Run in Miami Beach

If you run early in the morning, I suggest you join the tour close to the beach. Remember : sunrise on the ocean, pink  clouds, with the famous colored beach huts in the foreground… For sure, these are some kilometers/miles that you will not forget.

Starting there, at 16th street, you’ll soon be at Lummus Park, which is between the beach and Ocean Drive. The path meanders pleasantly under the palm trees. The outdoor fitness (where I met the incredible runner Raven, the man who almost ran to the moon – read this story here) is already busy.

Then you leave the park to continue south along Ocean Drive, and admire the art-deco architecture and pastel paintings of small hotels with legendary signs, lining that avenue (the streets are east-west, and the avenues North-South).

When at the 5th street, you go back to the beach, always heading south. It’s nice to run in the harder sand close to the dune. If you want to run with your feet in the water, do not hesitate to go to the edge of the ocean, urbirun will guide you anyway, and it’s easy, it’s straight on south, along the beach.

The beach ends at the Government’s Cut Channel created in 1908. This channel gives access to the bay, and especially to the port of Miami, the largest cruise port in the world. So do not be surprised if you see 15-storey buildings, or stacks of thousands of colorful containers floating beside you while you run.

Then try not to be too jealous near the marina, and its beautiful yachts. To help you resist the temptation, urbirun will get you back to the inland for a while.

You will run up Meridian Avenue (up, it’s a kind of misnomer, as it’s flat). Meridian is a beautiful quiet and shaded avenue, and at this point you should appreciate the shade.

Short detour to Flamingo Park, located in the heart of Miami Beach. Athletes’ paradise where tennis courts, basketball courts, baseball courts, a public swimming pool, and an American football stadium, can be found. Including a beautiful athletic track around the football field. Frankly go at least for a lap, it’s worth it, you’ll feel like you’re in a TV series (if you are not american and used to that kind of place), and I am sure you never did interval training in such a venue.

Exiting Flamingo Park, let urbirun guide you to 11th Street Diner, a restaurant straight out of a 50’s movie. This is almost the case: built in 1948 in Pennsylvania, the whole restaurant was moved to Miami Beach 44 years later, and lies here since.

Then you’ll experience a complete atmosphere change, running through Espanola Way. No more America’s 50’s, you suddenly run along a Mediterranean lane, lined with restaurants. Our favorite, is a few meters from the entrance to this street : it is the Italian restaurant Pane e Vino. We strongly recommend you to eat there (not now, tonight), but also to go to the bathroom, (be careful because it’s a small restaurant, it’s only open at night, so better make a reservation).

Running up another quiet avenue, you’ll be soon in Lincoln Road, wide pedestrian street (very very rare in the US), shopping paradise, lined with pleasant terraces. But you will resist the temptation and continue your run, right?

So will you reach the Holocaust Memorial Statue : a giant hand stretched out to the sky, on which hundreds of little people desperately try to climb to escape. Very symbolic.

This Memorial is right next to the Botanical Garden that you will go around along a canal, where I used to meet a few iguanas, some of them of good size (but do not worry, they are totally harmless, and they are far more afraid than you, and besides, they are not there anymore, since some road works were made).

Then let yourself be guided to Miami Mountain. Yes, there is a mountain in Miami Beach. But do not try to climb on it, because this mountain, is only a pile of colored kind of “marschmallows”, stack of big blocks of granite, a work symbolizing the durability and the immobility of the raw materials in the nature. This marks the entrance to the Bass Museum Park, home to more than 3,000 works of art of all kinds and from all ages, from Flemish painters to contemporary photography.

You will then pass the voluptuous Art-Deco curves of the Miami City Ballet Building, then you’ll cross a canal on two pedestrian bridges, before joining the path along the beach…

And here you are soon at the end of this tour of Miami Beach, soaked as if you had jumped into the ocean… For sure, running in the tropics, it’s an experience too… Do not forget to take a drink with you, even if along the beach, you will find some water fountains to drink…

And if that made you eager to discover Miami with urbirun, simply download your private self-audioguided run here …
Or get the .gpx file for your sport watch or smartphone here

urbirun Miami Beach 11.8km – tour .gpx