HF#12464
You never know the what the weather is going to be in November in Florida. You would hope that we would have a bit of a cool spell for the end of November but no such luck for 2015. The race is basically a huge '0' with the start and finish in the middle. So you go out and head north and then back for 13 miles and then you head south and then back to the finish.

I am not a fast runner and thought my finishing time would be around 5:30 but with temperatures in the low 80's, the heat really got to me. But to their credit, the race organizers had pace teams all the way up to an estimated 7 hour finish time. I originally fell in with the 5:30 pacers which was done in the Galloway method of 30:30. The Pacer was funny, talkative, and super nice. Couldn't have asked for a better pacer.

The race was excellently handled with water stops every 2 miles plus gu stations at mile 8 and then every 2 miles on the last half. The race personnel had ice cold towels to put on your head/neck at about mile 19 and at the finish. Most of the water stops had volunteers dressed up as characters related to space such as Star Wars, Buzz Light Year, I Dream of Jeannie, Star Trek, etc. The run goes along the water with beautiful homes and sites to see - including manatees! And a stunning sunrise as well!

It was an awesome race which was very well supported. The expo was crowded but had a bunch of vendors. If you stay at a host hotel as we did, you can catch a shuttle bus to and from the start of the race. That is pretty spiffy as you don't have to worry about parking. And while there were long lines for the port-a-potties - they had a huge line of them which was awesome-or as awesome as a port-a-potty can be :).

This is a great marathon to do - you just need to have trained in hot weather.