Rock n Roll Los Angeles Half Marathon 2013

Saturday
Per the usual whenever I need to be in downtown LA, I take the Metro rail. So I drove out to the Sierra Madre Station and bought a day pass. Here's what I take to get there:

• Take the Gold Line and get off at Union Station.
• Switch over to either the Red or Purple Line and get off at 7th St/Metro Center.
• You can walk from there or switch over to the Blue line and get off at Pico.

It's then a very short walk over to the Convention Center. I always budget about an hour for the Metro ride. Sure it takes a little bit longer but it's a stress free way of going into downtown compared to driving.

I went through the expo and ended up signing up for two races: next year's Rock n' Roll Los Angeles for $70 and the 50th Anniversary Mustang Half Marathon for $75. They each both gave me a t-shirt for signing up. This year's race shirt was pretty nice looking. Nice to have a different color shirt besides black for Halloween.

Expo special

Shirt for signing up

Signed up for the Mustang Half Marathon

Race shirt

For lunch, I hopped on the Metro and took the Gold Line to Little Tokyo to check out Men Oh Tokushima Ramen. Since the line for Daikokuya is always insanely long, I thought I'd give this place a shot. I've heard only good things about this place. I sat at the counter and ordered their Tokushima ramen, gyoza, and a Sapporo draft. This bowl of ramen was good. The broth was flavorful but not over powering. What sets this bowl apart from others was the pork belly, mmm mmm good! The noodles were the thin straight kind and was done right. You can have them use the ones that you like. The soft boiled egg was also done right. Their gyoza was decent, but I've had better.

Men Oh

Halloween decorations

Tokushima ramen

Gyoza

Sunday
Again, instead of dealing with traffic in and around downtown LA, I took the Metro to the starting area just outside of LA Live and Staples Center. The morning started off pretty foggy which was nice since it kept the race cool for most of the race. It created a nice eerie atmosphere for a Halloween themed race.

Starting line

Foggy

I ran into a few friends while waiting for the race to start. As I headed to my corral, I saw a guy with a pretty cool costume. He was dressed as Elliott riding a bike with ET in the basket. It was one of the more original ideas that I've seen in a while. Me? I was just your boring 'ol Superman! There was about a million Supermen out there.

Elliott!

Foggy start

I ran at a harder effort for the first three miles to test the wheels. It actually felt pretty good to move a little faster. But I must have been favoring my gimpy left ankle too much and pushed off more with the right leg as I started feeling a sharp pain in my right calf. I had to walk and jog a bit to lessen the pain. I took it easy for the next seven miles until the pain practically became unnoticeable. It did hurt in a way that I thought that I would have to drop out. Anyways since the pain became tolerable, I kept going. One of favorite fun parts of this course was going through the 3rd St tunnel, but it can get a bit crowded. I also liked all of the out and backs on this course. Going slow really helped with the last big hill before the final turnaround. I was able to pick up the pace a little bit on the final downhill and was happy to somehow finish under 2 hrs. I even saw a friend that I had not seen in a while out cheering the runners.
1: 7:39
2: 7:40
3: 8:00
4-5: 18:32 (9:16)
6: 10:02
7-8: 19:48 (9:54)
9: 9:23
10: 9:08
11: 9:17
12: 8:08
13: 8:47
13.1: 0:51
Finish: 1:57:16

Running too many races too often will not allow your body enough time to recover. Eventually it will catch up to you. I'm glad that I was able to recover enough during the race to finish with a satisfactory time. I thought that it would take me much longer to finish when it first started to hurt. I'm pretty sure that it was just a calf strain.

Time to numb the soreness! I liked that the gear bag area was right next to the beer garden and the stage. I wish they would give out something better than Michelob Ultra. I saw MegaMan having a beer, one of the better costumes that I saw at the race.

MegaMan

Finish

It was my friend's birthday, so we met up for lunch at Men Oh after he was done with his medical aid station duties. This time I ordered their Tonkotsu ramen and Tokushima don. I tried some of my friend's karaage... it was pretty good, but I've had better elsewhere. Their tonkotsu broth was on the thin lighter side. I prefer it being this way rather than it being super thick and super greasy. The Tokushima don was good, definitely a good combo with the tonkotsu ramen. Between the two bowls that I've tried this weekend, you have to try the Tokushima ramen.

Tonkotsu ramen

Tokushima don