Miami Beach Halloween Half Marathon

Yesterday morning was the Miami Beach Halloween half marathon.  I ran this race as part of my marathon training schedule.  The forecast for this race was suppose to be rain, but instead it was sunny, hot and humid.  Looking back, not sure which way would have been better.
I don't think I would have run this race if it had not been the plan for my running group.  That is unfortunate since this course was absolutely beautiful!
It started at Jungle Island which is on the MacArthur Causeway, which connects downtown Miami to the beach.  There are several races that run on the Causeway, so this was not my first time.  It is always nice running down a palm tree lined street with water on both sides, cruise ships to the right and multi-million dollar homes to the left.
Once we reached the beach we took a right and followed the path by the marina, past South Pointe park and then headed up Ocean Drive.  Here we entered Lummus Park and ran on the path to the boardwalk.  The boardwalk was the most annoying part of the race because it was crowded, slippery from the rain the night before and hot!  The sun was just baring down on the runners.
A couple of times along this portion I thought I was going to lose it.  Like lose my sanity because I was so hot and also vomit everywhere.  I had a couple of good burps which made me laugh because I know people around me totally heard them :) 
Gross?? TMI??  Ok, probably, but I was ready for this race to be over at mile 7.
Throughout all of this, the ocean was in plain sight pretty much the entire time.  I need to get down to the beach more often to run, it was so beautiful.
At mile 11 the sun went behind the clouds and I enjoyed the last couple of miles of the race.  The finish line was at South Pointe Park.

And the finisher's medal was super scary looking :)

All in all, I ran this like a training run, so it definitely was not my fastest time.  I did the run/walk/run method, took bathroom breaks and also took time to stretch along the way.  It was a nice morning for sure.
While my running group was offered a discounted entry fee, I ended up paying $20 less than that because this race was offered as an Active Swaggle deal for only $45.  It was well worth it for a cool medal, Brooks tech shirt, mexican food at the finish line and decent on course support.  

Most of the volunteers were high school kids and they were great... always cheering us on and were right there offering water and PowerAde at every stop.
Not sure I would have wanted to pay full price.  $100 was the race fee if you had registered at packet pick-up and I don't think it was worth that.


On an unrelated note, I saw 'In Time' this afternoon.  Super weird and out-there premise, but actually entertaining and interesting.  This wasn't my favorite Justin film, but I thought he was ok, definitely got better as the movie went on.  I usually like Amanda Seyfried's movies, and she was good here, though I did not enjoy the short, dark wig.  Blonde actresses should not try to be brunettes and vice versa.  Everyone knows it's fake.


Hope you all had a great weekend!  Any good races out there?