Miami Marathon

For $10+ per mile, I expect perfect organization and didn't get it. The GOOD- great medal; organized start area; scenic course; water stops after the split; traffic control. The BAD- I registered in Nov. and could not get a shirt anywhere close to my size; dynamic bib number assignment is useless and led to my getting a wrong corral sticker; the pinch point/ bottleneck at the 1/4 mile mark; overwhelmed water stops B4 the split; mostly overly-diluted Gatorade; lousy runner post-race food and drink; no one at the finish area to help me get a lost cell phone back to its owner. The heat and humidity were rough, but probably not unusual for S Fla. even in the middle of winter.

I'm an 8-time marathoner and ran this as a half marathon. I would not come back to run the full. The course was incredibly crowded and while that can add to a fun energy in this case, I have never seen so many people just stopping to take selfies. I'm not an elite runner by any means but this was too much of a 'fun run' even for me. The waiting to start was also a bit much - I appreciated the corrals by time but my group didn't start for almost 40 minutes after the race start.

Note that I ran the HALF MARATHON, not the marathon. It is LONG. And it's not just Garmin drift. It's more like 13.3, not 13.1. Go on Athlinks and look up results from the winners all the way down. The mile split at 21k and the mile split at the finish would yield results like 18-minute miles for that last 0.1 mile if this were a straight-up 13.1 mile course. I get that many point-to-point courses are slightly long (just to make sure for USATF purposes that a point-to-point course meets the stated length), and Garmins get weird about cloud cover, tall buildings, and running tangents and around people. But not to this degree and so uniformly. The winners' splits on Athlinks for 21k and 'the finish' are just as weird as the midpackers' splits, so the length discrepancy can't be attributed to midpackers jogging through traffic. ALL OF THIS SAID... If you want a warm-weather 'tune up' practice race to help set you up for a bigger goal, bust some rust, or just practice racing - Miami is great. Amazing expo in one of the coolest 'hoods in the country, if not the world. Wynwood SLAPS. Linger there a bit. BALLER MEDALS Enough crowd support (at least for the half) when you need it Gorgeous views Challenging, but fair course - bridges are hills (but what goes up comes down), and the wind / heat / humidity is a big variable. Given this, I would NOT recommend the Miami half (and, to some extent, the full, since I think the full marathon is also long - just not as over-long as the half) as a goal race where you're aiming for a certain official time or simply an official PR. But there's a lot that this course and overall experience can offer if you come in with the right mentality and information.