St Pete in Review

Second Stop:  St. Petersburg, FL

This was our second visit to St Pete.  Both visits have just been quick weekend trips, but we have found it to be a warm, friendly, and scenic locale.  On our last visit, we discovered the Dali museum.  It was quite impressive.  This visit did not include the museum, other than to run past, but I thought it was worth a mention.

Even vegan, we had some great dining experiences while we there.  After the race, we stumbled upon a wonderful little Greek restaurant, Acropolis Greek Taverna, where we had great service, great vegan friendly food, and thanks to Florida’s happy hour laws BOGO sangria!

Not sure if you’ve picked up on the fact that I like to celebrate my finishes with high quality beer.  I even have a running headband that declares, “Will run for beer.”  Across the street from our hotel was this cool looking place called the Kingfish Grill and Tap House.  (They had me at Tap House).  We suspected that it might be a challenge to find vegan fare, but decided we could at least enjoy a pint.  The menu supported our suspicions, basically we could order edamame and/or lettuce from the menu.  However, the waitress urged us to stay and consulted with the chef.  What resulted was that the chef custom-created the best vegan restaurant meal that we enjoyed during our vegan February.  If you are ever in Clearwater/St Pete, go see them!

Customized vegetable rolls was one of the items the chef created for us.

Race Review:  Rock & Roll St Pete Half Marathon

This was my second R&R race.  In2011 I participated in the Inaugural R&R Savannah Half Marathon. There are some things that are consistent to the Rock & Roll Race Series, so let me cover them first:

• True wave start - racers are placed in corrals according to your projected finish time at registration and then each group gets their own race count-down and send-off, especially wonderful for back-of-the-packers like me 
• Massive and consistent race support
• Generous half marathon time limits (time limits vary per race, see their website for details)
• A live band or DJ at least every mile
• High quality race shirts with female cut shirts for women
• Very well organized
• Great expos
• Finish line rock & roll party
• All participants are given bags for gear check . . . hmmm, maybe this could be a give-away item in the future, since I will be doing 6 R&R races this year

Now, regarding the Rock & Roll St Pete specifically . . .

The good:

• See above for many things I love about R&R races
• THE Sean Kingston was the post race headliner – I cannot express how cool it was to rock my way to the finish line with him on the stage, surely he was kickin’ it just for me J
• This was probably the most scenic course I have run to date
• The park & ride pass – we didn’t have to walk miles to the start line and we just hopped on the bus to get back to the start

The not-so-good:

• the HEAT – not the fault of the race organizers or even typical weather for St Pete in Feb, just wanted to mention it that it is a possibility for those who might be considering this race
• Expo was not as big/cool as expected - Don’t get me wrong, it is still in the Top 4 of my Expo experiences, but it did not live up to the expectation set by Savannah
• Few spectators – Savannah had a TON of spectators and it was a first-year race, but St Pete just did not have the same

I really enjoyed this race.  I have heard criticism that the R&R races are ‘”cookie-cutter.”  I’ve only done two, and while I see many similarities, they both had local flavor. 

 

Next stop:  Lexington, KY