NEVIS CYCLE & TRIATHLON CLUB

Sunday 31st January 2010 marked the date of this years ING Miami marathon. As with all of my previous marathons I was up at 3am to have my breakfast to be ready for a long run ahead. Mentally and physically this was going to be a tough day, ALL of my major long runs had been missed in training for this marathon due to weeks and weeks of illness through my heavy training sessions. As this was my 5th marathon I knew how important these training runs were and not having them behind me made me a little uncomfortable.

Stanley and I were corralled together for the first time and it was great to have company in the hours before the race, we headed from the hotel to our corall which was in walking distance, to get there we passed the finishing line , I tried to use this time to visulize how I would feel going through it a few hours later, I hoped that this would give me a visual picture which would help me in the tougher moments of the race.

The canon went off after a speech and count down by Ryan Hall, and at 6.15am we were off and running. Stanley and I pace very differently so a couple of miles in he headed on out leaving me to stick to my race plan which was to take the first 13.1 miles easy and head for a negative split in the second 13.1. This marathon was different to any other I had run, with 18,000 runners it was not the biggest and what made it stranger was the out of the 18,000 65% of the runners were running the half marathon which started at the same time. Both races were run on the same course until the 13 mile mark when the half marathoners headed down the finishers shoot. Immediatly the feild was vaastly reduced and the road much more open, water stations much more accesible and the perfect conditions for a negative split. At 13 miles I felt great, I had fulled well and taken it easy so I knew my legs could take the next 13.2 miles that were ahead.

The race was well catered with water stations every mile, one of these was very unique as it was catered by the Miami Hash House Harriers, who along with Gatorade and water were also offering beer at mile 21! ( Stanley of course accepted with a smile:-))

The course was beautiful and easy to follow with no questions about where you needed to be, that long with the music and cheerleaders on the course sides made this race really nice, the cloud cover made it great! The finishing line had a nice party atmosphere but also the organized finish that every runner needs after 26.2. Sore legs and lots of smiles are what I brought home from Miami and from the great organization to the spinning palm tree finishers medal this was a great marathon to run as my 5th and one I will certainly do again