Space Coast Marathon and Half Marathon 2010 Review

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Space Coast Marathon and Half Marathon 2010 Review

Space Coast Marathon and Half Marathon 2010 Review

UPDATE: See my race photos HERE.

The Space Coast Marathon & Half Marathon is located only a few miles from the Kennedy Space Center. The Kennedy Space Center manages and operates America's astronaut launch facilities. This is were all the famous US space missions flew out of (Apolo, Mercury, Gemini, Challenger and all the space shuttle missions).

Astronaut and Me

The Space Coast Marathon is Florida’s oldest marathon and has been running for 39 years. This is a unique marathon because it is all spaced themed. Most of the race volunteers were dress up in the orange astronaut jumpers. Each rest stop was themed. Several of the themes can be seen below. (You will see Dave Mari in most of the pictures below. He provided the pictures for me)

I Dream of Jeannie

Parrothead Club (Jimmy Buffett)

Avatar

Princess Leia

R2D2

Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker

Storm Troupers

There was no race day pickup which the only issue I heard people complaining about. The packet pick up was at the Kennedy Space Center Complex. This was pretty cool because you got to see many of the old rockets, space shuttles and other space related history.

Kennedy Space Coast Visitor Complex

Below is a good summary of the cool things about this race (Source):
• Start the race to the roar of a Space Shuttle countdown and Liftoff on a Jumbo-tron
• Awesome “Astronaut” Medals
• Electronic “Space” Certificate to all finishers
• Expo and Pre-Race Dinner at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex! With Guest speakers
• Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex Discount Coupon
• “Space” Props along course and at finish line area
• “Space” Themed Water/Aid Stations all along course
• Volunteers in NASA-like uniforms and hats
• “Space” Photo opportunity with astronauts
• Opportunity to win tickets to "Astronaut Training Experience (ATX)" plus Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex admission for two people
• Official long sleeve technical T-shirt (moisture wicking non-cotton)
• Large Beach towels with race logo (instead of Mylar blankets)
• Set a PR with this year’s Pace Teams!
• A full Pancake, Egg & Sausage Breakfast and Pizza
• Race Pacer Teams
• Awards for the best space costume

The race started at 6:15 am on Sunday morning. We stayed at a local hotel that the race directors suggested. Two busses were set to the local sponsored hotels to transport the race participants to the race location. Later after the race those same busses ran till about 1:30 pm to transport the race participants back to their hotels. This was a very nice perk because it would have been hard to park in the small race area.

Prior to the race many of the Marathon Maniacs and Half Fanatics agreed to get together and do a group photo. There were about 2 dozen of us who showed up and everyone was really cool and humble. They are a great group of people. Thank you Dave Mari for all the great photos. It was really cool meeting you and I hope to see you again soon.

Marathon Maniacs and Half Fanatics

Mr Half TRIing

The race was mostly flat with some rolling hills. The course went along the bay inlet and was a very pretty run. One side of the run was the bay and the other side was really nice and expensive houses.

Typical Race View

This race was well organized and ran flawlessly. All they stations had water, Gatoraid and GUs. They had enough food (pancakes, eggs, sausage and pizza) for even the last of the marathon finishers.

I have no complaints about this race. I would grade the race a B+. It does not get an A for the following reasons:
• Many of the aid stations were ran buy teenage kids who started to not care about cheering or handing out water efficiently for many of the mid to late in the pack marathoners
• The aid stations had only the basics: Water, Gateraid and GUs I have been to may much smaller races where the aid stations were better supplied
• No race day pickup. This caused many people to have to arrive the day before to pickup the packets. It was a minor inconvenience for some people.
• The expo for such a highly attended race was very small.

Overall I would highly recommend this race. It was fun and well run

I did not race this race. I ran it as a training run. My overall time was 2:07:47. My hips were really stiff from riding the Horrible Hundred century the prior week. I just wanted to run the race and have fun. I did not really care what my time was.

I also got to meet up with fellow Central Florida blogger Kitzzy Life Style Change. She is a friend of Bonnie and a great runner.

Kitzzy Life Style Change and Mr Half TRIing

Bonnie ran the marathon. She wants to join the Marathon Maniacs so this was her second marathon in two weeks. She asked me to stay around after my half marathon to meet her at the finish line. She did not state what I needed to do for 2.5 hours so I want to the Irish bar to have a few beers. :-) She thought it was funning and got a little jealous when she called me and I was having a cold beer. See there are advantages to only running half marathons. When I finished with the beers I backtracked 2 miles into the race to run with her to the finish line. So I really did 17.1 miles today.