Absolutely LOVED this run!…read more The parking and getting to the starting line was a bit of a mess, but besides that, all was great! There was entertainment along almost every single nook and cranny of the run- singers, dancers, DJs, bands, etc and a fringe benefit to running up and down 8st was that I got to see/find a lot of the restaurants I'd been reading about on here, but had yet to go to like Le Baguette and a Mexican taco place! The fact that the night was cool and crisp paired with the fact that there was beer at the finish line made me run faster than ever. There was paella at the finish line too, but really....all I cared about was the beer. This has been my favorite race to date. I can't wait to do the hooker run...i mean...calle ocho run...again next year!

In 2023 I ran the Miami marathon for the very first time. I spent months leading up to the race…read moretraining and building my stamina. The race was so much fun (and harder than I expected). But the scenery was beautiful, the crowd cheering was motivational, and the volunteers passing out water were helpful. Twenty- six miles later and I made it to the finish line filled with a feeling of accomplishment. I would absolutely run another marathon! Something to check off the bucket list!

1/29/2017 - First time running this race, 6th half marathon and 1st this year. This is a race you…read morewant to do at least once. It is the fastest growing race, and it brings runners from all over the world. The City of Miami did a great job coordinating the race with the police department. The traffic ran very smoothly throughout. It was a bit chilly but I dressed for the weather so I was fine. I got into my corral, letter H at 5:45am. You are placed in the corral based on your half marathon time. My best was 2:27 in 2016. The race was scheduled to start at 6am. Well, the race started and it was by corral at every 5 minutes. We were standing packed like sardines in the corral for 30 minutes. At least, we kept each other warm. It wasn't until we were called to the front that the rain started to pour and did not stop throughout the entire race. It was a cold, windy and rainy race. The views are absolutely spectacular whether it rains or not. The course takes you through the McArthur Causeway where you can see the cruise ships, the beautiful Miami skyline, inside South Beach and the Venetian bridge. The race finishes at Bayfront Park where they set up a huge party with vendors and a big stage with music. Once you cross the finish line, you go through the complimentary food area. They had bananas, individually wrapped bagels, oatmeal cookies, pretzels, power bars, waters and Gatorade. Then you collect your gorgeous medal and take pictures. This year was their 15th year of the Miami Marathon/Half Marathon and they gave a commemorative medal. Even with the 4 bridges, rain, cold and wind, I ended up beating my best time by 9 minutes. My official time was 2:18:24!!! Very happy with that. THANK YOU MIAMI!

4th full Tough Mudder and am just so disappointed. Loved my first couple TMs, but this one was just…read morea total letdown. - One, totally not a fan of the 2-loop course. What in the world. It seemed like a way to "cop out" of putting up the 20+ unique obstacles. Instead, we had 16 or so obstacles and had to re-do a few of them. - Missed obstacles like Arctic Enema. It felt like we had all the janky obstacles for the first 90% of the run. All of the fun ones were saved for the 2nd loop and stuffed into the last 1-2 miles (i.e., blockness monster, happy ending, funky monkey, etc.). Really disappointed in the layout. - Like the other reviewer mentioned, there was... No. Mud. Perhaps that's a fault of SoFlo since our dirt at this park was more like sand... but it felt like I was at a beach moreso than going through an actual mud run. Absolutely no mud. - No premium parking. In the past, I've always been happy to pay the $25 or whatever to park closer to the venue. In this instance, it was $20/vehicle, and premium parking didn't exist. Not only that, but it took over 30 minutes to park... This isn't Disney, folks! - Photographers... were placed SO badly! There was one that was just randomly placed in a field. WHY? Put him by an obstacle! There was no one by Berlin Walls; no one by Hero Carry; no one by Funky Monkey... It's fun getting to see the photo documentation of you championing the obstacles, but not this time. - Ran out of Small tech t-shirts... followed quickly by the Mediums. I have no idea what's going on with TM this year. :/ First time I've been to an event that ran out of Ts. + Only pro is the community. Still great camaraderie; everyone is always willing to help out others up and over obstacles, etc. Overall, just super disappointed. I think this will be my last Tough Mudder. In the future, I'll probably be looking for other mud runs. :(

This was my 3rd Tough Mudder and the worst one I've done. There was almost no mud or water courses…read more We also had to repeat several courses twice for the for the "full race". Not going to do it again in Miami.

I recently participated in the first ever Coach Spo's 5k benefiting Nicklaus Children's Hospital…read more and I loved it! First of all, the cause is wonderful - who doesn't want to support children in need? The race course starts at the hospital and then takes you through the Schenley park and Coral Gables. It's a beautiful course that has you passing by lovely homes and the weather in December is perfect for a 5k. This race was really nice because it felt like a great sense of Community. You had coach Spo there and many heat players with lots of activities for the folks to enjoy. Aramoa was doing free coffee and there were plenty of food trucks and things to do. Overall, this is a race I'd look forward to doing again. Great cause, great course, and a great way to celebrate the holidays.

Very aptly named, the Miami Nice Triathlon is everything that is good about Miami, not only is it a…read morewonderful event set in arguably the most beautiful multisport courses, but it is also staged for two great causes. It was created to promote healthy lifestyles and physical activity, and also and most importantly, in partnership with the City of Miami and Hands on Miami, to plant 1,000 trees in the next few years, thus making Miami a better place to live, work and play. The Miami Nice Triathlon follows the same course as the now internationally famous Miami International Triathlon which takes place in March and is one of the premiere races to jump start the Triathlon season. Miami Nice gives athletes the opportunity to gage their progress through the season as it stages two races with the same name, one in June 9th and the second installment in August 29th. These are perfect dates to participate in such competitive and challenging races. The early date allows for a review of the training and results and yields invaluable data to make the necessary adjustments to ensure a high performance season. The latter date is ideal to refocus and prepare for the late fall and end of season events. As mentioned before, the course of the Miami Nice Triathlon is world class, first the swim which takes place in a quiet inlet, it is open water but with little to no current and a very safe course. Exiting the water after 1500 meters of a good swim leg, comes one of the most exhilarating bike courses in South Florida multisport. Traveling through the Rickenbacker Causeway, the athletes have the opportunity to take in the beautiful Miami Skyline while testing their legs going over the William Powell bridge not one, but four times as they travel through two laps of the same route. With ocean views through much of the bike leg, the competitive and inspiring. After 24.8 mile bike leg, the participants shake their legs through T2 to begin a very unique 6.2 mile run, here the runners literally run through the woods, a shaded path that feels more like a trail since much of it is on soft packed dirt, covered with pine needles. It brings you close to nature and the runners welcome the much needed shade from the pine trees, emerging from the trail in the second lap to run a few hundred yards towards the finish line. There is no way to describe the feeling of accomplishment that an athlete feels when they drape the medal over your head and you check off one more successful Triathlon off your bucket list. The Miami Nice triathlon also has an option of a Sprint Distance race, a 750 meter swim, 12.4 bike and 3.1 mile run makes this the perfect first time race for anyone looking to try a tri.

The inaugural 2012 Key Biscayne Half Marathon took place under pretty awful running…read moreconditions--high winds and blowing rain--but the organizers managed to keep it together. The aid station volunteers were encouraging and on top of things and the aid stations themselves were well maintained and spaced out nicely along the course. Despite the discouraging weather, there was a good turnout and I was pleased to see so many spectators stoically waiting and cheering under umbrellas and ponchos along the way and at the finish line. The decision to add the Powell bridge to the middle of the course was an interesting one, to me--I found it manageable because I run that bridge almost every day, but I'm sure people who are unused to it might have been a little overwhelmed. Unlike the Miami Beach Halloween Half Marathon, I doubt this will ever be a PR-setting course for many runners simply because of the vertical challenge, but the views are great and meandering through Crandon was fun. Four stars because the tech shirt was a little bare (they didn't even print the year on it!) and the medal was cool, but the ribbon was generic and chintzy. It's not a huge deal but I have to withhold that elusive fifth star because it seems like they kind of cheaped out there. Still, I'll definitely be running this race next year if it's on.

I really enjoyed this race, despite the truly atrocious weather! The one positive to all that rain…read moreand wind was that it kept the heat at bay! The positives: It's great to have a half marathon so late in the "season"! Many races in South Florida are all bunched up in November - February, so it's really nice to have one last one before the summer sets in. The course was fantastic! We don't have enough hills in South Florida, so being able to hit the bridge twice was a GREAT workout! It was definitely NOT too crowded. At every other race I've done this year, the crowding at the start was bordering on dangerous, but not at this one. Perfect amount of people Race day packet pickup! I did not avail myself of it, but it's really nice to have that option Friendly organizers. I finished 3rd in my age group and since they skipped the awards ceremony due to the weather, they mailed me my award promptly and followed up with an email to make sure I got it! The negatives: There was conflicting information about packet pickup times and locations. The emails all mentioned purchasing a parking pass ahead of time, but didn't give a lot of information about it. It turns out that Crandon was charging for parking and if you pre-paid, you could skip the line. I waited in that line for close to 30 minutes! Had I known, I would have just purchased the parking pass. SUGGESTIONS FOR NEXT YEAR - just add the parking onto the race entry as probably 99% of participants are going to drive there. Food area - I finished pretty early and had no problem zipping through and getting something to eat; however, I saw that it was VERY crowded as more people were finishing the race. Leaving the parking lot took almost as long as entering it. I do think that all of the negatives were due to it being an inaugural race and that the organizers will work out the kinks for next year. All things considered, it went off EXTREMELY well given the weather and the big turnout. I will definitely be running it next year!

I joined their marathon training program in September, after a year of fattening Covid-19…read more"stay-at-home" measures as a way to start moving. I didn't want to make a review right away because I wanted to go through the whole experience, but now I'm pretty sure I'm going to continue with them, so let me break it down for you. The short version, if you don't want to read a lot, is: Do it!!! The Experience: while in my youth I didn't have a car and I hated public transportation, so I used to walk a lot when possible, it's been about 20 years of being sort of a couch potato, with some brief stints at gyms and/or riding bicycles by myself... A friend of mine is training with Team Footworks, and she made it look attractive... though I still had some reservations because, generally speaking, I've felt that experienced athletes seem to look down upon couch potatoes, even on beginners' classes. Keep in mind, these are not classes, this is training, so my expectations were fairly low. Right before the season started, they made a zoom meeting where they explained all the program AND answered all questions. And then let us go to the first session without joining yet, just as a test. Overall, first session is: pick a group you think you can keep up with. Same with the following two sessions. I bounced around a little bit on those three sessions and then it was suggested to me that I should probably join the walkers, so I did. The whole season I stayed with that group, a very welcoming and encouraging group of people led by Debby and Renee. Every Saturday, we started stretching and warming up at the route-start point (the Footworks store), and increasing the mileage every session. They recommend, in addition to the Saturday sessions, you walk/run at least twice within the week, and do a different low-impact activity on one other day to round up the training and conditioning. If you want, you can join the "fun-run" every Tuesday and Thursday, where people from different groups just meet up and do about four or five miles at their own pace. That covers the twice a week training, leaving only the low-impact activity for you to figure out. After each season there is a "big event" (what you're supposed to be training for). But since covid has been messing up gatherings, my first season ended up with as "half marathon" event organized by Footworks itself, which was fun and showed us the progress. Now I'm starting my second season. Now I'm training with the runners. What they call the 3-1 group (run three minutes, walk one to recover, the three again and one again and so on and so forth. I feel I'm probably not ready for that group yet, but they have been so supportive and encouraging that pushing myself a bit over my comfort zone actually helps me get in better shape and improve, which is the whole point of the training. Each season is about three months, they're always pointing to a specific event (marathon or half-marathon, but it's just a goal to set your sights on, not a requirement. Also the Footworks store, has products for all your running needs and they are prepared for, willing to, and happy to help you and advise you in any way you need for your training. Plus, sometimes we go to happy-hour after runs, which helps make this something more like a group of friends who train together instead of just strangers who meet up to train, and that in turn helps you have an environment that promotes your coming back and doing the work.

Team Footworks hosts many outstanding local 5k and running events and I've also attended their…read moreTuesday and Thursday evening group runs, though not religiously. I met with Eddie Suarez who introduced me to JP Huseby one weekend afternoon in early 2017 and we hatched an idea to create a 24 Hour Treadmill Challenge. The idea was to raise money for a charity. Being a fan of ultra marathons, and having run a few myself over the years, I also planted another idea to the team: why not try to break a world record. On December 30-31st between 4pm to 4pm the ideas we had been planning became reality: over $10,000 was raised for Make A Wish Foundation; ultra marathon legend Michael Wardian flew down from his home in Arlington, Virginia to try to break the 24 HR treadmill record which stood at 162.29 miles but the record stood firm as he managed just 130 miles; I ran 80 miles; Team Footworks 137 miles and Team M*ergy 126 miles. The entire set up took place outside of South Miami's Footworks store. And we had a great time! The whole event was pretty awesome and the atmosphere was also super positive. I hope we can do something similar in 2018.

I have developed a love hate relationship with this event. On the one hand, it pushes my boundaries…read moreand in the end makes me better. All three legs are pretty cool on their own - The swim is perfect, very little current in the water, plenty of space to accommodate a large field of swimmers, clear, quiet waters. The 2010 winter in Miami has been awesome, nice and cool. So in a March Sunday morning of the waters of Miami, the water was a balmy 69 degrees, the temperature was in the high 50s, which made it for a very cold swim. One can argue that it was my fault because despite the fact that it was wetsuit legal because of the water temperature, I decided against the hassle of trying to peel off the wetsuit during the swim to bike transition. So I froze my ass in the swim. In hindsight it may not have been the best strategy since I had to burn so many calories just to avoid hypothermia, I guess I paid for it in the bike and the run. The bike leg, as usual is probably the best part of this event, to see the Miami Skyline while going over the Rickenbacker causeway is pretty energizing, never mind that your legs are screaming in pain while climbing the bridge, and because you have to do two loops, you have to climb those bridges twice. The wind was either awesome or a killer, depending on which direction you were going, it was nice to have the tailwind to push you but when you turned into it, it stopped you in your tracks. Finally the run. It stands alone as a very unique running course, nestled under the shade of pine trees, it certainly is easier to log in the last 6 miles of the event without having to bake in the sun. Mind you by this time, I was all salty from the electrolyte depletion on the bike so the shade is certainly welcome. Great event from a participant's standpoint, it really forces you to push yourself which in the end leads to a wonderful achievement. But an event is not just for the accomplishments, there are also logistics, organization, and other considerations. First and foremost, safety for the participants is paramount. In the Miami International Tri you always feel safe, your equipment is secure and all efforts are made to ensure the athletes are well taken care of. However, it is imperative to consider the spectators as well, who wake up with us and support us throughout the race. From this standpoint, MIT gets a failing grade and here's why : The music sucks !!! it is everything that is wrong with Miami. This DJ makes no effort to be original, it's the same crap that you hear in the crappy events. The food, after dishing out a pretty penny to participate in this race I must wait in line for 20 minutes to grab a plate an be served like an inmate, white rice, black beans, some sinewy chicken and fried plantains, served in very controlled portions, screw that ! I may be a bit spoiled coming out of events such as the Miami Marathon or the Miami Beach 13.1 where the food was plentiful and varied and nobody to control my portions. Mind you, we pay a good amount of money to participate in these events and granted as long as I am safe throughout the course, everything is secondary. But come on ! Make it a bit more spectator friendly and make sure the after events are up to par. After all this is considered one of the 100 best races as rated by triathlete magazine. Last but not least, a huge shout out to all the volunteers who are out there making sure we are well taken care of during the race, you guys all rock !!! Thank you !! So MIT, step it up !! Greatness comes with responsibility and it is a shame to miss out on the details. This is a premiere race now, it is hard to stay on top !! Don't let it slide.

As for many of the race reviews I write are from the spectator, cheerleader and equipment manager…read morepoint of view, this one is as well. I have been to a myriad of races as such and for us who are seeing the race from the backstage perspective. Commentary as always top notch! Great job. I watched the life guards accompany the very last swimmers in, encouraging them patiently as they struggled to finish. Kudos you rock! The Expo had some great vendors but like I said.. some.. all in all it would be nice to have some more vendors there were too few. Most vendors are selling triathlon related gear (excellent! I got a great bike stand for a great price) or handing out samples of some really neat new products (loved the coconut milk samples, and the acai frozen treat and will be looking for both at Whole Foods), and a huge BOO to 100% Natural who were selling water and beverages by way of young volunteers wandering around asking attendees "Would you like some water?" and then proceeding to tell them they have to pay for it and therefore guilting them into it. They also were selling food items you get at the grocery store. What were they even doing there? No added value to the event. The parking was atrocious. JUST atrocious. We arrived at the event more than an hour early and it took us 40 minutes in line to get into the parking lot at MAST, then trek to the race site. The port o potties were disgusting since the day of package pickup, on the day of the race they weren't even an option. I consumed NOTHING besides my coffee in the morning so I wouldn't have to go to them, I left the house at 5:20AM and left the race site after 11:30AM. Put that into perspective - I didn't consume water so I wouldn't have to go to the port o potties (which also ran out of paper on Saturday as well). The 'sinks' to wash hands had no water either so you would see many people walking away with soapy hands. . The whole site is not friendly for any spectator to move around, and although I must say my encounters with all of the volunteers for the most part was great, there was one specific one who shut me in the race path by moving a barrier and then proceeded to scream at me because I needed to get out. It was like 'hon, i was TELLING you I was trying NOT to get trapped on the beach when you did that and you shut me right into the runners path". She was obnoxious. I know you are a volunteer, I have done it before, its not the most fun thing to be there at 4AM, I get it, but you and I know you are doing it to get SOMETHING in return and it was obvious in her attitude she did NOT want to be there. Sigh... the DJ. Seriously? Reggaeton? Pitbull? So loud that you cant talk without screaming? Why is it that DJ's think that if people can actually talk in the vicinity they aren't loud enough. Plus, its a race with families, and really that type of music save it for the Tools that party on SoBe, keep the events more generic. You have at least 30 years of music that everyone can listen to without the intense desire to poke their eardrums out with a blunt object. K? The food line for the racers was difficult and confusing. It just seemed that this year the whole event was highly disorganized, last year it ran so much more smoothly. For every racer you have 1 - 3 spectators please don't forget that we have to hang out for hours, please don't forget us. Let me give my thanks however, because even with those cons the event itself is a great opportunity for local and out of town racers to participate in an event that is challenging and fulfilling.