Recap: 2012 St Pete Rock 'n' Roll Half

This morning started at 4:50 with a bagel and coffee.  Alek and I got ready to head out to the shuttle that would take us about 1.5 miles to the race start.  Yes, this is an easily walkable distance.  But at 6:00 AM, if there's a shuttle, why not?  When we took our seats on the bus, I looked at my wrist and gave an exasperated "My Garmin!"  I'd forgotten it in the room.  I considered running without my gps watch, but my pacing would have been all over the place.  We decided to sprint back to the room in hopes that the bus would still be there when we got back.  If not, we could just walk.  We still had over an hour until the race start.

When we got back, the bus hadn't left without us!  At the start line, as the bus was unloading, no one was in a hurry to get off into the 40 degree morning.  I planned this race-cation in hopes of running in 50-60 degree weather but got stuck with 40.  Mother Nature was unkind.  We did our best to keep warm by pacing around the Tropicana Field parking lot while passing the time.  Finally I entered my corral ten minutes before the start.

Freezing in the corral.

The first corral took off at 7:30.  This group contains the race winners, people who can run 13.1 miles with a 5:00 pace.

The fastletes getting ready to start.

I was supposed to start with the 7th corral, but there was some disorganization making corral 7 fall apart.  I started with corral 6.   With a total of 12 corrals, bumping up by one wasn't too big of a deal. The race course itself was almost all flat, making it fast.  I got a bit warm during the first half while running through non bayfront areas.  

Between miles 4 and 5, non-bayfront

Miles 8 through the finish were nearly all bayfront.  This was inconvenient since by that point I'd become quite sweaty and the wind on the wet made me cold again.  There was an out and back on The Pier of St Petersburg between miles 8 and 10.  This was especially cold.  It was also neat because at the end of The Pier is an odd shaped building that houses an aquarium (but not the aquarium where Winter the dolphin lives).  

Coming back from the loop around The Pier

There was more beautiful waterfront running after this, but miles 11 and 12 took us through a residential neighborhood.  With the flatness of the course, this was a bit boring.  Also the last couple of miles did an out and back over a narrow bridge.  This was poor planning since most people like to speed up for the last few miles and its difficult in a crowd.

Overall it was a fun race.  The course entertainment was more sparse than it seemed it would be based on the map.  Fortunately I had my St Pete Valentine's day playlist to keep me entertained.

One of the band stages

I finished in 2:04:57 with an average pace of 9:32/mile.  A NEW RECORD (for me)!  

Post finish, in front of the bay with my medal!