Yesterday I ran the Publix Florida Marathon in Melbourne, FL, and boy-howdy, what an adventure it was.
The day started out at 70F with humidity somehwere around 90% or higher. Well, so much for even attempting my 3:10 - 3:15 goal time. Play it safe, make sure I can finish properly -- pull back to a 3:30 goal time.
The race had several dozen rows of dots socially distanced on the ground in the starting corral for us to line up on. However, their speaker set-up only sufficed for those people in the front of the corral. The rest of us, around the bend on a different street, could only hear that announcements were being made, but couldn't make out any of the words being said. Apparently they announced the possibility of cutting off the marathon early.
We took off at 6:10am for two laps that would have us twice going over two nasty-steep bridges at the top and bottom of the loop. Around 1 mile into the race, I had settled into an acceptable pace that would get me ~3:30 or so, and wound up striking up a conversation with someone else shooting for sub-3:35 -- she was interested in finally getting a BQ (unconcerned about actually having a buffer to enable her to get into the race). I stuck with her, since there wasn't any pace group (despite the race website implying there would be pace groups). We paced each other.
We got through the first loop ~1:47 -- right on track for her to hit her 3:35 time if we keep pace or negative split. And we were waved on by the people pointing marathoners straight and half-marathoners (also racing at the same time) to the left where the finish line was. Turns out that less than 5 minutes later, the Race Director decided to "call the race" and end the marathon for those who hadn't yet mae it past the halfway point. The 52 of us who had made it past were allowed to finish the course.
My mom had taken her car from our hotel to the area, so she was able to drive up the open portion of the course and informed us of the race being called. However, since the race was not doing anything to get us off the course, we continued running, figuring if the race wanted us off, they would make the efforts to do so. Not much later, when we reached Mile 16, the driving rain began. As long as she could, my mom slowed creeped along to be ahead of us, and every time I would wave her off.
Then the rainstorm was clearly a thunderstorm. As we were on the bridge at the top of the loop (around Mile 20) we saw a bolt of sky-to-ground lightning off in the distance. And the worst of the driving rain was blowing us down the back side of the bridge/hill. Oh, that rain was such a relief from the heat of the day.
Alas, given the strong winds and the wicked steep hill of the final bridge, we finished shortly after 3:35, me about 20 seconds ahead of my newfound running buddy. She was thoroughly upset with herself about missing her goal by less than a minute, but on further reflection, has come to appreciate how good a time she had given the conditions. And she was 5th place overall female (Top 10 got awards).
(Pictures not properly uploading right now. Hopefully I can update this sometime later to add some photos. Especially the two of us get dumped on by the driving rain.)
