I was looking forward to running this race in Honeymoon Island State Park. It could have been great, but instead it completely missed the mark. There were signs at packet pickup, which was a clunky, disorganized event in the back of a local fitness center/gym, that worried me.

My concern continued on race day from start to finish. I suspect the race management team was distracted by the fact that they were getting married after the race as part of the post race festivities, but that's no excuse for poor execution and putting runners at risk. The only heat consideration mentioned was runners were told they could opt to run the 10k instead of the half.

It was unseasonably hot with no cloud cover on race day. There should have been lots and lots of water everywhere for the runners. There was warm water and then NO water, on the race course. There was no shade, just lots and lots of hot asphalt in the post race area. The food and beer weren't ready when the 10k runners finished. It seemed nothing proactive was done about the real risk of heat exhaustion on race day.

Anything good? Yes — the views while running from Honeymoon Island across the Dunedin Causeway and back were lovely. Nice tech shirt and big medal.

2015 was the 2nd annual Honeymoon Island Half. The 1st year course took runners along the beach in soft sand. No one liked that, so they changed the course for the 2nd year to all paved trails and roads. I just heard that the 3rd annual race will take place in downtown Dunedin. That doesn't guarantee there will be cold water or shade, but it sounds like the race directors are listening and trying to improve.