Space Coast worth travelling for?

[Pudge_The_Fish]

Hi All,

I'm very interested in doing the Space Coast half marathon... because it's space-themed. It would require travelling from the West Coast, though. For those of you who have done the race, do you think it's worth travelling for?

Thanks!

 

[Disneyland_emily]

<4 space coasts completed, at least 3 to go.. It's in my top 2 fav races and I'll give up all run dis before it (and its sister race Excalibur) but I call central Florida home so not much travel cost..

Course- down and back almost flat does run against the water so rather scenic.

Medals- rival/ beat disney esp during the Big Bang challenge (5 years 5 shuttle medals- this is year 3)

Swag- shirts are cool, beach towl cool

Post race- among the best with pancakes, pizza, beer (and diet coke!)

Theme- space but not overly space. The water stations volunteers tend to theme space but other than a few props its not crazy..

But if you want to be fawned over after head to Kennedy space after they love seeing the medals

Would I fly cross country? Debatable.. But prob would do it at least once

If you are wanting the half it'll fill within hours of reg opening on the 15th.. The full lasted months but who knows how it'll go this year

 

[jlovesee]

Opposite view point... my husband and I are from KC, MO so we have to fly, we have done Space Coast twice, the first two years of the 5 year series, once the marathon and once the half marathon.

Positives:
-VERY flat course, great for PR's
-Medals are AMAZING!
-Near Kennedy Space Center, great "excuse" to see Kennedy, the Atlantis exhibit is out of this world
-I do like the beach towels, and I know a lot of people like the pancakes afterwards, but I don't ever stay for post-race food except maybe a banana and free beer if its offered (KC marathon does that...).
-transportation from host hotels to race course is good.
-7 hour course limit, great if you have any family that want to walk the half, or for a first full no stress on finish time/

Cons:
-Unless you fly in before Thanksgiving or tuesday after the race, you will probably be looking at expensive plane tickets, I know they arn't cheap for us, but we started the series, and feel the need to complete it
-Theming is very minimal don't go for theming, a few runners dress up that's about it. Though I did love the guy who wore an IPAD on his back playing Apollo 13!
-Course is rather boring, yes its the ocean, and you would think because we are from dead center of the country that would be "oooh aaah", Nope. Yep, its nice for about the first mile or two, but after that... ugh, extremely boring. The course is entirely straight out and back, which is great for times, but absolutely no change in scenery, and there really is not a lot of spectators except in cocoa (the small town that the race begins and ends at). If you run the marathon there is also what I call "two fake turn arounds" which play with your mind.
-I didn't notice any congestion on the full in 2013, but the first 1-2 miles of the half marathon were horribly congested I heard this was due to them increasing the cap on the half marathon.
-Expo... honestly... if I could wipe the memories from the two expo's from my mind I would. Mad House, crowded and DISORGANIZED. If you can get there and do pick up at the local store which is a few days prior to the race DO IT, I've heard its much less crazy. Also even though registration filled up six months+ before the race, and everyone ordered their shirt size... they were out of my husband's size shirt by the time we got to registration, this was early afternoon and the expo was open for about 3-4 hours afterwards. We finally got a shirt for him about a month later in the mail. I heard they ran out of a lot of sizes since people changed their mind as to what size they wanted. So again if you can come early and check in, do it.

Overall, we plan on finishing the series and that's it. If you are big on challenge series, and want the 3-series Milky Way medal (which you can still get if you run the last 3 races), and are ok with flights from West coast to FL, then its a decent race, but being that you are from West Coast I am betting there are a lot of good options there too.

Jennifer

 

[ANIM8R]

OK...let me stand firmly in the middle of the previous two responders.

I ran the Space Coast last year and, honestly, it was my worst marathon time ever...but that was because I caught a cold that week and got zero sleep the night before. My point in that is that even though I felt miserable (physically) the entire weekend, I actually enjoyed the race.

We travel from Ohio which, by late November, is not very enjoyable so being at Cocoa Beach was pretty awesome. If I lived in a place like Atlanta or Houston, maybe that part of it isn't as much a positive for having to travel.

I run about a 5 hr marathon (when not suffering from a sinus infection!) so that's where I queued for the marathon start (with the pace group). I found the course extremely congested until about mile 5 or so...just before the first turn-around. After that, there were zero problems with congestion. The start isn't corralled so I guess I could have just jumped in anywhere and had it less crowded but that was my experience.

I was more "ooh" and "aah" than jlovesee...I saw dolphins! And pelicans were dive-bombing like heck and the start of the race, too. That was neat for me at least. Plus the houses - wow! The people/residents along the course were terrific.

I thought the post-race area was rather congested. It was tough too maneuver around after finishing to find something to drink and a place to stretch/cool-down. The beach towel and medal were awesome, though.

The previous comment about the Expo was dead on - it was a disaster. This was my first SC but I've heard that the expo has been like this before. I don't know what the answer is since there doesn't seem to be many potential sites in that area for a large crowd but the expo was like the proverbial 10 pounds of junk in a 5 pound bag.

My main reason for running this race is that it is exactly 6 weeks before the WDW (at least it was last year) and I needed to do at least 20-miler training run that weekend. Running at home for 20 miles in our weather is miserable that time of year so that was what sparked the idea of traveling to better climates to run.

So, for us (my wife traveled, too - not a runner) we put factored the travel part first and found a place to where we wanted to travel. It sounds like you found this race and are weighing whether it is worth traveling to. If I lived in a more agreeable climate at that time of year, I'd probably not travel to it again....but we still live here in Ohio so we're planning on going again this year.

I wouldn't give up a Disney event to run Space Coast but I still though of it pretty highly overall.

 

[OrangeCountyCommuter]

I really like this race and do it instead of Disney... Half the price, better experience with ONE exception (See Below)

I fly in on Saturday and out on Monday or Tuesday Airfare has never been an issue that way. There are lots of airports to choose from
Course is nice, it's not near as "congested" as a Disney race IMHO
Post race with the free beer, good food etc is so much better then ANYTHING Disney does (Sorry but the prepacked yuck snackbox is one of the worst post race things EVER. For $200 you can at least give me a banana and a bagel LOL!)

Now the negative... EXPO! Heads should roll.. This year was suppose to be better then last year. IF I were a vendor I would NEVER EVER give them a dime again. The lines to get the t shirts were SO bad that you could not get NEAR the booths. And even though the race sells out in HOURS in FEBRUARY they are unable to get the t shirts in the sizes we ordered???? I wish they would let me pay for delivery!

 

[JimB.]

Done this one twice. Since I have residences nearby, I can't comment on the "Value" aspect regarding long distance travel, but I DO enjoy the event. It just hasn't fit my schedule for the last couple of years, but maybe this year...........

I have not done the expo at all. They have always had a "morning of race" and it sounds like that's been a good choice considering the comments previous. Although somewhat crowded, I've found the "after party" to be pretty good. Lotsa' food and the ice-cold washcloth at the end is AWESOME!!!!

I'll do it again, just not sure when. 7.5-8/10