Doan Creek Trail Run

Last Saturday I participated in a most unique running event. Called the Doan Creek Trail Run, it was organized to highlight the beauty and adventure hidden in the ravine that runs from Shaker Heights, OH downhill to Cleveland and, eventually into Lake Erie.

It was organized by a local runner who says these trails constitute his morning commute!

A small race with entry capped at 50, it was run on very narrow, often treacherous single track paths that snake up, down and across the creek.

The race was actually three races in one day. a 7.5 mile loop started at 8:00, a 2-loop 15 mile started at 10:00 and a 4-loop 30 mile started at 12:00. These staggered times kept the narrow trails from becoming congested. I chose the 2 loop, 15 mile race.

I ran with a partner, Zachary Lewis, who is our music critic and fitness columnist for the Plain  Dealer. It was reassuring for both of us to run together because we were alone for much of it and there were lots of chances to slip and fall. We armed ourselves with Camelbacks, Gu and a small first-aid kit. Plenty of tree roots, slippery rocks and uneven surfaces challenged us on the 15-mile route we ran.

Obstacles of other sorts came our way. I was stung by a bee, almost run over by a boy on a dirt bike, and we nearly interrupted a wedding party posing for photos on a bridge that was part of the course.

We ran our first 7.5 mile loop at a good pace, but in the midst of the second loop, the numerous ups and downs took their toll, forcing us to walk up most of the latter hills.

It was a beautiful day with great weather conditions. Lots of small waterfalls on the course and an abundance of natural beauty combined with some rust belt decay that was interesting in its own way.

Tire Swing

That is a Chevy fender embedded in the retaining wall by the trail. Just on the other side is a winding downhill road on which many accidents occur. Maybe the workers found this on the side of the road and decided to place it in their work.

The race director had a tent with water, Heed and snacks at the finish. He even offered to let the finishers shower at his house after the run!

Interlochen trip

Earlier this week I made a trip to the Interlochen Arts Camp for a master class. My host, Eric Stomberg succeeded me as teacher there in 2001. He has maintained a talented and successful class since then.

My trips to Interlochen after I stopped teaching there have been nostalgic. I can draw upon my memories there as a camper and faculty member of the summer camp as well as the Academy.

I enjoyed working with his students and hearing them play. Interlochen attracts a special kind of student. Along with their talent, they are hungry to learn more about the bassoon and music, eager to be around others who share their enthusiasm.

On the day of my class I had the morning free, so I ran on the Leelanau Trail. It stretches from Traverse City up the west side of Grand Traverse Bay to Sutton's Bay.  It's an old rail line.

2 Weeks in Milwaukee

I've spent the past two weeks playing with the Milwaukee Symphony. The first week's program consisted of Brahms' Haydn Variations, the Chaconne from John Corigliano's score to the movie, "The Red Violin" and Dvorak's 7th Symphony. Joshua Weilerstein conducted and MSO concertmaster, Frank Almond performed the violin solo on the Corigliano.

In between weeks there I had a few days off, so I traveled to Illinois to visit my parents and celebrate my father's 83rd birthday. It was a restful and enjoyable couple of days. I went for two nice runs on the Jane Addams Trail.

Back in Milwaukee, our next week of concerts featured four colorful pieces:  Ravel Mother Goose Suite, Falla's Nights in the Gardens of Spain with Ingrid Fliter as piano soloist, Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture and Debussy's La Mer.

Section for La Mer: Rudi Heinrich, myself, Joshua Fleming and Beth Giacobassi

Our conductor for this week was the fine, but quirky Jun Märkl.

During the week, Beth invited me to give a class for her students at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

I enjoyed a couple of long runs on the Oak Leaf Trail and visited the Colectivo Coffee Bar in a re-purposed pump house right on Lake Michigan. My guest there was former MSO piccolo player and former Clevelander, Judy Ormond.

I also met Rudi for coffee at the Anodyne Coffee Bar located in the Bay View neighboorhood.

Milwaukee week

I am currently on a 6-month sabbatical from The Cleveland Orchestra. While still teaching my wonderful students at CIM, I will use some of my free time to play with the Milwaukee Symphony.

Milwaukee's Principal Bassoonist, Ted Soluri, recently won the Principal Bassoon position in the Dallas Symphony and has a leave of absence from the MSO. Thus, the need for a substitute.

Last week was my first week with the group and I thoroughly enjoyed it!  Milwaukee has a great orchestra with so many fine players. I was given a very friendly welcome and was impressed by their ensemble, great balance and intonation among other things. It was easy for me to fit in.

Rudi Heinrich and Beth Giacobassi, the two members of the bassoon section were very accommodating to me. Both are great players.

The program consisted of Elgar's "In the South", Dukas' "La Peri" (fanfare and symphonic poem), Sibelius Violin Concert (with Karen Gomyo) and the Firebird Suite.

Rudi played principal on the Elgar and Dukas. I played principal on the Sibelius and Firebird and second on the Elgar and Dukas. Beth played contra on the Elgar, second on the Sibelius and Firebird and third on the Dukas.

Milwaukee has three-person woodwind sections. Unlike our four-person sections in Cleveland, there is much more rotating from one part to another in the sections in a week's repertoire. I gather that the assistant principals play a good amount of second, along with some principal duties, while the players of auxiliary instruments (piccolo, English Horn, bass clarinet, contrabassoon) play more on the main instrument (flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon) than ours do.

Thus, with this week's program order, Beth needed to switch immediately from the Elgar's substantial contra part to the second bassoon part for the Sibelius (with its treacherous second movement) with very little time to even try a bassoon note in between. She managed this beautifully every time!

 Rudi took me out for coffee on Saturday morning. We found a good place at the Colectivo coffee bar in the Third Ward neighborhood. I enjoyed a really nice cortado and bought some of their roast -- the Java Blue Batavia, a really great light roast.

Running in Milwaukee is terrific!  They have done a wonderful job in preserving the lakefront -- shame on you, Cleveland!! The Oak Leaf Trail skirts Lake Michigan and also veers into town, following the river.

The area near the Marcus Center (home of Uihlein Hall) has some interesting sights. Among them is an ice skating rink across the street.

And this church:

Wonder what they serve for Communion?

Luxembourg -- running and concertizing

Our next stop was Luxembourg. It has a wonderful, modern concert hall -- the Philharmonie. A good acoustic and a feeling of comfort on stage made for a good concert. We have played here often. Here is a good rundown of my experience there in 2011.

Running in Luxembourg is a pleasure. In the center city there is a series of parks that are great for shorter runs. For longer runs with lots of hills, there is the gorge or Grund.

This extremely picturesque area is full of lush greenery, cool streams and medieval ruins. It's easy to get lost down there but, if you're not running for time, it can be stimulating and adventurous.

I used some precious spare time in Luxembourg to get caught up on reed making. As many hotel rooms have poor lighting for this purpose, I try to bring along my Ikea LED lamp. It's flexible and has a USB connection. The adaptor for European outlets is separate.

Running in Geneva

The Jet d'Eau in Geneva

I'm writing this from the cafeteria at CERN in Geneva. If my prose is a little lacking in self-confidence, it's because the IQ level in this room may be higher than in any other cafeteria I've ever been in!

I'm at the beginning of a 3-week European tour with the Orchestra, spending the first free days with my daughter and son-in-law in Geneva. He works at CERN.

Earlier today I went for a beautiful run along the shore of Lac Leman. There is nothing like good, vigorous exercise for getting over jet lag.

Like many Swiss cities located on lakes, there are very fine paths for bikes, hikers and runners to follow along the shore. My route followed the western shore of the lake, going out of the city, past the World Trade Organization headquarters, by the Botanical Garden, turning around after about 3 1/2 miles and going back.

Yesterday, I visited the church at which John Calvin preached in the 1500's. St. Pierre's is notable for its lack of decoration or ornamentation, undoubtedly removed or destroyed during the iconoclasm of the Reformation

There were are few remnants, however, including a beautifully carved 15th century choir stall.

Here is a Flower Clock that Francaix would have liked!

Tomorrow I will train to Brussels to be reunited with my bassoon and start the hard work of this tour. I now routinely pack my bassoon in the instrument trunk, due to its ivory bell. Our orchestra management has been successful in navigating through the shoals of re-entering the US with the Fisheries and Wildlife people. Traveling with it by myself, I would be tempting fate.

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Race training

I haven't blogged about running in quite a while. However, I've managed to keep going in the meantime.

I'll be running the Cleveland Marathon on May 17th. I've been training for it all winter and spring using "Coach Jenny's" training plan.

Jenny is Jenny Hadfield, a running coach. Her website offers free training plans. Since I've run several marathons, I chose her advanced marathon plan.

It is lengthy! Since I was already in decent shape, I jumped in starting at Week 6. I like the gradual nature and the variety of workouts. I'm very bad at cross-training during race training, so this plan makes me get on the bike, rowing machine and hit the weights a couple of times each week.

My long-term goal is to qualify for and run the Boston Marathon again. I ran it in 2009 and qualified again last year. However, we were on tour during the online registration period and it slipped my mind!

Last weekend I ran a training race -- a 10 miler. I decided to run it at my goal marathon race pace -- 8'10" per mile. I am prone to get excited by all the pomp and circumstance at the race start and go out too fast, adrenaline pumping, so this would be a good exercise on pacing myself.

About 1/2 mile from the end of the race we went through a tunnel. I saw a really short little kid running just ahead of a group of four of us adults. This kid was really moving!  I shouted encouragement to the boy and the rest of the adults followed suit.  I ran with him to the finish, inspired by his prowess!

Here we are at the finish line!!

Tour -- Paris

Our next stop was Paris. We were booked for two concerts in the Salle Pleyel. The Salle is near the Arc de Triomphe, a few miles away from the center of Paris.

In a previous post I described some musical walks I took in Paris. This time I'd like to discuss where to go running. Paris is a big, busy city with lots of traffic of all kinds, so running can be frustrating and even dangerous.

However, there are some good places to go. The public areas around the Louvre and Tuileries are fine for short runs of a couple of miles or so. The Parc Monceau around the corner from our hotel is also fine for quick exercise.

If you want longer runs, though you have two choices (at least these are the obvious ones). The first follows the riverside promenades by the Seine. While these don't cover the whole length of the river through the city, they are very nice and give views of the city you can't get elsewhere.

The other place that affords the runner the opportunity to really stretch out and get away from the city while remaining reasonably close is the Bois du Boulogne.

This is a large area that has lots of woodsy paths of all kinds from dirt to pavement. There are numerous routes to take and plenty of things to view while running.

And I do mean plenty . . . for these woods have been used for centuries by those practicing the world's oldest profession! In the more remote areas, bikers, walkers and runners will encounter women plying their "trade" in various forms of attire (or lack thereof).  Some have vans or huts in the woods for use with patrons.

If prostitution is illegal in France, the law is certainly not enforced in the Bois du Boulogne. We saw plenty of cars stop and wait at curbside for the "workers" to appear.

One of Manet's most famous paintings deals with the subject of prostitution in the Bois.

Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe is the painting above.



















'

Tour -- NYC

New York

To start our tour we made a short stop in New York. Not originally envisioned as part of this European tour, it was added after the fact. We played in Avery Fisher Hall as part of the White Lights Festival. The term comes from a quotation by Arvo Pärt in which he describes his music as having the characteristics of white light (White light contains all the colors of the light spectrum).

Our program was  indeed colorful, but perhaps Olivier Messiaen's "Trois Petite Liturgies" with its kaleidoscopic tonal palette fit the Festival's theme most exactly.

I played on the Beethoven Mass in C Major. Overshadowed by the  Missa Solemnis, it is a beautiful, concise work. We performed it with our Chorus and will feature it several more times during our tour.

The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus has not toured with us for several years. It is a pleasure to have more Clevelanders with us on this trip.  Their itinerary doesn't exactly match ours as there are several programs on this trip that do not use the Chorus.

They had a long day: travel, performance and then travel.  The Orchestra flew the Chorus back to Cleveland right after their performance to save on hotel rooms.  The Chorus will not join us until Frankfurt a few days later.

After the Avery Fisher concert, Phil Austin, his wife Emily, who is a Chorus member and I met Lenny Hindell, former Second Bassoonist of the New York Philharmonic for a late-night snack.

The next day I went for a run in Central Park. The finish gate for the New York City Marathon was still up (the race was two days earlier).  One day I hope to run THROUGH that gate!

After my run I cabbed uptown to the Manhattan School of Music where I gave a master class.  Before hand I stopped in for an espresso at Kuro Kuma nearby.

The Marathon That Wasn't

As many of you know, I have been training and raising money to run in the New York City Marathon this year.  You may also know the Marathon was canceled due to the devastation caused by Sandy.

I thought I'd write a bit about my personal experience in New York this weekend.

Yes, we did fly to New York on Friday, expecting the race to be on.  Every day, several times a day, the mayor, the New York Road Runners officials and Team Boomer (my charity team) through emails or the media told all of us that the race WOULD take place.

This situation obtained until Friday evening when Mayor Bloomberg canceled the race.  We found out while still on the plane at LaGuardia from the woman in front of us when she turned on her phone upon landing.

The mayor made the right call.  I just wish he'd made it earlier in the week.  Thousands of people traveled like us with the expectation that things were normal enough in New York for this event to take place.

However, when the race officials and volunteers were seen loading generators and tents for the runners on Staten Island (the starting point of the race) while rescue workers were still pulling BODIES out of houses nearby it became clear that holding the race was a bad idea.

This may have been the turning point in the decision to cancel the race.  Even thought the race was donating a large sum of money and aid to the relief effort, it just seemed wrong to a lot of people that this thing should go on.

Twitter and Facebook (one of the times I am glad I don't use either of these) were loaded with venomous, even violent threats against the runners.

I was able to contact my friend, bassoonist Louie Nolemi and his wife Joanne and hear that they were OK and helping out flooded out neighbors there.

Without much hesitation, my family and I decided to go ahead and spend the weekend in NYC.  For me this was never solely about the race.  I'd raised over $5000 for the Boomer Esiason Foundation and we had planned a family get together in New York for that weekend.  The race was just one of the events we had scheduled.

My older daughter, Grace, was to celebrate her 21st birthday with us there along with her boyfriend.  Unfortunately, her airline DID cancel her flight and the friends who were going to put the two of them up for the weekend had vacated their home in Larchmont, NY because they had no power! 

We also had big plans to spend some time there with my brother in law and his family.  His daughter, Allie is the one who has Cystic Fibrosis. John was also registered to run the race.

The hotel check-in was interesting because we hit the lobby just after the cancellation announcement.  The check-in line was long, packed with runners wanting to change their reservations or just leave to go home.  We saw a large group of runners from Chile and felt bad that they, along with thousands of others had made the long journey to the USA only to have their plans thwarted by the disaster.

Later that weekend we had a long talk with a couple from Englewood, NJ who were staying in the hotel because they had been displaced from their high rise condominium.  Eight months ago they had moved from their house in Staten Island to NJ -- a good decision in retrospect, but there they were with their dog in the hotel for an unspecified amount of time.

I wonder how many Manhattan hotels are now housing people displaced by the storm?  Was I taking a room away from a family that needed it?  We also noticed many Red Cross personnel in the hotel.

However, there were very few signs of the storms in our part of Manhattan (around Grand Central Station). Everything was open except Central Park (which opened on Saturday) and a couple of blocks around Carnegie Hall where a large crane had bent back on itself in the wind. You may have seen this on the news.

The Cleveland Orchestra is booked in Carnegie Hall for a concert on the 13th.  I wonder if we'll be going?  The streets surrounding the hall and the hotel the Orchestra will be staying in were closed off.

We spent our weekend visiting some of the famous places near our hotel.  My nieces had never been in NYC, so it was fun to watch them experience things like ice skating on the Rockefeller Center rink, going to Times Square, etc.

I understand that many runners went out to Staten Island to volunteer.  Others ran the course themselves on Sunday, there was even an unofficial marathon in Central Park, complete with water bottles and bananas for the finishers and cheering crowds.

You've got to understand that a runner spends a couple of weeks before the race recharging the batteries, tapering off the mileage and resting up for the race itself.  You become antsy, like a loaded gun mentally and physically during that period.  It feels good to let it out when the race happens.

When the race doesn't happen, it's important to find a release.  I waited until I got back home and went on a 14-mile trail run. It was colder than NYC (35 F), but the run felt good.

Running along the Danube

I use running during tours to relax, stretch out and get some aerobic activity in while seeing an interesting part of a city.  Because of the demands of the tour schedule, much of it must be done in the morning before travel or rehearsal.

Many European cities are situated along major rivers.  Much of the time there are dedicated paths along them for bikers, walkers and runners.

During our stay in Linz I ran along the Danube using the Danube River Bike Route

This is part of a route that stretches from the Black Forest in southeastern Germany to the Black Sea.  I've run along other stretches of it before in Vienna and Belgrade.

The section from Passau, Germany to Vienna (about 200 miles) is considered the best part of the route.  Here there are no roads to share with vehicles.  In some places there are paths on both sides of the river. 

In the Linz area there are kilometer markers telling you how far it is to the next city, how far to a place for public showers, signs for hotels, B & B's, campgrounds, etc. that cater to the bikers

To get to the path I just headed to the river from our hotel and crossed using a big railroad bridge.  Great views of the city, countryside and Danube all around.

Even early in the morning there were lots of people out biking and exercising.  I logged a total of 24 miles in two days on this path and felt quite safe running here. 

This was not the case in Belgrade, however. After the trail leaves Austria, the path is not marked with attractions and bikers must use city streets from time to time.  We ran through an industrial shipping area in Belgrade that felt rather sketchy.

Salzburg

Next we took a train to Salzburg.  The Cleveland Orchestra was booked for two concerts at the Salzburg Festival. 

Salzburg is known as the town where Mozart was born and where he spent his early years when he wasn't on the road with his family playing for the crowned heads of Europe.  We played in the Grosses Festspielhaus, just a few streets away from his house.

Featured on the two concerts were movements from Smetana's Ma Vlast, Shostakovich Symphony #6 and Lutoslawksi's Concerto for Orchestra.

We had a surprise when Krystian Zimmerman, the piano soloist for the Lutoslawski Piano Concerto cancelled at the last minute.  After much frantic phone calling to find a replacement, the piece's performance was cancelled. 

In its place we scheduled a repeat of the piece we commissioned and premiered a few days ago in Lucerne, Matthias Pintscher's Chute d'Etoiles for Two Trumpets and Orchestra.  Mike Sachs and Jack Sutte, Principal Trumpet and Second Trumpet were called back into action for this performance.

The Salzburg Festival is one of the most exclusive music festivals in the world. It was started in between the World Wars by prominent German artists such as Max Rheinhardt and Richard Strauss.

Along with us, the lineup for this year's Festival included a production of Handel's "Julius Caesar" with an all-star cast.  An old friend of mine, Ed Deskur, was playing horn in the Handel orchestra. 

On one night we both had concerts (the Festival has several concert venues in the same complex).  However, Ed only played at the beginning and end of the opera.  Julius Caesar is a FIVE HOUR opera, so he had lots of free time in between.  He snuck backstage at our hall and met up with me during my intermission. He ended up staying to hear the rest of our concert and then went back to play the last few minutes of his!

The next day, we got together and hiked up to the castle on the mountain overlooking Salzburg.

During our stay in Salzburg, I also had a chance to see another friend, Stanley Hale.  Stan lives outside of Vienna and caught a train to come up and spend an afternoon with me. We hiked up the Kapuzinerberg and then had dinner.

The orchestra left the next morning for Linz.  Since it was a day off, I stayed an extra day and went for a long run on the path by the Salzach river that morning.

After the run I went to my favorite coffee bar for an espresso and some breakfast. 

The Salzburg Cafe Primadonna is not the fanciest coffee bar in Salzburg, but it is quick and the coffee is expertly made. The espresso is complex, rich, but not burned tasting like many places.  It doesn't adhere to the Starbucks trend of extreme dark roast.  Therefore, you don't need milk of any kind to cover the burned taste.

It is centrally located just off the Linzergasse just across the bridge from the western part of the Old City.

Later that evening I boarded a train for Linz, our next stop on the tour.

Stuttgart

Our next stop was Stuttgart.  We had a beautiful train ride here from Lucerne -- through the Alps and into Southwestern Germany in the region of Baden-Württemberg. 

Our program that night was all-Smetana -- the six movements of Ma Vlast.  Since the Smetana pieces only call for two bassoons, I had the evening off.  After checking in to make sure no one had eaten a rancid bratwurst or tripped and fell on a cobblestone path, I headed out for a nice dinner.

As an assistant principal player, touring can be a mix of activities.  You can have a work load that is a bit lighter than some of the other musicians, but you can also be called upon at the last minute to step in and play a part you weren't assigned in a very high-pressure situation.

Thus, I always understudy all principal bassoon parts for tour repertoire and keep my practicing and reed making up in the event that something happens.  And it has from time to time. . .

In this case, nothing went awry and I had some extra time to see the city.

Stuttgart is a city of contrasts.  It is a big automobile manufacturing center with Mercedes-Benz and Porsche in town.  Some of our members went to the auto museums while there.  However, it also has an impressive palace, opera house and theater in its middle along with a huge park.

The Schlosspark has several miles of paved paths for running.  I was able to take advantage of these and shake out the travel-induced lethargy in my legs here.

The city also has a large pedestrian shopping zone on the Königstrasse and the Kronprinzstrasse.

However, perhaps my most memorable experience in Stuttgart was the discovery of the Hoppenlau cemetery just a few steps away from our hotel.  Along with many Christian burial sites there was a walled-off section of Jewish graves with headstones.

Most remarkable was the fact that this Jewish cemetery dated from the 19th century and that there were no new burials in there since 1888.  The masonry was weathered and some inscriptions worn away. This was not a renovated cemetery. It had survived the Nazi period intact!  I mentioned the cemetery to another orchestra member who is Israeli and he expressed interest in seeing it.

He, too was surprised that it had survived.  He noted the pebbles and small stones that people had put on many of the headstones (a Jewish custom).  All of the headstones face east (towards Jerusalem).  He noted the Hebrew on the headstones contained a word order and syntax that is not standard today.

Born in Israel, he had never seen Jewish graves older than 1948!

Lucerne

Next we traveled to Lucerne.  This is certainly one of the world's most beautiful cities. Here is a photo from my hotel room window!  You see the Reuss river, the old wooden bridge and, in the background is Mount Pilatus, the closest mountain to the city.

We played two concerts in the Kultur and Kongresszentrum Luzern (KKL).  The concert hall is new and beautiful, very similar to Miami's Arsht Center.

Like the Edinburgh Festival, the list of performers in Lucerne is like a Who's Who of Classical music.  It's easy to run into famous people on the street.  I've greeted Vladimir Ashkenazy on a street corner and run into Pierre Boulez in a subway passage.

This time I met up with a recent acquaintance with a Cleveland connection. 

Tom Miller is a bassoonist who was raised in Cleveland Heights.  He is in the center of this photo.  Jonathan Sherwin is on the left.

He studied bassoon with members of the Orchestra bassoon section.  Shortly after college he went to Europe where he won a position in Winterthur, Switzerland.  He and his wife raised their children in Scotland, so he maintains two residences.  They manage a bed and breakfast in Scotland and Tom plays in Switzerland during the season!

I went on some nice runs in Lucerne.  My favorite route skirts the lake, going by Wagner's house, Triebchen, then through a park and into a little village also on the lake.

Running for Charity

I haven't blogged about running for quite a while.  I continue to run and keep in shape.  This summer I'm working on building my aerobic base and getting ready for some races this fall.

The main goal this fall will be the New York City Marathon!

I'm running as part of Team Boomer.  Team Boomer is run by former Cincinnati Bengals quarterback, Boomer Esiason.  He is very involved with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation through the Boomer Esiason Foundation.

That's a charity that's near and dear to my heart as my 10-year old neice, Allie Plymale has CF.  She's my hero and I'll be running in her honor.

A requirement for participation in the race through Team Boomer is raising a certain amount of money.  I started at the end of June and it has gone pretty well.  

All of the money I raise will go to fight Cystic Fibrosis.  I'll be paying my own expenses to get to the Marathon.

Some of you reading this have already donated.

If anyone else would like to, I would greatly appreciate it! 

You may donate by going to my fundraising page or by sending me a check if you prefer not to donate online.

Team Boomer is highly rated by Charity Navigator and donating is easy and very secure. 

This will be the only time I'll use this blog to ask for donations.  Thanks very much for your support in ANY AMOUNT.

Here I am finishing the 2009 Boston Marathon!

Miami Marathon

Along with 25,000 other people, I ran the Miami Marathon last Sunday. Actually, I ran the half marathon part of the race, as usual.

This was the fifth time for me for this race.  It's got to be one of the most beautiful race courses in the country.

This is a photo of the start of the race. It begins at the American Airlines Pavilion (on left in photo) where the Miami Heat plays their games.  I won't go in the building to see a game anymore because a certain former Cleveland Cavalier plays there now.

Then it goes over to Miami Beach via the MacArthur Causeway.  At this point the sun is not up yet.  The bridge has purple lights shining across the water.  To the south you can see the cruise ships docked at the port.

Once you get to the beach the sun has started to rise.  As you run north it's easy to see some of the clubs are still open and going strong.  There are a lot of spectators along the course cheering.

After eight miles, the course goes back across the water on the Venetian Causeway.  This part of the course is made up of roads through very exclusive residential areas built on small islands joined by bridges. Below is a photo of an aid station on the Venetian Causeway during this year's race.  It's a big job helping the runners to stay hydrated!

Once back in Miami proper, the course goes through a rather sketchy section of Miami before veering off from the marathon course to finish in a park just south of the basketball arena.  By now, if it's sunny, the usual heat and humidity begin to take their toll.  It's a good time to finish.

This year I took a little longer to finish - 1:39:45 or about 7:37 per mile.  My best for this course is 1:35:57. 

Since I'm a very competitive person, I thought about what might have slowed me down this year.

Besides being a year older, I missed a good couple weeks of training in December battling a nasty sinus infection, so perhaps I wasn't quite in tip top shape.

Also, it was hard to avoid indulging in holiday eating and drinking.  Being 5 pounds lighter might have helped.

Maybe the biggest factor was the start, though.  I think there were about 8,000 more runners compared to last year.  The corrals were jam packed with people.  It took me seven minutes just to get to the starting line after the start.  It took a couple of miles for the crowd around me to thin out enough for me to safely run my race pace.

I love running this race and will do it again if we're down there at the right time next January!