Miami Marathon Race Report

Start of the marathon.

First of all I would like to give a huge shout out to my mom. She is awesome. I love her so much to come down from St. Louis to do this whirlwind trip with me. She and my father always give such amazing support to whatever crazy hobby that us kids get into. And also a huge hug to my cousin and his girlfriend Adel for showing us around South Beach as well as letting us crash at their awesome condo.

Ok. For those of you who don't know how huge Florida is, it's freaking huge. Yes, I do live in the same state - but it's a 9+ hour drive (plus a time change thrown in there) to get from Panama City Beach to Miami. But thankfully I had good old mom to help with the drive!

On Saturday, we went to my favorite french sidewalk restaurant and had the proper 'day before a marathon breakfast' - wonderful proper French crapes with amazing coffee:




My Cousin Tim and I.

Let me throw in a quick note about Tim. He is a reporter for the

Miami New Times

and writes amazing stories. He was one of the only American journalists allowed into Guantanamo Bay. Anyway - he somehow got his hands on a press pass for the Superbowl this weekend! Really? What!?! Can you bring a friend?

So after breakfast (or brunch) we walked on over to packet pickup and spent some time at the expo (which is always a good time). As I was expressing my love of KSwiss to my cousin - the Kswiss rep actually offered me a job :) Ha! After going through the maze of vendors, Tim and Adel headed back to the condo while mom and I walked around South Beach and had some lunch.


My drink at lunch. Coconut water..yumm!!

But mom's looks much better

And we also saw quite a few of these -

How many can you count?

So that evening for dinner, Tim had a ton of friends over and grilled fresh tuna, veggies, and his special super secret homemade hummus:



And I laid my goodies out so I'll be ready to head out of the house at 4:45am



Up at at it early - Tim (bless him) got up to take me downtown at 4:45...and it was...75 out with 95% humidity. HOTTER THEN HELL. Oh well. What can I do? It's Southern Florida! But the race was awesome. If anyone wants a good marathon - try this guy out. It's flat, very scenic and also has great support. Also, the start is at the American Airlines building (where the Miami Heat play) which equals clean bathrooms! Whoohoo! No need to use a port-o-potty here! But the one downer is that there are a million half marathoners and they run with the marathoners until mile 13.

My goal was to get a sub four - but ended up running a 4:16 (per the garmin 26.58 miles - ugh. I hate running extra!) But still that is a PR for me by 11 minutes! And I felt great, well, as great as you can feel after a marathon. No injuries, just come crappy purple toenails.



Hope everyone had a great weekend!!