I took a morning flight out of LAX with US Airways with a layover in Philadelphia for a few hours. Before catching my evening connecting flight to Libson, I stopped by a Chickie’s and Pete’s to eat dinner. I ordered a Victory Hop Devil and their cheese steak. That was pretty good cheese steak! Wasn't expecting it to be decent at an airport.
For the Love of Beer!
Cheese steak and Victory Hop Devil
Food was served on the overseas flight. I tried my best to get as much sleep as I could, but those airplane seats are so dang uncomfortable!
Friday 10/3
Once I made it through immigration, I located the Metro rail station. Before heading to the station, I changed a bunch of my cash for Euros. I learned from my previous trips to Europe that I could not depend on using my US credit card which is usually not accepted because it does not have a security chip.
I tried to buy a Metro 1 day pass from a vending machine, but all it did was return my money in coins. So I took the coins and got in line to buy a pass from an attendant. The cost of the Viva Viagem card was .50 Euros and the 1 day pass was 6.00 Euros. With that taken care of, I took the Vermelha line and got off at the Oriente Station. I then walked over to the expo located at the Parque das Nações per the final instructions provided to us. The entrance to the expo was in the back near the water. The weather was nice and it was a pretty beautiful day for a walk although it did get a bit warm since I was carrying all of my stuff.
Expo
At the expo, they had a separate line for foreign runners to pick up their race packet. It wasn't a huge expo, but it was a decent size. I asked about the free train ride to the starting area in Cascais. It turned out that they can only add the train fare to a Viva Viagem card if it has no other fare loaded on it. I had my 1 day pass on it, so I paid another .50 Euros to get a new card with the train fare loaded on it.
After the expo, I walked to the Vasco da Gama Center to eat lunch at the food court. I ate at a pasta place called Capri where it was cooked to order with the ingredients (fusilli, bacon palitos, camarão, tomate cherrie, rucula, molho bolognese) of your choice. It tasted really good, but I was also tired and hungry. After gobbling down my food, it was time to head over to my hotel.
Capri
I hopped back on the Metro at the Oriente station and took it over to Saldanha, where I switched over to the Amarela line and got off at Campo Pequeno. From there it was a short walk over to the hotel, VIP Grand Lisboa Hotel and Spa. All of the people working at the front desk spoke several different languages. They were fine speaking English with me. I got there a bit early and my room wasn't ready, so I waited a bit in the lobby charging my phone. When it was time to check in, the only rooms ready were on smoking floors, so they told me to wait about 30 minutes for a non-smoking floor. So back to more waiting. As promised the room was ready and I finally was able to go up to my room to take a nap. I was so tired from the flight.
Pretty nice corridor
Very European bathroom
City view
The bed was clean and comfortable. The room was also pretty sound proof. I practically couldn't hear any of my neighbors for my entire trip. Their complimentary wifi was adequate to supplement my weak international cellphone signal. The interesting part of the room was the bathroom. If you're from the US, you might not be used to a couple of things with their bathroom:
- They have a separate bidet if you wish to clean your bottom that way.
- The shower/tub does not have a shower curtain.
- The tub reminded me of an aquarium.
- You can raise the shower shade so that your spouse or partner can watch you shower from the room. How very European! :)
After getting back to my hotel room, I went through the expo haul. I then relaxed while watching some movies on TV while eating some snacks.
Eating safe snacks
Expo haul
Saturday 10/4
I didn't leave my room until it was time for lunch. I walked down to the Praça Duque Saldanha and ate at the food court at the bottom floor of the Dolce Vita Monumental shopping mall. At first I thought about eating a burger, but it looked like somewhat of a gamble. So I ended up eating at Assador where I got some roasted chicken, potatoes, and couscous with water. Everything was seasoned very well. It was nice and tasty. More importantly it was a pretty safe meal for my marathon tomorrow especially with my GI system not feeling too well.
Eating safe lunch
When I got back to my room, I relaxed some more while watching the TV. I got my race gear ready. I totally passed out watching TV, so I was kind of late going out to find dinner. I first stopped at the corner store, Supermercado Rocha to buy some more water. I ended up picking up dinner at the nearby McDonald's. Might as well since that's what I normally eat before a marathon. I got a Happy Meal with fish sticks, small fries, and water. I also ordered a Royal Deluxe Burger to go with it.
Race gear
The usual pre-race dinner from McDonald's
Sunday 10/5
At about 5 am I took the 736 bus down to Cais do Sodré to catch the train to Cascais. Let me tell you that drunk people are stupid and obnoxious in any country. Apparently it was a bad idea to be walking around in running shorts and being the only Asian in town. I was getting harassed by drunk people on my way to the train platform. I just pretended that I didn't hear a thing and kept walking forward. The train ride was about 40 minutes. From the Cascais station I walked to the starting area at the Hipódromo Manuel Possolo with a guy from Spain and Italy. Español was our common language in this group and I was the only one with Google Maps on my smartphone. I ended up giving out the directions in Spanish. We were there a bit early and nobody was there, so we walked back to the train station to wait as the train station cafe was just about to open for business. As we waited at the station, more and more runners started to show up. I found it funny that they still had cigarette vending machines. The last time I saw one of these machines was in the late 80's. Smoking definitely starting going out of style in the 90's.
Cigarette vending machine
As the start of the race got closer we headed back out to the starting area. We stopped to take some nice shots of the beautiful sunrise.
Nice view before the race
The Spaniard and I got separated from our Italian friend on our way to the starting area. As soon as we got there, we got in line for the portapotties. I found it quite interesting the amount of Spanish vocabulary that I had learned way back in high school had returned to me. He was able to understand what I was trying to say. After I was done, I went over to the gear check trucks to drop off my bag. I found a place to sit down before entering the corrals.
Portapotties and gear check
Starting corral
Starting line
As it grew closer and closer to the start, the corral got packed tighter and tighter. This was my third European marathon and one thing that I like is that the runners are good at self seeding. There was pretty much no need to dodge walkers in the opening mile or two. The temperature at the start was in the low 70's, but it felt warmer to me. I felt sluggish from the very first mile. It could've been a multiple of reasons... running too much last weekend, going to too many Dodger games, traveling, diarrhea. I had sort of let myself go after the two Disneyland races for my birthday. Take your pick. At the very least, it was a very scenic point to point course from Cascais back to Lisbon. There was some rolling hills here and there. I was definitely struggling. On one stretch, a Chinese runner came up alongside me and asked if I was Chinese. I said yes, but I'm from the United States. So he switched to speaking nearly flawless English. I asked if he was from the mainland or Taiwan. He was from China and he knew that I was Taiwanese just by asking that question. So he went on about how he loves Taiwan and that one time he had cycled a loop of the entire island. I told him that his English was very good and that I was impressed. He said that he would have to thank his teacher back home. After that I wished him a great race as I was struggling to keep up with him. I just kept plugging away as fast as I can. Eventually I reached Praça do Comércio. The course ran us into town a bit away from the water where the roads were a bit hard to run on as they were mostly made of cobblestones. We also had to dodge a bunch of tourists. Then it was about another 9k up to the finish line between the Vasco da Gama Center and Parque das Nações. Even the final stretch to the finish line was tough on the ankles and feet since it was also made of cobblestones.
5k: 27:03
10k: 56:17 (29:15)
15k: 1:28:26 (32:09)
20k: 2:03:13 (34:47)
25k: 2:40:03 (36:50)
30k: 3:18:51 (38:48)
35k: 3:56:55 (38:04)
40k: 4:39:48 (42:52)
42.2k: 4:57:06
Finish
After getting my medal, I got a bunch of drinks and goodies in another drawstring bag. That's a rather nice touch making it much easier to carry all of the stuff after a race. Then I went looking for the gear bag pick up area. I had to ask some random English speaking runner that had their bag for directions. After that I just wanted to get back to my hotel room and sleep. So after I gathered up my stuff and put on my jacket, I walked over to the Oriente Metro station and rode the rail back to my hotel.
Post race goodies
After getting cleaned up, I just stayed in my room and watched a bunch of movies on TV. For dinner, I wasn't going to go back outside and search for food, so I ate at the hotel restaurant called Cenário. The food was on the pricey side, but well worth it in my opinion for the convenience. They even had a buffet option for about 20 Euros if you're very hungry. I decided to go light. I ordered a chef salad and their Bacalhau (Portuguese for codfish). The fish was very flavorful. I'm glad that my friend recommended it to me on good 'ol Facebook.
Salada do Chefe
Bacalhau aka Codfish
During my trip, I watched a bunch of movies on TV from my room. Here was what I could remember watching...
X Men Days of Future Past
Shooter with Mark Wahlberg and Danny Glover
True Lies
Ghost Rider
Deception with Ewan McGregor, Hugh Jackman, Michelle Williams
Knowing with Nicolas Cage
Flash of Genius with Greg Kinnear
Monday 10/6
I had a morning flight home, so I got ready, checked out of the hotel, and headed to the airport via the Metro. After printing out my boarding pass at the ticket counter I stopped by a soccer store to buy my friend a soccer scarf. Then I had to get my passport stamped for leaving the country and there was a super long line. It was a good thing that I got there super early. I got to the boarding area just as we were supposed to have started boarding, but there was a delay. Even so, I do not like being rushed or stressed out about catching a plane. I found a spot to sit down. I used a bunch of my Euros to buy a drink from a vending machine since I was pretty thirsty.
Thirsty
Bye bye Portugal
I landed in Philadelphia and went through immigration. I bumped into Tracy Sundlun, one of the co-founders of Elite Racing just after getting through TSA airport security. We talked a little bit about my experience with the Rock n' Roll series. I told him that the Global Tour Pass was the only reason why I traveled to Europe to run marathons. He found that interesting. I also told him that I had purchased the Tour Pass several years in a row and have been earning the Rock Legend or Rock Idol heavy medal each time. He thanked me for keeping them employed. :) He wanted to know which one of the European marathons was my favorite. I told him out of the three, it was Liverpool because they spoke English, I loved the town, I loved the weather, and the course was very green and beautiful. To pass time before my flight, I stopped by a restaurant and had a couple of Yards Pale Ales.
Layover in Philly
I was pretty hungry when I landed back home in LAX, so on my way home I stopped by a nearby In-n-Out drive-thru to pick up a late dinner. I was craving burgers pretty badly so I got two Double Doubles, one for each hand. I inhaled them before going to bed. :)
Home sweet home!
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