Key West Half Marathon

Location: Marathon, FL (High 79, Low 69)

Well, we did it! I didn’t really have any doubts that I could go the distance, but I did wonder how much of an effect only training for three weeks would have. In the end, I didn’t make my goal, which was to beat my Lake Placid time of 2 hr, 57 min, 54 sec. With an official time of 2:59:45, I missed it by less than two minutes, so I’m not too disappointed. It’s still my goal for my next half, which will be in May. As far as running, I was able to run for the first 9 3/4 miles before I had to start doing a run walk. I really walked most of the last three miles. Again, not too bad considering we didn’t run for our last two months at Amazon.

The day got off to a bit of a rocky start. We left the campground right on schedule at 5 am. We got to Key West around 10 after 6, and there was A LOT of traffic. We went into the parking garage we had located, only to encounter a stream of cars coming down. Yes, it was FULL. We had a few panicky moments while we looked for a place to turn around. After going up a couple levels, we did find a more open area and we were able to make a u-turn and head back down. But now where to park? The stream of cars ahead of us was making a left at the light, so we went straight and randomly turned off into a residential area. We were so lucky that we only had to go about three blocks before we found a parking spot. We were just thankful that we had rented the car. Parking spaces were at a premium.

 

We ended up getting to the start line with about ten minutes to spare. Not really the way we wanted to start our morning, but we were taking an all’s well that ends well approach!

 

 

The starting line is that yellow and blue arc off in the distance.

 

 

 

We started off our run through the streets of Key West.

 

The route then took us by the southernmost point. Some runners were stopping for pictures, but we had hit our stride at that point and didn’t want to stop. (We’ll go back for our photo op on our next time over to Key West.)

 

 

From there the route wound over toward Roosevelt Blvd. where we were treated to some beautiful scenes for the next several miles of the run.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think it might have been one of the more scenic halves we will ever do. It was beautiful.

 

And here we are with our finisher’s medals! Another run in the books.

 

We had intended to spend the rest of the day in Key West. But neither of us was feeling up to doing a lot of walking. So we’re going to go back for another day sometime in the next week and a half before it is time for us to leave here. Now that our half is over, it’s going to be time to move on before we know it!