Our team flew into Miami on Thursday, February 6 – most of our team was coming from Charlotte, but we also had team members flying in from New York City, Chicago and Louisville. For the most part, it was an uneventful trip into Miami, with the exception of our team member, Craig, who flew into Fort Lauderdale and took the train to Miami. He was delayed when there was a shooting at one of the train stations. Luckily, he made it to us safe and sound and we were able to head out for a team dinner.

I was in Van 2, so we were able to sleep in on Friday morning while Van 1 headed to the start line around 6:00am for a 7:30 start time. One of the guys on our team put together a spreadsheet so that we could track how everyone was doing on their legs and know when to expect them at the major exchange zones. Van 1 finished their legs (1-6, 23.16 miles) within 2 minutes of our predicted time and then it was time for Van 2 to get started, right around 11:00am. I was runner #8, which meant I had to run second in our van. Runner 7 had 4.2 miles to run, so after about 35 minutes, it was time for my longest run. I knew that I wanted to continue my run-walk-run training throughout this race, but I also wanted to increase my running time to increase my speed, so I opted for a 3:1 ratio. What I wasn’t counting on was the heat! It was about 8-10 degrees warmer than we originally expected, so it hit about 80 while I was running. This part of the race was still through Miami and it was open to traffic, so there were some times when runners would have to wait at stoplights until they could safely cross the street and that definitely happened to me at least once if not a couple times. 

Mile 1 – 9:06 pace <– too fast, but feeling good
Mile 2 – 10:30
Mile 3 – 11:12 <– waiting for stoplights
Mile 4 – 10:30
Mile 5 – 11:24 <– really slowing down
Mile 6 – 11:17
Mile 7 – 11:28
Last .98 – 10:33

I ended up changing my run / walk ratio around mile 5 because of the heat – I would run for 1:00, walk for :30, run for 1:30 then walk for 1:00. My overall pace for the 7.98 miles was 10:46, which was definitely slower than the 10:00 pace I was hoping for, but considering the heat, I felt it was a good pace for me. 

Overall, Van 2 had 35.93 miles in legs 7-12 and while we definitely were slower than we originally expected, we kept moving and finished around 5:30pm. Once we finished our legs, we headed to a grocery store to stock up on some more water, Gatorade and peanut butter and then headed to the next major exchange zone to grab a hot pasta dinner and showers at the school who was hosting us. This is also where we were planning to grab some shut eye before our next legs which were expected to start around midnight. 

Tune in tomorrow for part II.

Nike Women’s Half Marathon
Interested in trying to get a free entry for the Nike Women’s Half Marathon in DC? Nuun is hosting a contest for 5 free entries – follow this link and help me get some extra entries in the process (you’ll get your own code to share with friends after you register).