Warm and humid!

I attempted to do heat training while living in Greenville, SC but the first part of the year has been predominantly cold. Most of my heat training sessions had to be on the treadmill. The heat and humidity in Jacksonville definitely affected me, but I could see during the race that a lot of other people were impacted just as much if not more.

Many things were different about this years race due to construction at the stadium. The Expo was located 20 - 30 minutes away from the race hotel. The start and finish line were in different locations. The start was right next to Maxwell House coffee. Most of the course was the same as usual though.







At the race start, I started off conservatively and had a good first few miles working the pace down into that sub-1 hour zone but then it really started to heat up when we hit the sections of full sun. Miles 6-8 got slower and slower. I felt like I was fairly strong up the bridge (at least compared to everyone else who was struggling) but wasn't really moving all that quickly. The new finish line was at least a quarter mile further away from the bridge than previous years and that last little bit was a struggle.
Marathon-Photos got a very nice finish line photo of me:



Despite running 3 minutes slower than last time, I still managed to earn 3rd place in my age group with a finish time of 1:01:31.

Age Group Results:



Results: https://my.raceresult.com/383493/results

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/17638234588


Nice very "Florida"-colored race t-shirt, pint glass, age group award, and a top-10% finisher hat. Saucony Endorphin Pro 2 shoes are quite old now but still serving me well.