Gasparilla Half Marathon Race Experience
D-goal accomplished for the Gasparilla Half Marathon!
Finally!
Mission Accomplished.
I have completed my 10-Year Runniversary challenge of running a half marathon each weekend in February. If you want to go binge on my experience with this challenge, go check out my posts for the Miami Half Marathon, Publix FL Half Marathon, and A1A Half Marathon.
This past weekend I ran the Gasparilla Half Marathon in Tampa, FL. I had high hopes for this race but ended up crossing the finish line having accomplished my D-goal. Read on to find out more.
Note: there are links below that I am sharing in support of the businesses I personally interacted with; I do not receive any commission or perks from those businesses.
Accommodations
We stayed at the Embassy Suites by Hilton Tampa Downtown Convention Center. I didn’t sign up for this race until two weeks before the race, so I kept things simple and reserved a room at the race’s host hotel. This was the best decision for us as it put me within walking distance to the expo and race area and they had free breakfast for my family to take advantage of while I was running. The rooms were cozy and I absolutely loved the suite for pre-race because I closed the door to the sleeping area and was able to move around and get ready without worrying about waking my family up.
Expo
Expo was held at the Downtown Convention Center. I didn’t look at the athlete guide before leaving Miami, so I didn’t realize that expo hours were shorter on Saturday (expo closed at 3pm) than they were on Friday (expo closed at 8pm). We ended up arriving at expo at 2:30, which was enough time to grab my bib and race shirt. Most of the vendors were breaking down when we arrived, and I couldn’t check any of them out. It looked like standard expo vendors of food, gear, and title sponsor goods. We arrived so late that even the Publix hats for the runners were all out. The timing worked out though because I was able to meet the great marathoner Meb Keflezighi, who gave me a high five when I told him about my February running challenge.
Pre-Race
As the host hotel, the Embassy Suites was two blocks away from the race area. I left the hotel at 5:30am and had enough time to use the port-o-potties twice before starting my race. There were technically corrals for sub-2-hours (red bibs) and 2-hour half marathon (blue bibs) times, but entry into the corrals didn’t seem strict. I walked into a corral, made my way forward, and was running soon after the official 6:00am start time.
Post-Race
Start and finish are in the exact same spot. There was water, Gatorade, and fruit in the finisher’s chute. I didn’t realize the 8K race was starting after the conclusion of the half marathon, so there were runners everywhere! In a way, the post-race area felt anti-climactic to me and I missed getting my post-race beer (I don’t know if they had any, but I’ve been spoiled with the other February races).
On the Course
This course did an excellent job with hydration stops that included water, Gatorade, and bathrooms. I have never seen a course with so many bathrooms! This is a dream course for the runner experiencing any kind of GI issues. The first 4 miles or so loop you along one of the island neighborhoods, with the final 9 miles taking you along a beautiful waterfront path. I had two issues with the course though: (1) I was completely exposed for the entirety of the race and the sun was unforgiving; and (2) the 9 miles were on streets and I saw/heard two runners who tripped and fell due to uneven streets. I know people can fall on all kinds of courses, but after seeing the first woman down, I started to pay more attention to the streets themselves and noticed many more bits of uneven street. To be fair, we’re talking about a 2-3 inch difference in elevation, but sometimes that’s all that’s needed for a freak accident to happen. As for the weather, the course was great with having plenty of hydration, gels early on, and mist machines, but I’m realizing that the older I get, the harder it is for me to recover from mental stress of heat.
Race Experience
I always say this and I’ll say it again here: I never doubt my ability to finish a race; I worry about what it’s going to take to get me from start to finish line. I had four goals going into this race: A-goal was to PR, B-goal was a sub-2, C-goal was to finish, and D-goal was to finish with a smile. I felt very confident about my ability to at least meet my B-goal because I felt like my training was strong enough to indicate that. I spoke to my coach about it on Saturday and we talked about the importance of my mental game with this race. Yes, it was the 4th race of the month, but it was also one that we felt was the best option, course-wise, to go after a faster time. We even talked about reminding myself that running fast and tapping into my potential was hard, but fun work because it is fun to see what that potential even is. I journaled my thoughts Saturday night and woke up confident on Sunday.
This race had a bigger field than previous races and I spent the first mile or so, weaving around runners. It was within this first mile that my goal had shifted to my C-goal. By mile 4, my goal had shifted to my D-goal. Why? Well, I had a lot of time on the course to think about this, especially as the race felt harder and harder the farther into the race I went. I thought about the difference between rationally explaining something as a justification vs rationally explaining away an excuse. Hell, I’ve thought about this a lot over the last several months of running because I see the work I put in and I know what I am capable of, but it hasn’t been translating in races as I would like. The line between hard work and having fun is a thin one that I constantly dance around and along.
What happened to me on Sunday was something I have been struggling with since last summer’s Chicago Marathon training: mental fog and mental fatigue. The mental fog hit hard around mile 1.5 and lasted until mile 3 or so. I wouldn’t describe it as exhaustion per se, but more like my brain is trying to shut down and things are dulled and slowed down. In those beginning miles of the race, my brain was signing out as my body was starting to sign on. My brain didn’t even register a “This is so hard, it hurts” because my body felt fine. Imagine my frustration of having a body that felt fine with a brain that just couldn’t deal with the act of being a runner (wait a minute, do I have a teenager brain right now?!). It’s one thing to fight a mind that is registering pain in the body (that’s how I’ve gotten PRs and ran marathons, after all), but it’s a totally different thing to fight a mind that doesn’t even want to show up for the fight.
I know that running 4 half marathons events is incredible. I can rationally see the challenge and the accomplishment of it, but in its own way, it adds to this story I have been living out and telling myself over the past few months of how there is a missing piece to the puzzle that is me as a runner. Is it nutrition-related? Is it rest-related? Is it strength-related? Is it hormone-related? Is it life-related? Is it age-related? Is it mental-related? I know that PR races are those events that have an almost magical quality to them. I know that traveling for some of these races with my family adds another layer of stress to the experience. I know a lot, but still.
That’s where I’m at with this race experience: one big fat, but still.
Overall Impression
The Gasparilla Half was a mentally challenging race with a beautiful, although very sunny, course. The course was well-supported with all the bathrooms. Runners were everywhere, as was Meb Keflezighi around mile 9. The medal for this course is probably one of my favorite medals of all time. Would I do this race again? Like my post-A1A Half Marathon sentiments, it would have to be under different circumstances as a stand-alone racing event. This racing weekend, however, is the best that I’ve seen when it comes to celebrating running by having events for every runner (kids’ races, 5K, 8K, 15K, and half marathon); it really did feel like runners took over downtown Tampa and I loved every second of that takeover.
Pros
Start and finish are in the same place.
Rolling start, giving runners the opportunity to move themselves up in the corrals.
Plenty of course support and bathrooms.
Incredible views along the course and for post-race celebrating.
In-and-out expo experience with the perk of meeting Meb Keflezighi.
Post-race drinks, snacks, and pictures with pirates.
Coolest medal.
Cons
Sunny weather conditions. Obviously, race directors can control for this and did a great job with hydration and mist machines, but I’m getting more and more sensitive to the heat.
Course exposure. Beautiful views come with the price of little tree coverage/shade. I can only imagine how great this course must feel when it’s colder/more cloudy out.
No pacers. This one was a huge surprise for me as this was the only race I’ve done this year with no pacers.
Field size felt big to me.
Course awareness along the waterfront is key. I might just be feeling a little traumatized by hearing a woman scream as she tripped and fell.
Race day parking: our car was parked at the hotel, but this seems like a race where planning for parking would be important, especially as distances stagger in the busy downtown area.
You have to buy race photos from Marathonfoto (I always buy them though).
For those of you who like the numbers, this is race #4 as part of my 10th Runniversary and my official race time for the A1A Half Marathon was 2:23:19. Next up for me is recovering and letting the running shoes accumulate a little bit of dust. At the moment of this writing, I don’t want to see another start line as a runner until September; I need to REST.
Update: My excel-loving self went back to my spreadsheets to review how many half marathons I have done (I am only counting the ones I have paid to participate in) and this is what I found: I have ran a total of 57 half marathons with 50 of them being in-person and 7 of them being virtual races (thanks pandemic!). The Gasparilla Half is in-person #50 and 57th overall.
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