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Florida > Key Biscayne Half Marathon at Crandon Park
Key Biscayne, FL • Sunday, April 14, 2013 • Course Map
Palm trees, white sand beaches and a run over a pair of bridges that span the causeway between the Florida mainland and the islands of Virginia Key and Key Biscayne are just a few of the scenes that await runners at the all-new Key Biscayne Half Marathon at Crandon Park, which makes its second annual running in mid-spring 2013.
Runners will start the out-and-back course for the race on Key Biscayne within the grounds of Crandon Park, which is something of a time capsule in some ways, as well as an example of modern Florida's real estate boom in many others. The home of Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park at its southern end and Crandon Park at its northern end, Key Biscayne is also home to a densely packed residential community in the middle of the island, with plentiful retail shops, restaurants, high-end resort hotels and marinas.
The island is also the site of the Sony Ericsson Open tennis tournament, which draws about 300,000 spectators to see the world's top players from the men's and women's tennis tours each April. However, there's also plenty of the not-so-distant past here on these islands, including remnants of the old Crandon Park Zoo, which opened back in 1948 and closed in the early 1980s. A number of its cages and exhibit buildings that once housed tigers, rhinos, elephants and more still stand today, including the tracks of the monorail train that once ferried visitors around the park decades ago.
From the starting line next to the parking lot in Crandon Park, across the street from the Tennis Center at Crandon Park, runners will follow the half marathon route as it winds along Crandon Boulevard and across the Rickenbacker Causeway to Virginia Key, which also has a significant place in Florida's recent history. The island is now home to the Historic Virginia Key Beach Park, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002 to acknowledge the beach's role in the segregation era, as it was established as a beach for only African-Americans living in the area in the mid-1940s.
This stretch of the race across Virginia Key takes runners past some of this island's both modern attractions -- it's the home today of the Miami Seaquarium and the NOAA Fisheries Science Center -- as well as parts of its history, as the course will take runners on a brief out-and-back stretch into the island's interior, where the historic park begins.
The course takes runners almost all the way to Miami and the mainland before reaching the turnaround point, and then brings them back along the causeway and back over both bridges to Key Biscayne and Crandon Park, where they'll finish the race with a run around the roads and trails within the park, to the race finish line at the Crandon Park Beach Boardwalk.
The scheduled starting time for the race is 6:30 AM, and both runners and walkers are welcome to enter the race. The course time limit for the race is 3 hours, 30 minutes, and the race will be USATF (USA Track and Field) certified. Note also that you'll need to bring cash on the day of the race, as Crandon Park charges a parking fee.
Race Weather & Climate
Nestled in the waters just off the coast of Miami in south Florida, about a 10-mile drive from Miami's downtown area, Key Biscayne typically sees April temperatures that average between 79°F and 69°F, while rainfall totals average about 3.2 inches for the month, making April one of the island's drier months of the year. On the day of the race (April 14), the average high is 78°F and the average low is 70°F.
Course Map
View the race route map for the Key Biscayne Half Marathon
Registration
To reserve your spot in the late April 2013 running of the Key Biscayne Half Marathon, register online at the event website.
Official Race Website
www.kbhalfmarathon.com
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