Jussi and I before the race.

In case you didn’t already guess that’s me on the left. Justine and I decided to run this race on a whim. We had originally intended on running the Baltimore Marathon 2012 together, which I had convinced her to do. Well… that didn’t happen. I busted my left knee and was out of comission. (but she still ran it and rocked!) So when the amazing doctor at UMiami Sports Medicine Center gave me the all clear, I immediately called Jussi so I could convince her to fly to Miami to run the race with me. 🙂 By convince, I mean force. (I am such a good friend)

Maps of the Course

Maps of the Course

This races starts super early. So get ready to wake up! The race starts in the middle of Miami next to the AAA Arena. This almost forms a bottleneck of people, which transferred into the corrals. We had a difficult time getting to our corral. We were in corral G and due to the massive congestion and inability to get there, we ended up in Corral C. Not a great place to start when you intend on prancing/skipping/dancing/mildly jogging through the course.

View from Biscayne Blvd during the 1st mile of the race

Now this is a beautiful race, at least the half is a gorgeous course. There is fantastic race scenery, course support, and the volunteers are the best.

So for the breakdown… It is packed until around mile 4. The entire time you are on the Biscayne Bridge you are shoulder-to-shoulder. Once you’re on South Beach it starts to open up a bit more and the crowd support kicks in. For those who are not familiar with Miami, you do not see the beach when you are on South Beach. It’s like 100 yards away behind a sand dune. But you do run down Ocean Drive and get to see the amazing Art Deco buildings that make Miami such a landmark.

Winding through the city continues thru mile 6-7. Which is where they set up a marching band and a GU station. The GU was island nectars and it was officially the worst GU I’ve ever tried. This stinks because, I love me some gu. (I know it’s weird, don’t judge… okay judge, I judge me too) Especially, after you’ve been running for 9 miles and need a boost GU hits the spots. To this day, I’ve been able to tolerate (and even like) most other flavors with the exception of this one.

After mile 7 you begin to see the return back to Downtown Miami. You run the Venetian Causeway. This bridge is more like a small road that happens to traverse the waterway… I mean I guess that’s a bridge. But while on this causeway you go through several little islands that really give you that Miami feel. The best part about the part of the race is when you finally cross back into Downtown Miami you are just shy of mile 11! So you have less than a 5k left.

The last part of the race is full of crowd support and it is PACKED! You get the best of both worlds, a beautiful scenic course and a big city atmosphere. The course signs were hilarious and provided a much needed distraction. The last mile is packed with people and is absolutely thrilling.

Justine and I finished in 3:07:57. It was an awesome race with an awesome medal. I would totally run this again! Oh and some church gave out oranges at mile 12 which made we way happier and more excited than it should of. I think I was delirious.

Oh btw… Michael ran too but he was about an hour ahead of us! But we can still all celebrate together!