Zoo Miami's First Half Marathon Runs Through the Forest Most Visitors Never See

Around the exhibits, paved loops and parking lots at Zoo Miami is a slash pine forest growing straight out of limestone. Saw palmetto fills in underneath, and fire is part of the forest's life cycle. It belongs to the Richmond Tract. Zoo Miami calls the tract the largest fragment of pine rockland left outside Everglades National Park. Zoo Miami's pine rockland restoration page describes it plainly: "Looking at a pine rockland forest is seeing what most of Miami actually looked like until a relatively short time ago."

On Saturday, November 14, the 14th annual ZooRun adds a race through that forest. The inaugural ZooRun Half Marathon takes in the ground covered by the 10K and 5K courses, which Zoo Miami says it includes in full, and then sends runners on an additional 7 miles through the zoo's pine rocklands and its outer perimeter. If you live in Kendall and have been to the zoo a dozen times, those 7 miles probably cover ground you have never stood on.

Where the extra seven miles go

The 5K and 10K have long been the race. The half marathon starts on the same routes, so its first stretch looks like any other ZooRun morning. The new part comes after that. Zoo Miami describes the extended section as "hybrid terrain," part paved pathway and part natural, unpaved surface, through the pine rocklands and around the edge of the property.

For runners, the surface is the practical issue. Pine rockland grows on oolitic limestone. The 2023 peer-reviewed case study of the Richmond Tract describes most of the tract as nutrient-poor limestone soil. Expect the footing to change when the course leaves the paved pathways.

Zoo Miami says Half Marathon registration is limited and expects spots to fill quickly. Every distance raises money for the Zoo Miami Foundation.

What the Richmond Tract actually is

Pine rockland is the reason a race course through the zoo's back acreage counts as news. According to the Tropical Audubon Society, this slash pine forest once covered more than 186,000 acres of Miami-Dade along the Miami Rock Ridge. That ridge runs through the county on a northeast-to-southwest line. Tropical Audubon puts what survives outside Everglades National Park at under 2 percent. The 2023 case study, published in the journal Diversity, gives a tighter number of 1.2 percent of the original extent remaining outside the park. The same study says fewer than 780 hectares of the ecosystem remain across South Florida. Zoo Miami's restoration page uses a third figure, under 5 percent left in Florida, which covers a different area. The three numbers measure different areas. All of them describe a remnant.

Tropical Audubon also explains why so little survived. The forest grew on high, fairly dry ground along the ridge, which made it a good place to build, unlike the low, flood-prone land around it. Zoo Miami's page makes the same point. Most of what is now the city of Miami was built on former pine rockland because of that higher elevation and rocky, fast-draining ground.

The Richmond Tract is more than one piece of land. The study describes it as a complex of 12 parcels with several public and private owners, partly wrapping around Zoo Miami. The study's land table lists 260.8 hectares of zoo property, with 90.2 hectares, or 35 percent, classified as Natural Forest Community. Zoo Miami's gardens page describes rare pine rockland covering "over 100 surrounding acres." The two figures use different classifications, so they are not directly comparable.

What grows there is the strongest case for crossing it. The study counts more than 300 native plant species across the tract. Eight are federally listed, and 9 more are at extreme risk of extirpation or extinction. The tract also supports 10 federally listed animal species. Two butterflies stand out in the Pine Rockland Working Group's description of the zoo's portion: the Atala, which it calls nearly extinct and now recovered, and the federally endangered Bartram's scrub hairstreak.

Why the forest stays off the visitor map

Fire keeps this habitat alive, and the 2023 study notes that when remaining fragments are small and surrounded by development, the burns they need tend to get suppressed. Zoo Miami says its staff work with Miami-Dade County Natural Areas Management and the Environmentally Endangered Lands program. Together they keep the pine rockland from being disturbed, pull invasive plants, and run regular prescribed burns. The study explains why burns matter so much. Many of the tract's specialized plants depend on nutrients that leach into the soil after a fire. Zoo Miami's page adds that soil disturbed years ago has become a seed bank for invasives, and those plants keep spreading into healthy forest.

A forest under that kind of management schedule is not open for casual walks. The public gets in through a few narrow, mostly guided routes, and the race is only one of them.

1. ZooRun Half Marathon, November 14. Paid registration, limited field, one morning.
2. Pine Rockland Working Group field trip, Wednesday, November 11, 10 to 11:30 a.m. It is a walking tour of the zoo's portion of the Richmond Tract, led by a county Natural Areas Management biologist, with a cap of 25 people. The group's page says the tour is full and has a waitlist. Participants meet at a small parking area near the zoo's Gate #1 security gate off SW 124th Avenue and ride golf carts to the site.
3. Ranger-led Pine Rockland Tours in winter and spring. Zoo Miami's gardens page lists tours with a National Park Service ranger on weekends at 11:30 a.m., included with admission, as a winter and spring program.
4. Restoration plantings. Zoo Miami says it often turns replanting days into public awareness and volunteer events.

The working group tour is booked, and the ranger tours are listed as a winter and spring program. Unless you are already on the waitlist, the race is the November way in.

The race-day numbers

ZooRun's fees go up on a schedule. General registration runs October 1 through November 13, and race-day pricing starts November 14.

Each registration also carries a processing fee.

Read the perks list carefully. Zoo Miami says ZooKidsDash, 5K and 10K registrants get zoo entry on race day with their bib and 50 percent off admission for friends and family that day. They also get a themed shirt and finisher medal, plus entry to the Finish Festival & Beer Garden with local restaurants, beer, music and dancing. The half marathon is not named in that list. A family plan built around the half should confirm with Zoo Miami's registration partner, Haku Sports, which lists support at 844-299-2087.

Registrants who raise $100 individually through the fundraising challenge can earn benefits like guest ZooRun registration and exclusive zoo tours.

After the race, the zoo stays open after dark

Thirteen days after the half marathon, Zoo Miami opens at night. Zoo Lights Miami runs 6:30 to 10 p.m. on select nights only.

• November 27 and 28, with an opening-night tree lighting at 7 p.m. on Friday, November 27
• December 4, 5, 11 and 12
• December 18 through 23
• December 26 through 30

The schedule has gaps, and those gaps affect daytime visits too. On Zoo Lights nights the zoo closes at 4 p.m. and reopens at 6:30. Daytime admission and memberships do not cover Zoo Lights, which is ticketed separately. This year's lineup includes more than a million lights, a 26-foot LED holiday tree, Santa appearances through December 23, and a new train ride that costs extra.

If you plan to go to both the race and the lights, check the date on Zoo Miami's More Months membership offer. It runs through November 15. Eligible 2027 memberships start their benefits right away and include member savings on Zoo Lights.

When the lights come down, the pine rockland's public access moves back to the winter and spring ranger tours. For anyone who wants to cross it this fall, the half marathon on November 14 is the open-registration option, with general registration running through November 13.

At Pam Mayers, we follow the parts of South Dade that never show up in a listing, like a remnant of Miami's original pine forest at Zoo Miami on SW 152nd Street. If you're thinking about a move around Kendall and want a local read on what's actually close by, let's connect and schedule a consultation.