Kings of South Beach

Editor's Note: this piece was originally published by Scotty Doesn't Know, who apparently "doesn't know" how to delete posts. Just kidding, Tom. So instead, I'm hijacking the post for my own use.

Last Saturday, I detailed the results of Dusty's fake 5k and Dave Berdan's USA Half Marathon Championship race.

Of course, by now, you've all heard the story of the ING Miami Half Marathon, but it never hurts to retell it. The details of the trip are largely inconsequential; for Barf, Zero and myself, Thursday night was a late one. For me and Zero, so too was Friday night. Saturday we hit the Everglades for a few hours, and came back and all felt pretty tuckered out. By the time heads hit the pillows on Saturday, I was fully anticipating the same old story. Start out okay, fade by the time we hit Ocean Drive, suffer, barely make it to the line and feel terrible all day after.

I couldn't have been more wrong. Zero kicked things off for the crew, running a 1:20:08. His previous best half marathon was a 1:23:24 or something like that. Insane PR. Maybe it was the new shoes. Along the way he set a 10k PR, and also ran his 3rd fastest 10 miler. Kevin has run faster half marathons, but he has never run as fast in Miami as he did on Sunday. 1:39:04 represented a 5 minute course record for him.

But then came Joel in the marathon. Before the race he told us his plan of negative splitting, and running under 2:55. While I have supreme confidence in all of our group reaching their goals, this was quite lofty. I mean, nobody runs well in Miami. Nobody. It also would be at least a 13 minute PR for Joel. So he goes out and is running his race, Dusty jumps in from 6-14 and runs along with Joel, who at this point is ripping miles off in the low 6's. He comes through the half in 1:26:05, which would have been a half marathon PR until this past December. Surely he had to fade, he just had to. Rather than fade, he accelerated, negative splitting by 45 seconds or so, and coming through the finish in a glorious 2:51:21. This was not only the race of his life, but one of the best races I've ever seen in my life. And it all happened in Miami.

Needless to say, Joel was our Purple Drink Athlete of the Week. Then we enjoyed the rest of the beautiful Sunday before returning to windy, cold, snowy winter.