Sunday's Half Shell Half Marathon attracting crowd of more than 800 BY RON COOKE Citizen Staff KEY WEST — The 10th annual Half Shell Half Marathon is shaping up to be something special. Not by design but much to the delight of race organizers, over 750 participants have pre-registered for the 13.1-mile race around Key West and at least 800 — if not more — are expected to sign up by the time the gun goes off Sunday morning for the 7 a.m. start. Race promoter Barbara Wright, who started the event along with Nina Carr, general manager of the Half Shell Raw Bar, never expected it to grow so large, but with recent plugs from Runners World Magazine, which called it one of the top half marathons in the U.S., runners are flocking to the island city to take advantage of the great venue. To make things even better this year, the road construction along South Roosevelt, which presented some opportunities last year, is completed, giving the athletes a nice new surface before they have to cross over U.S. 1 at Cow Key Bridge. "I can't believe it has grown so large. We have 70 runners alone coming from a runners' club in Indiana," Wright said. "Tom Dever and Tim Fears, who will be our guest speakers, are bringing their group from Indiana, plus members of the runners' club from Maine that dominated some of the top spots last year have entered. We have people coming as far as Mexico, San Diego. Just about every state is covered. "Runners World Magazine listed this race second out of 10 in the country which is part of it." "Isn't it crazy, I love it," beamed Carr. "I'm a little worried about the beer. We've got a lot of water but only eight kegs of beer. "Also, because it's the 10th annual, we're going to give a gift certificate from the Raw Bar to each 10th place finisher." To expedite things at the end of the race, Dever and Fears are donating their club's chip timing system which will ease the workload for the Key West Southernmost Runners Club according to vice president Mary Ann Nelson. "The timing system is going to change the way we normally do things before and after the race," Nelson said. "We won't have to pull each runners tag and keep them in line in the chutes, but we're still going to have the standard finish line and our people there handing out the medals." "It's going to be a big event for Key West. I just hope it keeps growing," Wright said. rcooke@keysnews.com