I attended the Chronotrack Conference in January each year as part of my timing business. In 2020, the conference was in Clearwater Beach, Florida.
Many running industry conferences are held on weekends, which would eat into revenue-generating work days. Chronotrack started their four-day conferences on Sunday evenings in most timers’ off-seasons.
The Town of Celebration is near Disney World and only a two-hour drive from Tampa. Their annual marathon was on the same Sunday morning as the 2020 Chronotrack Conference, so I took advantage of the schedule to extend my marathon or longer finish streak to 28 years.
I flew into Tampa on Saturday morning and rented a car to drive to Celebration. I arrived in time to pick up my race packet and drive parts of the course. There are many hotels in the area, and I stayed at the Holiday Inn Express.
On race morning, I arrived at the parking lot around 6 am with plenty of time for the 7 am start. There was a companion half-marathon that started at the same time. By 6:30 am, I started the short walk to the marathon start in the town center. I dropped my bag, hit the porta-pot lines, and got to the start with plenty of spare time. I wanted to run under 4:30 and lined up with about 800 people in front of me. The marathon had 350 runners, and the half five times that many,
This area of Florida is flat. The course had a few inclines and declines but no overpasses, which are the significant hills in Florida. The course was two loops.
Temperatures were in the mid-60s with similar dew points.
The first few miles went through the town center, then the course headed toward the freeway. We turned onto a road that paralleled the highway. This section of the course was open to the sun.
At about mile 7, we ran a lap of the high school track and then headed back toward town. After mile 8, we headed into the pound and swampy areas of the city. There were wooden boardwalks to cross and sections of streets through housing. The wooden walks absorbed foot strikes without rebounding, reducing running speed.
This pattern of wood walks and village roads continued to after mile 12, where marathon runners split to the left and half-marathoners to the right.
We ran some unique roads in the town center until we hooked up with the initial loop after mile 14. My first half was 2:20:50.
The second loop is the same as the first, only slower. The boards were harder on my legs, causing significant walk breaks. After mile 25, I got back to the split point, taking a right this time to the finish.
My finish time was 4:54:54 for 223 overall, 135th male, and 9 of 15 in the 60 to 64 age group. Finishing so slow, half-marathoners had already devoured all of the post-race food options. This marathon finish was my 69th and second in Florida.
Race swag included a nice shirt, medal, and blanket.
Driving back to Tampa, I stopped at 7-11 to get a soda and snack. Once back at the airport, I returned the rental car and caught a cab to Clearwater Beach arriving in time for the conference welcome reception.