Race Report – 2016 Space Coast Half Marathon

I love this race.  LOVE this race.

For the fourth year in a row, I ran the Space Coast Half Marathon the Sunday after Thanksgiving.  It’s become part of my holiday tradition.  Stuff face on Thursday, fly to Florida on Friday, visit Kennedy Space Center on Saturday, race on Sunday.  (Then gallivant around Disney.)

This race is so well organized and so much fun to run.  Of course, it doesn’t hurt that a good number of the people running have raced before so they know what’s going on.

The race starts and ends at a park.  The race provides transportation, but we’ve found it easier to just drive in and park.  This year, Liz drove us in and dropped us off which was a huge perk.  As per usual, met up with friends and waited for the race start.

Pro tip – there are indoor bathrooms.  Avoid these.  Just go use the portapotties.  The indoor bathroom line is ridiculous and by the time you get through the line, they will be just as gross as the portapotties, if not worse.

One thing I love about this race is that it’s an out and back.  That means that if you know anyone else running, you’re all but guaranteed to see them out on the course.  It also means that you get to run by some fabulous spectators twice.

The residents in this part of Cocoa have to deal with their road being pretty much shut down thanks to the race, and many of them handle it quite well.  There are a lot of people out in their yards, watching and cheering.  And some of them get really into it, cooking breakfast and providing all sorts of drinks for the runners.  I’ve never seen so many different alcoholic options on a course before.  Very impressive, Cocoa residents.

As for my race, it went surprisingly well.  I wasn’t sure how it would go since the race is often terribly humid, but this year was a bit cooler than normal, which made me happy.  I wanted to run a sub-3 if I could.  My training hasn’t been stellar, as it’s technically my off season, so this race was just to see what happened.  And I ended up with a course PR – 2:55:14.  Not by much – only a minute or so.  But it felt awesome and I had a great time, so I’ll take it!

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