Mississippi Gulf Coast Half Marathon in Biloxi, Mississippi

Beautiful beaches of Biloxi!

Is it even possible to type Mississippi without singing the spelling in your brain?

The Mississippi Gulf Coast Half Marathon in Biloxi, Mississippi on 12/14/2025 did not disappoint! It is a great option for Mississippi, and I am so glad I decided to make this trip. I was not initially planning on working this race into my schedule. Long story short, I had planned on running St. Jude's Memphis Half Marathon, but the logistics did not come together. I couldn't get away early enough on Friday (no race day packet pick-up offered for St. Jude's), expensive hotels, concern over government shut down affecting flights... so I decided to cancel that trip. Then I got sad thinking about waiting until January for my next race. I realized that Mississippi Gulf Coast and Louisiana are related and offer a "Beach 2 Bayou Challenge" with a bonus medal for completing both. Did you say bonus medal? It's a Sunday race, too, which helps me for logistics. Plus, my mom had mentioned wanting to visit Biloxi because she recalls spending time with family there as a child so I invited her to join me! I found a reasonable rate on a walking-distance hotel room and reasonable flights, so it all just fell into place. Meant to be!

I got out of Pittsburgh in the nick of time on Saturday morning! Later that afternoon, they got 6 inches of snow! All in all, I enjoyed a refreshingly smooth travel day. I got into Charlotte and found a white rocking chair to wait for my mom. She flew into Charlotte from Fort Myers and we flew on to Gulfport-Biloxi together.  

Waiting for my mom in the Charlotte airport

The situation back home

Thanks, kids! Mommy sends her love from the beach, lol! 

We picked up our rental car, also very easy with complimentary water bottles, thank you Hertz, and drove our snazzy Buick Envista to packet pick up at Centennial Plaza Resort in Gulfport. If we hadn't decided to rent a car, I would have been annoyed that packet pick up was not closer to my hotel in Biloxi. It worked out fine though, and packet pick up was straightforward. The Expo was small, but had friendly volunteers, a few photo ops, merch, and I got to sneak a peek at the shiny medals for Louisiana in January! The race t-shirt is super soft and I can tell it will be a favorite!

We got a notification that our hotel room was already ready, thank you Double Tree by Hilton in Biloxi, so we headed there next. It was fun to drive down Beach Blvd where I’d be running the following morning. The beach is beautiful! I later learned from my resident local expert running friend that it is a man-made beach and due to the barrier islands the water is shallow and calm. The lack of big waves/tide shifts/erosion means the white, sandy beach stays pristine. It also seems like they put in effort to maintain the beachfront. There were several nice-looking public bathroom/changing areas with beach access and ample parking. The whole area just seems to have bounced back well in the 20 years since Hurricane Katrina. There are empty lots and clearings where buildings were clearly missing, but the spaces were clean, grassy, green spaces. There were interesting tree carvings all along Beach Blvd, that I learned are carved into the tree stumps left behind following the storm.

The view from our hotel!

The hotel was super convenient with easy parking and warm cookies at check in. We were even surprised with a room on the top floor, 1010! We had a beautiful view of the beach (as well as the memorable highway ramp loop…). We settled in, stretched out, and then decided to embark on  our exploring/stalking mission. My mom had found the address where she thought her Granddaddy Pat's property was, so we drove there first. It was about 10 min from our hotel, just over the highway bridge. We found “Sadler Lane” (Granddaddy Pat's last name) so it seemed like we must be on the right track. We snooped as far as we could, but stopped just short of the no trespassing sign. We snapped a quick picture, she was confident it was the property she remembered right on the water, although the house seemed new (most likely updated/replaced since Katrina). 

Property where my mom used to visit her Granddaddy Pat

Sadler Lane

We explored a little more, and headed back towards the hotel because she also remembered a family address on Porter Avenue, which is right near the iconic Biloxi Lighthouse. We found two possible addresses, 191 and 209, both looked like they were probably newer buildings and not the houses she recalled, but still fun to see. Then we returned to the hotel to freshen up for dinner. Always a little outside this introvert's comfort zone to meet people I don’t know for dinner, lol, but I am trying to lean in to the 50 States Half Marathon Club experience. We met Robert from Atlanta, Jennifer and David from Mississippi, and Debbe, Margaret, and Seher from Florida at the Half Shell Oyster House. We had delicious crab cakes and seafood pot pie, visited, and took a nice group photo. I appreciated that Robert organized such a nice group dinner, it was very special to eat somewhere that felt like an authentic Mississippi experience!

Amber, Margaret, Debbe, Seher, Robert, Jennifer, and David

We headed back to the hotel and went to bed early. I never sleep particularly well before a race, but I felt about as well-rested as possible the next morning. I was a little nervous about dressing for this one because the weather seemed hard to read. It was misting, but unclear if it would keep raining, it was cool, but going to get colder, but would the sun come out? Whew! My brain hurt trying to plan my outfit. I opted for capris with a short sleeve shirt plus a long sleeve layer. I headed downstairs about 5:30 am and happened upon a friendly fellow 50-Stater, Sarah from Rochester, in the elevator. We ended up walking over to the shuttle buses together. It was an easy walk across the street, perfect! We sat together on the bus and had a nice visit. We got to the start line with plenty of time. We met a nice big group for a picture in front of the Mississippi Aquarium. I got a chance to say hello to Jen and J, fellow Pittsburghers, Allison who I’d met in Atlantic City earlier this year, and talked to a few new folks as well. Visiting with the group always makes the pre-race time fly by.

Pre-Race 50 States Half Marathon Club Group Photo

Seher, Debbe, and Margaret were so kind to invite me to run with them, but I could tell they were a little speedier than me, and since I hadn’t gotten too many training runs in since Marshall (cough, cough, zero…) I knew I needed to pace myself and start out slowly. I stuck with my 30:30 intervals from the very beginning, which has worked well for me in the past and keeps me from going out too quickly. I felt pretty good, surprisingly! The weather ended up being perfect, cool and breezy in the 50s, and the rain held off. Pretty early on I fell into pace near Jennifer who I’d met at dinner. She and I visited for a while and ended up running the rest of the race together. It was really nice to pass the time! She is planning on completing her 400th half marathon in 2026, so she is a wealth of knowledge! If you want to know about a state/race, she has probably done it! This was an unique race course, unlike anything I have done before, in that it is a completely straight line along the beach for the first nearly 12 miles! Being much more used to twists and turns and neighborhoods, I honestly found it a little daunting to constantly be looking straight ahead to where you’re trying to go. But, it was completely flat with a gorgeous view of the sun rising above the beach. This race also has a walker-friendly generous 6-hour time limit, so I never worried about not finishing, I just focused on enjoying the run and not hurting myself.

Beautiful Beach Views

Carvings in stumps left behind from Hurricane Katrina

I thought these were so neat!

There was a Waffle House every other mile or so

The Biloxi Lighthouse

The overpass loop is coming!

We cruised along pretty steadily until mile 11 or so, when we could see the highway ramp looming up ahead. Everybody warned us about this, but how bad could it be? Well, it was something! Whew! It was incredibly cold and windy at this point, so we just kept our heads down and powered up the ramp the best we could. You can see inside the ballpark where all of the finish line fun was being had, and just wanted to get in there! Luckily, like most hills, it ended, and we got to run downhill and around the corner to the finish. My mom had found a perfect spot at the bottom of the hill under the overpass to cheer for me! Plus, she was able to scoot around into the stadium before we made it to the finish line, so she scored this excellent picture of us crossing just ahead of Speedo marathon guy - he must have been cold on the overpass!

The finish line was awesome, top notch, we had six (!) food/drink tickets on our bib so we got warm, delicious, spicy gumbo that really hit the spot after being so chilled by the wind. We also found yummy individually-wrapped pulled pork sandwiches and cokes! No lines for anything, and plenty of space to spread out. We sat down in the ballpark seats to enjoy our lunch, took a few pictures, then headed back to the hotel for a shower. After we’d warmed up and stretched out, we strolled down to the Biloxi Lighthouse to take a few more pictures. We also stepped out to the beach, which we had all to ourselves (pretty sure the locals thought this was not ideal beach weather). We walked down to visit Porter Road again so we could explore more slowly on foot. Then, we decided to check out the Beau Rivage casino for an early dinner. It was hopping! Lots of people enjoying the casino fun, it looked like a very nice casino, but it was pretty smoky for us so we ended up back outside of the casino and ate at Salt & Ivy. We enjoyed a BLT and a burger, yummy fries, quick, easy and hit the spot! Super friendly waiter who congratulated me on my race about six times (of course I was wearing my pretty medal)!

We gassed up the rental car, $3.20-worth, lol, but I’m a rule follower! Then, we packed up and turned in early. Our return flight was 7:00 am on Monday morning. Everything went very smoothly with rental car return and security, it is a very cute little airport. We left from Gate 2 (of 7). The guy in front of us in security had his jar of peanut butter confiscated - runner problems, lol!

I would definitely recommend the Mississippi Gulf Coast Half Marathon for the state of Mississippi! It was so fun to share this experience with my mom. We both really enjoyed visiting Biloxi. The race was very well-organized. It is a huge race (5,000 runners) with all 50 states were represented, which is very cool. The course is flat, fast, and beautiful running parallel to the beach almost the entire way. There were abundant water stops. I always carry my own water with me so I don’t have to worry about it, but I think I could have easily done this race without carrying anything. The medal is awesome, featuring the lighthouse and sparkly sand. The finish line party had everything I could ask for!

Final medal of 2025!

Mississippi complete! State #9, Half #14

Date: 12/14/2025
Bib: 2666
Time: 3:22:28
Pace: 15:27

Next up is the Louisiana Half Marathon in January for the Beach 2 Bayou Challenge!