After work, my friend and I went to the Mastro's Steakhouse in Costa Mesa to celebrate his birthday. It's our favorite steakhouse to go to for our birthdays and it's been a tradition going back about 4 years. It's probably not a good idea to be eating so much meat a couple of days before a marathon, but hey, birthdays only come once a year whereas my marathons come almost every week! :)
One thing that I love that's back on the menu is the foie gras appetizer. I love to eat liver and fatty liver is even better. I ordered the Chef's Cut Rib Eye Chop cooked medium rare. It was good, but I didn't finish it. I had to catch a red-eye flight at about midnight and didn't want to pass out from a food coma.
Foie gras appetizer
Chef's Cut Rib Eye Chop
I got to LAX for my US Airways flight out to Louisville with a connection in Charlotte, NC. The flight would start boarding at about a quarter after midnight. I was ready to take a nap on the plane. Good thing I was able to score an exit row seat with my Gold status.
4/24 Friday
After arriving in Louisville, I took the Route 2 Second Street bus for $1.75 into downtown Louisville. During the bus ride, I liked and noticed that all of the streets were pretty much lined with trees. The bus line took us past the University of Louisville. It looked like a pretty prestigious university from the outside. I got off at Market St right in front of the Kentucky International Convention Center, the location of the marathon expo.
Pasta Party
After going through the expo, I walked over a couple of blocks to my hotel, the Econo Lodge Downtown. Check in was fairly quick and easy. As with all of my red eye flights, I was pooped. So after going through my expo haul, I crashed for a quick nap.
As I got up from my nap to use the bathroom, I noticed that the floor was completely wet. The leak was coming from the toilet tank. I first tried to see if I could stop the leak, but I was unsuccessful. So I went to the check in counter and they were able to move me to a new room a couple doors over without any fuss. After moving my stuff to the new room, I went back out to eat an early dinner and buy some drinks for the weekend.
After a quick search on Yelp for burgers, I stopped by a nearby burger bar called Sidebar. The place was pretty quiet and empty since I was eating dinner at a pretty early hour. I found a seat at a table in the bar section so I could watch some sports on TV. When in Rome or in this case, Kentucky, I just had to have something with bourbon in it. Since I wasn't at all knowledgeable about bourbon, I went with a Bluegrass Brewing Company Bourbon Barrel Stout and fortunately it was a good bourbon barrel stout. As for burgers, they had 13 different burgers to choose from and they all sounded good. That's definitely a good sign. Everything on the menu was named after a court or legal system term. I ended up going with the Jail Bird with regular fries. It also came with a dill pickle. The Jail Bird came with bacon, fried egg, and American cheese... all of which are my favorite ingredients for a burger. Their burger patty was definitely as good as they've claimed on their menu. For the price, I would've liked a bigger burger, but it was definitely a quality tasting burger. I would definitely come back here to try their other burgers.
Jail Bird with fries and a Bluegrass Brewing Company Bourbon Barrel Stout
On the way back to my room, I stopped in at the Baders Food Mart which was located at the Shell gas station just across the street from my hotel. I picked up a few drinks for the weekend. I normally drink Powerade, but all they had were Gatorade.
I laid out Mr. Flat Runner before going to bed. There was rain in the forecast for the race during part of the morning, but it wasn't going to be too cold. I was hoping that it wouldn't rain before the race while waiting for the start of the race and I definitely didn't want it to rain nonstop for a majority of the race.
Drinks
Flat runner
4/25 Saturday
The race started at 7:30 am. After getting ready, I gathered my things and made my way to the starting line area at about a quarter before 7 am. It was pretty cool to see that Mini Coopers were being used as the pace vehicles. A bunch of Marathon Maniacs gathered in a little park just North of the Humana building. There were portapotties nearby so it was a very convenient location for the pre-race photo.
Mini Cooper pace cars!
Maniac Pre-race photo from Doug Picard
At about a quarter after 7, I made my way into corral B. While waiting in the corral, I saw someone dressed up as Olaf. Do you want to build a snowman? :)
Starting corral
Olaf!
I started off with the usual plan of running the first 10k at a harder effort before pulling way back on the pace for the rest of the race. My friend caught me just after mile 5. I ran with her and her friend through 10k before slowing down. We reached the famous Churchill Downs at about mile 8. After leaving Churchill Downs, we split away from the half marathoners. We then headed down to the beautiful Iroquois Park. It was a pretty steep climb up to the halfway point. During the loop around the park, the rain started to come down pretty hard. After finishing the loop, we ran back up to the finish line on Preston St at Witherspoon St just in front of the Waterfront Park. Thankfully the rain let up shortly after I left Iroquois Park. My left foot was again pretty sore, but for some odd reason I felt pretty good during the last two miles. I don't usually feel that good in the later miles of a marathon.
Iroquois Park
1: 8:33
2: 8:09
3: 8:22
4: 8:28
5: 8:36
6: 8:06
7-8: 17:20 (8:40)
9: 9:06
10: 9:14
11: 9:23
12: 10:18
13: 10:29
14: 10:12
15: 9:58
16: 10:36
17: 11:17
18: 10:55
19: 12:12
20: 11:31
21: 11:53
22: 11:49
23: 12:15
24: 11:42
25: 8:56
26: 9:44
26.2: 1:37
Finish: 4:20:41
Besides the hill at Iroquois Park, this was a fairly flat course. I thought it was a pretty course for a road marathon that was run through urban streets.
There were plenty of post-race snacks and drinks being passed out, items such as TruMoo chocolate milk, Powerade, Sun Chips, bananas, etc. There was a post-race party at the Waterfront Park, but I didn't stick around since the rain was starting to come down again. The ground was already starting to get muddy.
Finish line
Post race snacks
After getting cleaned up and resting for a couple of hours, I finally made my way out to eat an early dinner. I decided to eat my traditional recovery meal of burger and beer over at the Troll Pub Under The Bridge. This place was hard to miss with the Troll right above the entrance. There was a flight of stairs leading down to the entrance which could pose trouble after running a marathon. Since I was dining alone, I went to the back and found a seat at the bar. After looking through their menu and checking out their taps, I ordered their Beer Cheese Burger with tater tots and a Left Hand Milk Stout Nitro. I love a good stout on nitro and this one was very good. A fellow bar patron bought me a drink to congratulate me on completing the marathon and to welcome me to Louisville, KY. It was pretty cool talking to him and his significant other. That was the first time that a stranger has ever bought me a drink. As I was starting my second beer, my burger finally came out. It was a good sized burger with a pretzel bun. I'm not a big fan of pretzel buns, but it does prevent the burger from falling apart. A combination of their beer cheese and tobacco onions made the burger very tasty and I always prefer tater tots over fries. I ended my meal with a Hipster Repellant IPA. Man, did that meal hit the spot!
Beer Cheese Burger with tater tots and a Left Hand Milk Stout Nitro
Hipster Repellant IPA
4/26 Sunday
After checking out of my room, I walked across the street to the bus stop just in front of the Shell Gas Station to catch the bus to the airport. My return flight was with United Airlines with a layover at Chicago O'Hare airport. I liked that they had different jockey racing silks hanging at each of the gates at the Louisville Airport.
Louisville Airport
During my layover at O'Hare, I decided to have lunch at Billy Goat. For nostalgic reasons, I got the Double Cheeseburger and fries. It's really nothing spectacular. At best it's similar to a McDonald's Double Quarter Pounder. It quelled my hunger but next time I probably should get the Chicago Style Italian Beef Sandwich instead.
Double cheese from Billy Goat
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