MIAMI!

South Beach, FL - One year ago, a hearty group of TWSS members traveled to Miami for the running of the ING Miami Half Marathon. What ensued was a trip filled with energy, awesomeness and raw fun, so much so that when we were making plans for this year, the size of the group doubled.

Once again we would be staying in the heart of South Beach, Miami's oceanfront destination for fun and sun, at the picturesque Colony Hotel.

The weather upon our arrival Friday morning sure beat that of Baltimore. Gone were the freezing temps and impending snow; we were now treated to temps in the mid 70s and sun. Once our group was complete we headed out to Ocean's 10, our spot from last year, for dinner and to start the weekend of Mojito Madness. The night was late and Saturday most were slow moving. After some more time at the beach, everyone finally went for their runs down to the Expo Center, where Terence waited in line to meet Ryan Hall.

Later in the day it was time for dinner, after which most went home to snooze before the 4am wakeup. Jen, Justin and myself (the injured list) decided what the heck, let's go out again. And it became another late night. I woke up at 4 to make sure everyone was up and ready to go before falling back asleep, but as a result I almost missed the race go by! Our hotel front door served as the mile 5 marker, and I woke up at 6:36. Grabbed my camera and ran downstairs just in time to see the first few people go by. I spotted all of our squad. 5 miles in it's still dark, but everyone seemed to be in good spirits and looked dece to dece plus. Melissa and Nina managed to give pretty good smiles as they went by. After the race - well, that's another story for most of them.

With the race done and a full day ahead of us, we were hoping for pure debauchery with the Pro Bowl in town. Instead it was fairly quiet. After getting cleaned up we headed to Wet Willie's, known for its frozen concoctions. Everyone but T partook. Terence was completely wrecked (again) after the race and was mad sleep/sick. Then Alyssa and Melissa managed to make it on New Orleans TV, who was there doing some prep stuff for the Super Bowl. They come in about halfway through the video:

Once again, Alyssa makes it in the news.

Lunch, dinner and then it was time to go out again. The weather had been relatively un-Miami-like for the day, with cooler temps, lots of wind, and cloudy/rainy skies. This, and being a Sunday, kept the crowd down. Which was probably good for us. We hit up the Clevelander again, for the 3rd day in a row, and stayed out until late. Ended the night with another trip to Johnny Rockets, and woke up to a downpour on Monday. Perfect timing, as we were headed out.

The results from the race, which really didn't matter, were okay. The highlights really all revolved around how much fun we had. As I've said before it's an absurd time, you get to do a race somewhere else and more importantly have a vacation. Over the next few months I'll start preparing for our Winter 2011 trip, and we'll see if we can't up the ante. I took 450 pictures over the weekend, so I'm working on uploading them, but in the meantime Melissa took some pictures and I'm going to attempt to link to them on Picasa (not sure if it will work)

http://picasaweb.google.com/Melissa.Bosslet/MiamiHalfMarathon?locked=true&feat=content_notification#

Oh and in case you were wondering, our Purple Drink Athlete of the Week, featured here on our PDAW Purple Chair presented by Crown Royal, is: