Gasparilla Distance Festival - RunHalf Marathon

My pre-race goal was to start off around 9:30 and see how I felt after a few miles and then go from there. The half & full mary both start downtown Tampa and continue to Davis Island for the first 5 miles. At the start line I was right next to the 2:00 pace group, but I really didn't pay much attention to them during the race. The first 5 miles along Davis island it was still dark outside (6-7am), and it is fairly residential so it was quiet and easy to focus on purely running. Those first miles went by quickly and I determined that the temp, the course and my body were all agreeing with me to move faster. I had a feeling I could maybe run negative splits if I continued feeling good.

I took water on the first 4 stations and on the 4th I also had one power gel. After leaving the island we spent another mile downtown before heading out to the 3 mile out and back along the gulf on Bayshore Blvd. At this point the sun was out, but still nice and cool with virtually no breeze off the ocean. I was worried that wind could have been a factor in this race, but it was not so I decided to speed things up.

I ended up taking one more gel at about 1:20 and alternated water and gatorade every station after station 5. No stomach issues and felt it was an adequate hydration/nutrition plan. Mile 7 is where I started to pick up pace and finished that mile at 8:54 and no subsequent mile was above 9 after that point (which I was very happy about).

At the mile 12 marker I saw the official time was 1:50:something. I did some quick math in my head and realized I could break 2 hours with a strong finish. That made things exciting and I said to myself lets go after that.

Finished mile 13 at an 8:15 pace which for me is really good after having already run 12. Ironically I ran into the same 2hr pace guy that I saw at the starting line. This time I saw him at mile 12.5 where he was yelling for people to get ahead of him to finish in under 2 hours. I got ahead of him and thanked him even though I never saw him on the course. I ended up finishing at 1:59:27 and was really happy with how I performed in the last 7 miles. I am starting to realize that I "can do" now instead of "think maybe I could do". Kind of a turning point for me as I continue to build confidence.



I think I could have done a better job maintaining a more consistent pace over the full race which most likely would have allowed me to produce a better finish time.

Got my medal and picture with male pirate (a somewhat creepy fella) as I walked to meet up with Colleen. They had very good post race food items of which I had a bagel, bananna, apple, and a protein shake all compliments of Gasparilla.


My own erratic pacing was the only issue.


I have absolutely no complaints about the Gasparilla race and actually really liked everything about it. The only minor issue is that they were not consistent in the hydration station layouts. Sometimes the gatorade was at the first set of tables and sometimes the water was on the first set of tables. Would have preferred all stations to be the same.