So it already seems like a distant memory, but we went to Florida for March Break… and had a great time!
A bit of fun for everyone… we flew into Miami on the Friday and stayed in South Beach. We took Maisey and Jillian out for dinner along the famous strip in South Beach… and, how can I put this, it was “alive” with characters! First it was South Beach… second it was March Break! Let’s just say there was a lot going on… and a wide variety of “cultures” there! There was the very easy to spot gay crowd, the muscle shirts and short-shorts give it away, mind you so did the short skirts… there was the equally easy to spot drunk college kids… and if you get off the main drag (no pun intended), which we accidentally did, it turns into a pretty rough crowd too. If you like people watching, which my 3 girls do… there aren’t many places in the world with a more interesting view!
So we had fun out on the strip… but had to get to bed in our (very) little and nice South Beach art deco boutique hotel. If you notice, one of the “cultures” that I didn’t mention above was the running crowd… we didn’t see a single runner-type out the night before. It was kind of weird because when you go to a big marathon or Ironman the athletes take over the town… here… we didn’t even make a dent. The race started at 6:15, to avoid the heat (not that there was any!), so around 5:30, in the total dark we made our way the half a block to the starting line, right on the beach. The interesting thing we saw in that half a block included guys peeing in the bushes (and not before the race… still staggering home from the night before… and I do mean staggering!), guys puking in the bushes, guys passed out in the bushes and quite literally under bus benches… apparently we missed a good one the night before!
Anyway, we found the starting line… and low and behold there really were some athletes in town! In fact there was 2005 runners in the Half Marathon, ironically quite a bit fewer than the Chilly Half Marathon we had run 6 days earlier with 2837 runners in it! (way to go Chilly!) I must admit, we did feel a bit more at home with the running crowd 😉
As for the race itself, it was awesome. Both Jo and I had great races, Jo went from a less than stellar 2:01 the week earlier at Chilly, to a 1:56, putting her 10/66 in her age group. I had had a very good Chilly Half a few days earlier, doing a 1:42… but found a girl who I never spoke to once during the race, but she and I raced elbow to elbow for about 11 of the 13.1 miles, before she pulled about 100m ahead at the end! I ended up doing a 1:38… and finished 119/2005 overall… and 12/155 in my age group… a great race for me!
I definitely would recommend the race. Spectacular location and good course. Although the weather was warmer than the Chilly Half, it was a hillier course… actually it was pancake flat, but you have to climb 4 bridges over the causeway to and from the island, but generally a fast course. And the beer tent opened at 8:00 am! That has to be the earliest I’ve ever had a beer after a race!… but yes, I had it. And Joanne’s. And then you are in South Beach for the rest of the day!
PS. I did manage to get a swim in too! And I had lots of room… in fact, on the entire huge and beautiful length of South Beach… I was the only one in the water! It was pretty chilly (68F on land, but probably about 70F in the water!)… and there was a huge surf… in fact there was 2 flags up on the lifeguard towers… one for high surf… and one for “aquatic life”! I talked with the lifeguard and he said it was because of jellyfish?… but that seemed odd to me, because as far as I know they don’t come up when the water is rough… anyway I didn’t get stung… and didn’t see any other “aquatic life” either! It was a lot of fun swimming about 1 km through the breakers though!
Cheers,
Rob