MIAMI NICE

Adele and I decided to do the Miami Marathon last year as a great excuse for a holiday and a week in the sun.

The holiday got off to a flying start when we realised Yohan Blake was sitting behind us on the plane. We then took it upon ourselves to race him to US Customs when we arrived in Miami and were delighted to overtake him in the airport (wearing 4” heels), although to be fair to him he didn’t realise there was a race going on!!!

We arrived in Miami on Thursday afternoon and the marathon was early Sunday morning. Friday was spent at the Expo picking up our numbers, buying new trainers and trying every freebie on offer.

Race day started early with our alarms set for 3.30am. We made our way to the start in the dark. When we got there it was quite poorly organised as we couldn’t find the baggage drop and there were very few toilets. We just made it to our corral in time for the 6.15am start.

At the same time as the full marathon, there was also the half marathon and the 2 races started together. There is an American running coach who trains people to complete marathons by running/walking. He obviously had a big influence on a lot of the competitors as we were surprised by how many people were walking right at the start. This resulted in quite a lot of congestion at the start and difficulty passing them.

Once past the walkers, we enjoyed running past the cruise liners, and Star Island, looking at the amazing houses (home to the likes of the Bee Gees and Gloria Estefan). We then ran into South Beach and past our hotel and onto downtown Miami, where the half marathon finished.

By this time it was starting to heat up and was very humid (temperatures reaching the 80’s). The next 10 miles were a slog, running through Coconut Grove, a mainly residential area.

The heat and humidity started taking its toll on me at mile 23, luckily Adele kept me going.

At mile 26 we were delighted to see a friend of Adele’s in the crowd and this spurred us on to finish with a smile.

The finish was much better organised than the start with food, drink, music and stalls. The medals are fantastic and well worth all the hard work.

Overall we enjoyed this marathon despite the heat. And we really enjoyed the heat for the rest of the holiday which was spent relaxing on the beach.

Davina

Results can be found HERE