Miami Half-Marathon : 2025 Edition

Melanie and I love the Miami Marathon & Half race weekend. How much? We just did the race for our 7th(!!) time. That’s one less than I’ve done of Gasparilla in Tampa but I used to live in Tampa. I only lived in the state of Florida twice while doing Miami. We just like that race! There is so much international flavor there. You have a huge South American contingent. English is probably not the primary language of half the race. And there is also a large Jewish contingent who do the race too which is fun!

Pre-Race

Since the race is on Sunday, we flew in on Saturday and did the expo after dropping off our kids with my parents. Running expos are always better than triathlon expos but Miami is another level of fun. The expo happens in the Miami Beach Convention Center and they use the entire hall for all of the venders. There’s almost anything you could want in an expo. There’s always multiple sporting goods stores there so if you forgot anything, you can definitely find it there. Really, anything! There’s lots of fun foods to try. Our favorite this year was that we got an entire popsicle. It was pretty fun walking around the expo eating a rainbow pop.

Then it was time to get to the hotel for check-in and go to dinner. We normally stay at a Courtyard near the start but this year I couldn’t get that one. Instead, I upgraded us to a JW Marriott Marquis. I was a little nervous about the ease of getting out after the race but I didn’t need to be worried. The hotel ended up being a perfect location. If you’re doing this race, you can’t go wrong with either the Courtyard or the JW but given how close in price they were…I’ll be going back to the JW next time!

Then it was off to dinner. We’ve tried a few places over the years but we always come back to Fratelli Milano. I’d go there even if I wasn’t there for a race (I don’t need to since we go often enough for the race!) My meal was probably a touch too heavy considering I also had a fairly heavy lunch but I also don’t eat out a ton in general so I always struggle at races to figure out my dinner the night before. Heavy or not…it was delicious! No regrets.

Race Day

Since its always (usually) warm in Miami, even during the winter, races start early! The gun goes off at 6am which means you need to be to your starting corral by 5:30/45. I prefer to be earlier. Melanie prefers to be later. But with our hotel so close to the starting line, we could wake up at 5am, get dressed, have coffee and a bite to eat (at least me) and get to the race by about 5:30. The A – D corrals require a wristband and they did a good job this year of monitoring who goes into the corral. This is a big race. Probably around 15k – 18k with the half and full marathoners both starting at the same time.

First, we wanted to get to the front of our corral so that we’d have some space to run when we got started. The start of the race is right next to where the Miami Heat play and there’s always lots of good music and lights to get you pumped up before the race. There’s lots of great running fashion to check out too…the South American runners tend to come with some pretty good kit!

Melanie had a goal time of 1:45 but the race start was 72F and probably would get a degree or two warmer as we went. Not TERRIBLE but not exactly PR weather. It was also 100% humidity. 1:45 would also be a PR for me but we decided when we got to our corral that our plan would be to start at an 8:30 – 8:45 pace, which was slower than the 8:00 pace we needed for a 1:45 but we wanted to see how we felt.

Our starting position was perfect to get off to a fast start and we were able to settle immediately into our pace. The first 4 miles of the race have a couple of large bridges over the intercoastal from Miami. This is my favorite part of the race too since you run right by the cruise terminals. This year was the best lineup. There were probably 8 ships in port, including the Royal Caribbean ship “Icon of the Seas” which is the biggest cruise ship in the world. It was a MONSTER. It was really cool to see it.

After about four miles, we found ourselves on Miami Beach (not that you can see the beach during the run…) and we decided to stick with the 8:45 we’d settled into. I was very happy with the pace myself. I really just wanted to have a fun run so if going for a PR meant suffering in hot weather, I wasn’t that excited for that. We managed to keep that pace all through Miami Beach (another 4.5 miles or so) and it never really felt hard which was great. After mile 8.5, it was time to head back over another causeway and head back into Miami.

This is where things got a little harder. The sun was up and it was warmer. I was tired. From mile 8.5 – 11 you’re running across the intercoastal where there are a series of small islands. Each of the islands has a small bridge between them. Those three or four bridges are fine but they did slow me down a bit. Around mile 10, Melanie told me she wanted to just push to the end and I didn’t want to slow her down if she wanted to go faster so she took off.

Then right before mile 11 is the last big bridge. Its not as big as any of the early bridges but this one is also at mile 11. It would be a tough one late in the race if not for the fact that as you come over the top, there is a MASSIVE crowd on the other side. This race already had really good crowd support but this crowd is in the right place to really energize you after that bridge.

With only a couple miles left I picked the pace back up a bit. At this point my HR was in the 180s and while I didn’t want to suffer the whole race that way, for a couple more miles, I was fine with it. The run through downtown is fun with lots of good crowds and energy and people excited to finish so I was able to push my way to the end with a time of 1:58:52 (a couple minutes behind Melanie).

Post-Race

Before I even get to how I feel about how I did in the race, there’s one more part of this race to address…the post race! Its not always something I care about since half the time we just leave immediately. But we didn’t want to leave right away! For one, we were feeling pretty good and we had lots of time before we needed to go get the kids. But there was SO MUCH stuff at the post race.

Just the finisher food line was stocked with as much as you could possibly want of granola bars, fruit, pancakes, Gatorade, and chips. Our arms were full trying to carry it all with us. But once we got out into the post-race party area, there was even MORE. All of the food you could get at the tent was also available in the expo area. And Melanie spotted one of my favorite race treat – Athletic Brewing. I love beer but I discovered Athletic at a race years ago and its become a staple in my fridge. I don’t avoid alcohol but this is as good as a regular beer. So they gave me a couple cans of my favorite brew and after we won a couple Chiquita Banana pens and bags, we finally headed back to the hotel. If we’d had more time we might have stayed a minute longer but honestly, we got a good fill of the post-race and then headed back to the hotel to relax, pack and go.

This was my 23rd half marathon (not counting half-Ironman races) and only the 8th time I’ve gone under 2 hours. To be fair, some of those races were early in my running life or purposefully slower for a variety of reasons, but I don’t go under 2 hours as often as I thought I did in my head. Which means this was my 3rd fastest half marathon. There was a brief period of time after the race that I was questioning whether I should have hung with Melanie to the end. And that would have simply meant having my 2nd fastest half marathon while being 10 minutes off my PR. So why? Miami is my “fun” race and I had a blast. I don’t normally finish a race under 2 hours and feel as good as I did. Even the next day I felt ready to go again and while my training this week has been tougher than usual on tired legs, I was never limping around.

We probably won’t do Miami next year but we’re thinking of doing it again in 2! So until next time, adios Miami!