too early!  Got ready.  Our room had one of those teeny-tiny coffee makers.  There was enough for only one cup.  I told Chris he could have it.  He said it was pretty awful, but it would have to do.  We got dressed, pinned our bibs, got everything we needed.  We decided not to check a bag, so off we went.  Got to the bus transport, there were lots of buses.  Got to the line and they were asking for tickets.  We told them that we didn't have a ticket, but we were on some kind of list.  They said go ahead and get on the bus.  I'm so glad we decided to get a ticket for that bus.  I can't imagine trying to figure out how to get to the start, basically in the middle of the night.

We got to the start... man there were so many people! It was amazing!  Also amazing, the American Airlines Arena in Miami was open for everyone to hang out in, use the washrooms, etc.  There were all kinds of people in there, some were standing around, others were lying on the floor stretching... everyone seemed to have the same sort of anticipation feeling.  I remember one very cold race in Burlington where we kept getting kicked out of the warm places, Chris you know what I'm talking about, right?  Big difference.

We decided that we should get into our corals.  We decided to try to meet after the race where the baggage check was.  If for some reason we couldn't, we would meet at the family meeting place under the letter "M".  We wished each other luck and off we went.

Got into my coral.  Was talking to this woman, it was her first half marathon.  She was really excited and really nervous.  I told her she'd do great.  They started playing the US national anthem.  Everyone really does hold their hands over their hearts, very cool.  The gun went off, lots of cheering, eventually we were off.  It took me about 15 minutes to reach the start, it was finally getting light out.

It was very crowded, even where I was!  It took me about 2k to get out of the crowd and get into my groove.  About 5k into the race, I passed a woman who was sobbing... not sure what that was about, but I heard someone else ask her if she was okay.  I hope she was okay.

The course was really nice.  I was going to try to really race this one, but because of the crowd, I wasn't really going as fast as I wanted to, so I thought I would just go with the flow and do my best.

Around the 10k mark, there were three guys on the sideline, one of them had a Canadian flag hanging from his belt.  I ran past and yelled "yay Canada!", they yelled back "way to go you're looking great!" Nice to have some fans... ha!  There were people spread out throughout the course cheering us on.  About 5k from the finish there was a cheering section which was really cool! 

Finally, saw the finish... yay, I can stop running now.  My time was 2:28:47, not bad, I was hoping for a little faster, but what can you do?

Got to the finish.  We got coralled through the food, etc.  There was no way I could meet Chris at the baggage check like we had planned.  As it turned out, the family meeting place was right there as you were getting coralled.  I hoped that Chris would see this right away.  After getting some food, I kind of stuck around there waiting for Chris.  Finally I saw him in the crowd, then he saw me.  He looked tired and like he normally does after a marathon.  We just went and sat under a tree for a while until he relaxed a bit.  Now to figure out how to get back to the hotel.  We decided to try to find the buses and see if we could buy a ticket back.  Found the buses, we were able to buy a ticket back, no problem at all... totally awesome!

Overall, the Miami half marathon was an amazing experience!  It was very well organized, the course was great, I would highly recommend this race!

After the race, went back to the hotel, I changed into my bathing suit and went to the beach!  It wasn't really super warm beach weather, but I had to swim in the ocean since, you know, it was there!  The water was cold.  After watching everyone's reaction getting into the water, including mine, Chris decided to stay on the sand.

We walked along the beach for a while, went to pick up the rental car we were going to need for the next day to drive to Orlando.  Then got back to the hotel, got showered and ready to go out.  We decided for dinner that night we would spoil outselves at Joe's Stone Crab Restaurant... amazing!

Stay tuned for my Orlando report.