My Miami Marathon adventure started off on the wrong foot and never really eased into the right pace. The plan was to arrive in Florida a week before the race so I could adjust to the warmer weather after training during the snowy New England Winter. Monday morning we woke to discover unexpected snow was falling. The highways had not been plowed and traffic moved slowly so we arrived just in time to board our 6:30 flight.
Since we had so much snow in Connecticut I didn’t put as many miles as planned on my new marathon shoes. I purchased two identical pairs of Kayano 14’s and used one during training but only had about 25 miles on my racing pair. Marathon morning I was a bit concerned because my left foot had been sore since my last run in my race day shoes and there was a bruise on the topside of my foot.
Shortly after 4:00 am Pat and I were in line at the Miami Beach Convention Center waiting to board the shuttle to the starting line and despite the expected crowd of 15,500 runners it was fairly easy to find Wendy and Frank.
After a half hour of chit chat we all parted ways to our starting corrals. The race itself had a few starting glitches but nothing major. Thought they squeezed runners to the side a little early crossing the bridge at mile 2 or 3 so they could open a lane for traffic and had to pour my own drink at one of the first few water stops but after that it seemed fine and there was more snack food along the course than either of the other two marathons I ran.
My foot didn’t feel too bad once I got going but the later miles were tough. As we ran through a residential area with fairly loose roadways I could feel a pebble in each of my shoes so just after mile 16 I stopped to get them out. By mile 20 the heat on my feet was a pretty clear indicator that I was blistering and my pace dropped to about 13:30 for those last 6 miles as a walked and jogged to the finish.
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