Miami Beach Halloween Half Marathon

What a crazy weekend. Race weekends should never go the way ours went. There were some great moments, but there were some bad moments. Those bad moments paved the way for some hard lessons learned and a PWR (personal worst) for me. However, the company I was with still made this a great weekend and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.


Let’s start with Friday. I got off work early, went home and changed, picked up Cody from school. He was shocked and happy to see me. I took him to the library to read some books and then we went to get his brother. I got them into their costumes and then we headed to Chick-Fila for the fundraiser for Cody’s school. We met up with Sueann and her boys there and then headed out to a fall festival. The boys played games, had cotton candy and caramel apples, went on a hay ride and did trunk or treat. We then headed to the enchanted forest. What a joke! The kids got to do the petting zoo, but the hay ride through the forest was taking almost an hour, so we left. Everyone was exhausted. We stopped at That’s Amore on the way home and got some pasta to go. It was 9:30 when we headed home. I got to bed around 11 and had to get up at 5:30 (mistake #1 not sleeping enough) the next morning for a training run with Sueann. I had set everything out for the boys and some of my stuff for Miami.

Saturday: We ran, stopped to talk to a Team in Training group about how it all worked as this is our backup to guarantee entry into NYC. We ran back to the car as I was worried about time. Cody had a soccer game in another town 45 minutes away. We ended up 10 minutes late because we couldn’t find the fields. They weren’t marked. Well, it turns out the game hadn’t started yet; no one could find the field. One of the girls on the team showed up 30 minutes into the game and it had taken them 40 minutes to find the field!!! The team they played was horrible. They were shoving our kids around and this is supposed to be a team of 5 and 6 year olds and one of these kids, the meanest of them was my height!!! I call BS on him being 5 or 6! The game should have been a tie, but they scored illegally and their ref called it good. All of our team’s parents are complaining to our Y about the sportsmanship of the other Y. One coach was telling the big kids to be mean and aggressive. Not things to teach kids. So we leave the game. I’m upset because the game was very unfair. Cody’s team has lost before, and I have had no issue, but this was playing that in my day would have had the coach in trouble. We get home, I get Cody changed, get the boys packed and ready for a weekend at Nana’s and send them off with Kevin while I finally get the shower I have wanted since finishing the run. I pack and wait on Sueann so we can head out to Miami. We got out an hour later than planned. We had to stop for gas on the way and a potty break. We called Suezette at 3 when we realized we'd be pulling into Miami right when packet pick up ended. We texted her photos of our licenses and she picked up the packets for us. We met her at the hotel at 5:15. This is where things start to get crazy. We go in, Suezette asks if the reservation can be changed from a king to a double, no go. We find out there is NO parking, we have pay for parking. $40!!! We then have to tote all our bags back the 2 blocks to the hotel and we get up to our room…can we saw ACK! We get somewhat settled when Sueann realized she had forgotten her sports bra. I had wanted a new racer back tank since the one I brought had been riding up on me. We found everything then stopped for dinner. Mistake #2, I had pizza. This didn’t seem to be an issue for the other 2, it was for me. I have NO gall bladder and I’m lactose intolerant, but pizza normally doesn’t affect me, but I normally don’t eat it the night before a 1/2 . I did drink a lot of water Saturday, we are talking 100+ ounces. Mistake #3, in Miami drink 200+!!!!! We got back later than I had wanted to the hotel, but we were having such a good time people watching, and let me tell you there were some freaks out that night!!! Tried to sleep, really, we did, none of us slept well. I think I got maybe an hour at most of sleep. I fell asleep right off, but woke up within 5 minutes. I also fell asleep somewhere between 2:10 and 4:30 when all of our alarms went off. Despite the fact there were 3 of us in 1 king size bed, no one disrupted the others, we all thought the others were asleep, and all of us wished we were them, but none of us were actually asleep! This was mistake #4, not enough sleep!!!

Sunday: Mistake #5 was not having breakfast. Suezette provided power bars since we realized there was no breakfast at the hotel unless we wanted to pay $12! Sharon picked us up at 5:20. We made our way to the finish area and then took the shuttles to the start area. We checked out the other costumes, Sueann and I dressed up, Sharon wore orange and black and Suezette in pink and black. We saw some interesting things…men running in underwear only, we’re talking underoo type, Batman, Superman, etc. One was even in an American flag thong, he had his number strapped on to him. I still wonder if his butt cheeks chafed! We had a quick rain shower and it ended before we started. We said good luck and see you later to Sharon who was lining up in the front, then we lined up and started. The first half of the race was the easy part. One causeway over to Miami Beach, nothing on the grade compared to the NSB causeway we run. We were tired but our legs were moving easily after the first 5K, it rained in the first 3 miles and with the cloud cover it felt good. However, we’d be praying for rain in a little bit. Mile 8 is where things started really falling apart for me. I was feeling really sick. We had new sports drink on the course and had been drinking a lot of water, but I felt BAD!!! We were set to PR, but looking back I think we went too hard too fast for the weather. It was hot and humid. At mile 9, before I told Sueann to go on her own and finish it, it rained again. This time it was brief. This time about killed me. The humidity from the wet, was oppressive. I was doing everything to keep from throwing up. I finally set Sueann off on her own and I walked most of the rest of it. I came in 10 minutes slower than my slowest ½ time. The bling is awesome, being there to see Sharon PR her ½ time with a 13.6 mile run (she got screwed by Miami PD and had to do a ½ mile loop) and getting 3rd overall female was amazing!!! She was so happy!!! We all headed back to the hotel, Sharon dropped us, then the 3 of us got showered, changed and headed out for home. Sueann and I were sick!!! We stopped in Hollywood on the way home and got a sandwich and a large unsweet tea and started feeling a little better. It took a lot of fluids to finally normalize and for the massive swelling in my hands to go down. It was a good weekend despite feeling so sick and I know I could have PRed had it not been the mistakes leading up, and well, I’ve learned and add that to my knowledge and look forward to St. Pete where I get to try again!!