305 Half Marathon 2022

Disclaimer: I promoted 305 Half Marathon as part of being a BibRave Pro. Learn more about becoming a BibRave Pro (ambassador), and check out BibRave.com to review, find and write race reviews!”

Two years ago this was my final race before the Covid pandemic hit the US. The last time things were “normal”, before we were hoarding toilet paper and covering half our faces. Who would think that 2 years later is it is still not the same but running races is getting a bit back to normal again.

Packet pick up –

Super easy, I went to the first day of packet pick up when it was by my house so very convenient and so fast. Showing the QR code as soon as I got to the head of the line (there was no line when I went) and was quickly handed my bag of goodies and 2 bottles of jelly bean vitamins with my bib. One of the fastest packet pickups ever!

Race morning –

Parking –

Parked in one of the designated parking garages that I always park in when doing races in South Beach. Unfortunately since it is also considered Spring Break in Miami the parking rate was $20! That sucked big time and now I know what my parking strategy will be next year for this race, and it will not include this parking garage.

Bathroom/Pre race stuff

Porta potties were plentiful and most of them under lighting, always a good thing. Got in and out in a second, no lines for these when I went. There was also a little kiosk for free cafecito, because that is so Miami. I went to the packet pick up area to meet up with my fellow BibRave pros: Fernando, Phil, Apryl and Sarah. Found Phil and Felipe first and then walked closer to the starting line and found Apryl! Sarah arrived a little later because she was doing the 5k and running for two 😉 so we didn’t get to see her for the pre race photo.

Entertainment on the course/Race

I do not run with music anymore so I rely on the interesting sights around me and the on course entertainment, there were a couple of djs on the course and great volunteers at the water stations. Always thank the volunteers! I knew early on this race was going to be a slow on, I had a stressful week and was not carbing up enough or training well for this one. I didn’t have any long runs at all between this race and Miami Marathon and it was apparent at mile 4. The wind was okay on the first part of the race, but around mile 7 I got the headwind and it was torturous. The bridges ate my legs up and then I pulled my left glute on the 2nd bridge, after that I knew I would be walking up those bridges and feeling the ache in my glute for the rest of the race. This is the first injury I have had during a race and it was pure grit keeping me moving to that finish line when all I wanted to do was walk the rest of the way. I finished the race at the same pace as I did it the year that was I was pregnant and made a port a potty stop along the way, yikes! Anyways a wise friend told me that I should not focus on the time since when its all said and done we all get the same race shirt and same medal but to be proud to achieve a finish. I gotta remember that more and enjoy the journey and the things I see along the way. Luckily I only seen one person down due to the heat I believe, at the 12.3 mile area but she was being helped by police. That finishing chute always feels good even when you are not feeling so well with pains lol. Got my medal and collected the post race food, and headed to get my pineapple series race medal. So grateful for the gear check bag they handed me to put all my post race foods and bonus beach mat in. Took a race pic with two of the BibRave pros, Phil and Fernando and headed to the beach to try to get a good pic of my medals. It was pretty windy so my medals were blowing all over the place while I was trying to get that good shot. Met up with some of my 1k teammates: The prez and the mayor of Miami running.

Overall always one of my favorite races, and this course was my first half marathon back in 2013. Challenging but doable if you actually train for it. Next year I will be back and hopefully trained better for it.

Check out my previous posts about this race series:

305 Half 2020

305 Half 2019

305 Half 2018

Are you a fan of hilly races or do you like flat and fast courses better? Let me know in the comments!

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305 Half Marathon – March 1, 2020 – Race Review

I’m promoting 305 Half as part of being a BibRave Pro. Learn more about becoming a BibRave Pro (ambassador), and check out BibRave.com to find and write race reviews!

Going into this race I was probably really under trained, well I guess as under trained as one can be 3 weeks after running a marathon. But really I hadn’t been running much in the past few weeks – first was recovering from the marathon week and then taking care of Phoebe with the flu and then getting it myself – so in the time between races I only ran minimally for 2 weeks but not regularly. I ran my longest run since the marathon on the Friday before this race: 7 miles. Maybe there is something to running less and running better or maybe it was just my new shoes and the newness inspiring me. There are so many factors that could have been at play in how I actually did at the race. I really went into this race just trying to survive and if anything get under 2:10 since I was not feeling confident about my pace/endurance.

Packet pick up for this race was the best I have experienced in awhile and one of the locations was close to my house and job, no more racing to Dadeland station to pick up my race stuff a few days before the race. I like that lately more races are having multiple locations for packet pickup to help runners in different parts of Miami.

Race morning was chilly enough to wear my earband for at least half of the race and this year I got to wear my arm sleeves, that hardly ever happens for South Florida races, the last time I got to wear arm sleeves for a race was Miami Marathon 2017. The temps were around the low to mid 50s before the race began, I headed to the port o potties before the race, this year they were in the dark, unlike last year. Got to the start line an hour before the race began, talked to a couple of friends before getting into the corral, talked to my Bibrave teammate, Mike before the race also. I did have a giggle at some participants who were wearing puffy jackets in the corral, WOW! I started out fast, as usual and got in front of the 2 hr pacer early on. Then started the bridges, Julia Tuttle, usually I feel really terrible by the time I get to the top of the first bridge but this year for some reason I felt okay and not like I was going to die. By the time I was getting out of the Julia Tuttle bridge I was still feeling pretty decent and it was starting to heat up, I tucked my earband into the back of my shorts and felt the coolness refreshing my sweaty ears.

I didn’t grab too much water and did not even use my Honey Stinger energy chews at all (crazy!) during this race but around mile 6 I got my first sip of water on the course. A few miles later the 2 hr pacer was gaining on me and getting to the water stop was a pain with a rude man cutting in front of me, nearly tripping me to get a water cup. After that water station drama and I got another sip of water I got the hell up that McArthur and away from the pace group and rude man. I didn’t see them again the rest of the race, luckily! But I was getting to the part of the race that I usually start fading but my Bibrave teammate, Mike passed me and that gave me the extra motivation to keep pushing. Mike was making it look easy as he ran ahead of me, wearing his aftershokz and not slowing his even pace, he did speed off a few miles later. At that point I was not going to slow down, I was a mile and a half to the finish line and on the final bridge was one of my favorite runners in South Florida and the mayor of Miami running, Harolyn, cheering us on and if you know her, you love her!

Probably the toughest part of this race for me was the final mile, when you are running on the beach serpentine (our boardwalk) and the sun is way up by then and it starts getting really toasty. I passed the time by watching a team of runners celebrating someone named Lisa’s 50th half? or 50th birthday? And being a Lisa, I took notice of the shirts and eventually I ran into the Lisa who’s own shirt stated : My 50th and congratulated her saying she must be the famous Lisa that I had been reading about along the course. She was happy to be recognized by her friend’s shirts and then I took off, feeding off the happy energy of the moment. In the past few years I have been less focused on my times and more on having fun while on the course, even if that means slowing down to help motivate my friends or cheering on the first place runners (in point to point races). Looking at my watch when I was about .30 from the finish line, a forever endless mile, that last one I was happy to see I would be finishing in less than 2 hrs! The year before I was a few minutes over 2 hrs and the first year of this 3 year series I was a minute under 2:00. I was happily surprise with my 1:58:25 finish time! I made sure to congratulate the girl closest to me after we crossed the line and she congratulated me too and mentioned how she was focusing on my bird shorts to motivate her to the finish line, lol. Love the randomness of that, finding something or someone to focus on to get you through the tough parts of a race. I walked around after and saw Mike after the finish line, unknowing that he had just had a huge PR! Congrats Mike on your first sub 2 half marathon finish!! I took some pics, collected my Florida Storm Series 4 medal and then headed back to the finish line to cheer on friends and strangers before I left. Plus I got to witness the bandits being pulled from the course just before the finish chute and people wearing their bibs on their back (cmon people, so much for those free race pics lol) getting offended when they were questioned about their bibs. I wish less runners had headphones on SO that they would actually hear us cheering them on!!

Overall another great experience at 305 Half and cannot wait till next year to start the 3 year series over again! If you are not signed up already, what are you waiting for? The prices are the lowest they will ever be but only until 3/10! Sign up for the only race that gives out cafecitos race morning! I signed up today on 305 day!

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305 Half Marathon 2019

I’m promoting 305 Half as part of being a BibRave Pro. Learn more about becoming a BibRave Pro (ambassador), and check out BibRave.com to find and write race reviews!

Let me start by saying I have ran this race/course for the past 7 years and every year it still feels as challenging. Some years I have sub two hour finishes, some years I’m a few minutes behind, some years I just want to finish alive. This was my first half marathon back in 2013 and even though those bridges are challenging, I continue to sign up year after year.

Last year the race was more Miami than usual with a pots and pans PR station because everyone in Miami goes out in the streets with their pots and pans for the home team victories. This year was much like last years with the 305 feel with cafecito by the starting line and lots of great food vendors afterwards. There was a major hiccup that happened a few days before the race, the race medals were on a train for California and not Florida so the race management hustled and put together a temp medal till we can get the official 0 medal to complete our 3 year challenge. Also due to the UPS mistake they gave out $5 Starbucks gift cards as well as a code for free UPS my choice premium membership for a year. I look forward to getting my 0 medal in the mail in the next couple weeks.

Now back to the changes and things that were really helpful. Usually the port a potties are lined up at the end of the starting corral but this time they were actually put into the hard packed sand across from where the finish line was and there were huge lights to illuminate them. That is perfect, well almost lol, some sand got into my sock which was kind of annoying BUT I did like the fact that it was out of the starting corral area which really clogs up the area for runners.

The iRun pacers were great as usual, I tucked in behind the 2:00 finish time pacers and managed to stick with them for 8 miles, the pace was a little faster than I expected. But after the brief rain shower at mile 7 the humidity was getting very thick. The sun burning the rain off the pavement was just a bit much for me when I had to trek up one of the final bridges back to Miami Beach, the MacArthur and so I decided to take a little walk break up it or risk fainting from the humidity. After that the flat running was working well for me and I stopped slacking a little. I got to see my favorite running buddy, Harolyn at the mile 10.5 water stop, she ran over to cheer on her friends and ended up helping out at the water stop.

I got caught by a few photographers this year which doesn’t always happen when I am running with a pace group. One caught me when I was ascending the 2nd bridge of the course, caught the grit on my face haha. I really do not like hills/bridges because I am used to training in my very flat Miami neighborhood and don’t get to make it out to Key Biscayne for tackling the large bridge anymore with a toddler. Training is a lot different now than it used to be.

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I hope that next year I will be getting a course PR during this race, that is the plan at least! Possibly a new half PR that is if I can get in some bridge training this year.

Onward to the finish line, where cold water, cold towels and temporary medals were handed out. After that you head into the post race party zone after getting some fruit/protein bars from the athlete food tent. At the back of the food tent was a chicken and rice food area, but I did not stop and try out that. I actually did not want to smell any food after finishing the rest. In that tent I prepared my Nuun so that I could hydrate back to human. Tucked a banana securely into the pocket of my Oiselle pocket jogger shorts and my water bottle in the other pocket. That is where we picked up our Starbucks card and letter from UPS about the medal mishap. I went immediately to the Florida Storm Series tent and picked up my category 4 medal, that didn’t take long at all and then walked around to see the different vendors. I ran into my Oiselle teammate Daniela’s parents who ran the 5k/half marathon at the Air Relax booth. I walked around and got some shaved ice from the Kona Ice truck and then went to the Yasso truck and had a greek froyo bar in my favorite Yasso bar flavor, chocolate chip cookie dough. After saying hi to a few more friends in the finisher area I walked back to my car and headed up. Everywhere in Miami seems to be under construction lately and Miami Beach was no different but luckily the traffic was not too terrible when I left at 9am.

I will be signing up for the 2020 race to complete my 3 year challenge, but I know that I will continue signing up for this race as long as I am able to run it. Claimed my results on athlinks right after the race and then by that evening the FREE race photos were available on the app! Sign up now for the best rates for next year’s 305 Half Marathon!

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305 Half Marathon, Are you in? (discount code too!)

Disclaimer: I’m promoting 305 Half Marathon as part of being a BibRave Pro. Learn more about becoming a BibRave Pro (ambassador), and check out BibRave.com to find and write race reviews!

305 half marathon

Have you ever wanted to run a race that was mostly along the beach boardwalk/walkway and also over some challenging bridges? Well then the 305 Half Marathon is your race!

This was actually my first half marathon EVER, but it was called a different name back then in 2013. I trained for 3 months to get to this starting line and had no idea about these bridges but still somehow managed to pull off a 2:03 finish without even hydrating during the race. I did some things wrong during that race but did learn about taking in fuel at the right times, I started burning out at mile 9 that day, it was a great learning experience. Now I run with the pace groups (iRun) for this race to keep me on pace for an under 2 hr finish.

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This year we will be earning our “0” medal to be almost done with the “305” medals! After the 2020 race we will have a complete 305 medal for this 3 year challenge of sorts. But don’t worry if you missed last year’s race for some reason you can purchase the 3 and run a half marathon on your own time to “earn” it so you can have a complete series when you run this year and next year’s race 🙂

Haven’t signed up yet? You are in luck, I have a discount code to save $10 on the half marathon and/or $5 on the 5k race that morning. Both races are taking place at the same time so unfortunately you cannot run both to get double medals 😉 Use this code : BIBRAVE305

You’re welcome and I hope to see you out there in a little over a month!

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Have you ever ran this race before? Or one of the other names this name has gone by in the past, Michelob Ultra Miami Beach Half Marathon? Allstate Miami Beach Half marathon? What do you find challenging in running a half marathon?

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305 Half Marathon – A Race Recap

Disclaimer: I’m promoting 305 Half Marathon as part of being a BibRave Pro. Learn more about becoming a BibRave Pro (ambassador), and check out BibRave.com to review find and write race reviews!

Race day attire (arm sleeves were not required)

Going into this race morning I was a bit tired, had ran the DRI hope for a cure 5k on Saturday morning and ended up taking my daughter into a pediatric urgent care later on for a fever after coughing for a week. Spent a few hours there and ended up leaving with antibiotics and nebulizer liquid for her with instructions to give her treatment every 4-6 hrs and bring her back immediately for anymore fevers. Exhausted and not going to sleep till closer to 10:30pm, I woke up at 3:30am to get ready and head to the 305 Half Marathon. Luckily I had laid out my clothing/shoes and race bag was ready to go so I basically just got up, jumped in my clothes and ate some cereal before heading out.

By some miracle we had cool weather at the start, I was debating on checking a bag or not but ultimately changed my mind, also changed my mind about needing arm sleeves for the race (good choice!) I did sit in my car for awhile in my Every Mother Counts hoodie to wait as long as possible before heading out into the cool weather. This wasn’t the 55 degree weather was predicted originally on the weather channel app but rather 60-62 degrees. Not bad but when the wind whipped through the buildings/hotels on South Beach it could feel quite nippy. Not bad though as usually this race is quite warm or even kind of rainy, in the past 6 years, this has been the coldest it’s been for this race. So I basically walked quickly to the port o potties and peed before meeting up with another running friend, Stephanie (TheCookieRunner) at the Miami Beach clock and she gave me a cool Momentum bracelet that would remind me later in the race to Just Breathe. We talked for a little bit and then I headed into the starting corral, where it was warmer with all the people crowded in. Talked to my friend, Carmen before the start and vowed that I would try to stick with the 2 hour pacer as long as possible. Starting I felt fresh and the cool air helped me in staying ahead of the 2 hour pacer at least for the first 7 miles of the race. They gave the pacers speakers filled with Miami/running related songs and just general anthems to pump you up: PitBull, Enrique Iglesias, Beyonce, Cake, AC/DC to name a few I heard while running with the group. At mile 6 I saw our Every Mother Counts South Florida ambassador, Esther and was cheered on by her. I think the ascend up the MacArthur Causeway slowed me down a bit but then a friendly cheer from my friend/mayor, Harolyn around mile 10 helped me get back out of my head and speed up a little for the final 5k of the race. Along the way lots of iRun runners were cheering us on and at the end Frankie Ruiz was running back to find his fiance to cross the line together, got a high five from him as I passed. Then Hector from iRun was about half a mile from the finish line and urged me to go faster, so I followed his instructions and sped up to even kick it up a bit and not let some other runner (guy) pass me at the finish line!

Something I did different during this race that I haven’t done before in a half marathon was not take in any nutrition. I think it helped that I had half of a bowl from Chipotle the night before and cereal race morning that helped fuel my race. I brought my Honey Stinger chews with me but never took them out of my back pocket of my awesome pocket full Oiselle pocket jogger shorts. So weird but somehow it worked, I do train with them generally and use the starting at mile 6 but this time I just didn’t need them.

I crossed the line in just under 2 hours, like literally 40 seconds or so before the 2 hour mark, I pushed at the end a little and my splits show it but I did not feel totally depleted. The course was slightly different at the end, which I did not realize until we were running it, I’m glad because that running straight into the blazing sun at South Point Pier is no fun after 12 miles! Right after the finish line after collecting your medal and water there was a pots and pans PR station where you could hit the pots and pans together in celebration for a new half marathon PR. I had no PR but saw a couple people taking advantage of hitting the pans. It’s been a couple years since Miami has celebrated in the streets with pots and pans from a Heat championship win or Castro death, haha So some folks were very eager to hit them. After that was a long line to take pic in front of the official finisher backdrop, but I had no time to stand in the line but I think it would’ve been nice to get that free photo. I got some pretzels and the food tent had the regular runner food: bananas, fruit cups, pretzels, cookies, bagels and then pastelitos, empandas and some other little hispanic dessert cups. Very cool but I was not really in the mood to eat anything and no sweets after the race. I really just wanted to get home to my sick toddler and get some rest time. I went to the Storm Series tent and collected my category 4 medal before looking around at the other sponsor tents and then heading back to the car. Took a couple pics first and headed back to the finish line for a cool pic of my medal when Frankie Ruiz and Carla Duenas were crossing the finish line together, caught a few pics and then headed back to the parking garage. The weather was awesome for the cool down walk back to the parking garage, almost a mile away. Did not have the extreme soreness when I got home and got out of my car after sitting down and driving for 25 minutes from South Beach like I was expecting.

Great race and afterwards got an email from Athlinks to remind me to claim my new half marathon result and check out my pictures later on that evening. If you do not already use Athlinks, you need to get create a profile and add all your race results from the past. You can have all your race results on one site incase you ever wonder what was your PR for a certain distance or how fast/slow you ran for that race. You can also add friends/rivals and see what races others in your area are doing, so cool. Plus the Athlinks people are super helpful and only a tweet away from solving any issue you may run into.

If you are interested in doing this race in 2019 right now the prices are the lowest they will EVER be. Register in the next 2 days and only pay $60! That is extremely low for a half marathon! I am posting below exactly how affordable prices are for the next week or so for the half marathon and the 5k option. So hurry so you can get your 3-0-5 medals and oh if you somehow missed this race but want the whole set of medals you can purchase your 3 medal when you register for the 0 in 2019!

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