I drove out to the expo after work. I figured that I'd get it over with today rather than making a trip out to Huntington Beach on Saturday. After picking up my bib, I bumped into a good friend and her husband at the expo. I was a little out of it. If she hadn't say hi, I probably would've missed them. She told me about the special deal on registration for next year's race. It was only $79 for the full marathon. It has never been that cheap before! The cheapest I've seen for Surf City was $99. Earlier in the day, it was going for $74 as the expo special. They even gave me a water bottle for signing up.
I picked up my legacy shirt and the little sticker for the medal. I then picked up my race shirt and reusable bag before heading in to check out the expo. I picked up a few Larabars, but that was about it.
Saturday 2/6
As I was gathering my race stuff for tomorrow's marathon, I noticed that I didn't have my usual bottle of Powerade. I had been feeling a bit lazy lately, so I didn't feel like going to the market to buy a bottle. Instead I scrounged up an old tube of Nuun tablets that I haven't used yet. They don't expire, right? :)
Flat runner
Sunday 2/7
Per the usual, I arrived at Huntington Beach at about 4 am. Normally I would find street parking on the west side of Beach Blvd just south of Atlanta Ave. However this time, that entire side of the road was closed off with cones and signs saying do not park. So I made a u-turn and parked on the east side of Beach Blvd. I took a cat nap before heading over to the Hyatt Regency bridge to meet up with my friend. We crossed over the bridge to hang out in the hotel lobby and to use their restrooms.
Dark o' clock
A little before 6 am, we crossed the bridge and met up with fellow Marathon Maniacs for the pre-race photo. Lately, there has been less and less Maniacs at this event, so no one has been showing up with nice cameras. We had to settle with the best smartphone picture which still turned out a little dark.
Photo from April
Before heading to the corrals, we stopped inside the expo area to look for the banner that had the names of all of the participants. I somehow missed it when I was there on Friday. After I found my name we were off for the corrals. We bumped into a few of our friends. We ended up squeezing into the second wave.
Wall of runners
Photo from Robert
Corral
I paced my friend for the first 8 miles. We kept the pace at about 8:35 for that stretch. I was actually hoping to be able to take her through 10 miles. However after that hill at mile 8, I could no longer maintain the pace, so I dropped off and wished her well on her race. The left foot was getting quite sore and the right hip was starting to feeling uncomfortable, so I had to start implementing walk breaks ahead of schedule. I saw my friend spectating at around mile 9. Her husband was the pacer for the 4:10 group. I would see her again at the small hill at around mile 15. I made it to the halfway point a few minutes past the 2 hr mark. I was hoping that that would be good enough to get me around a 5 hr finish. After reaching mile 16, I made that dreaded u-turn onto the beach bike path. The sun was out in full force and I was feeling quite drained of energy. As I arrived at the unofficial beer and bacon station, I saw my friend headed the other way. She was having leg cramps as well. We both grabbed a small cup of cold beer. Lucky for her, she was headed for the finish line. I was still heading out for the final turnaround.
At around mile 20, I took a little detour as I headed for one of the beach restrooms. My quads and calves cramped up during that short restroom visit. The next mile up to the final turnaround was a slow one as I tried to walk off the leg cramps. After taking some extended walk breaks, the cramps would momentarily subside. However they would come back with a vengeance. As I reached the final mile 26 mile marker, I tried to run it to the finish line, but I came up very short and had to walk across the finish line as the legs were crippled with severe leg cramps. It took me 30 minutes longer than I had anticipated, but given my recent foot and hip ailments, I was glad to just have finished.
Finished: 5:30:27
Click here for my Garmin data.
After getting my huge finisher medal, I grabbed a bottle of water and headed to the beer garden area. Along the way, one of the half marathoners was complaining that she wasn't given any water. So I gave her mine. Before going into the beer garden, I decided to get my extra medals before I forget. For finishing the marathon today, I received the following:
- California Dreamin' for running San Francisco and Surf City
- Beach Cities for running OC, Long Beach, and Surf City
- Double Dog Dare for running OC and Surf City
Quite the haul for one race!
I then entered the beer garden and got in line for some complimentary Sam Adams beers. There were a couple of lines and one of them needed to be re-tapped. It didn't matter which line I was in as I found out that we needed to exchange our bib ticket for some red tickets in order to get our 2 beers. I went back to the beer garden entrance and found the table for the ticket exchange. Finally I got my 2 beers and joined up with my fellow Marathon Maniacs. I was just on my second beer as they started to clear people out of the beer garden. Apparently the beer garden was scheduled to close at 1 pm. Wow, that teaches me to take my sweet time out on the course. Perhaps they should have a separate line for half marathon and full marathon finishers. In the years past they used to have a separate line for legacy runners.
Anyways, after we said our goodbyes, we scattered and each went our separate ways. I walked back to my car and got ready for my annual protein rich recovery meal at the Korea House BBQ Buffet up in Garden Grove. I grilled up a bunch of boneless galbi short ribs, bulgogi, beef brisket, and some shrimp. I think that the quality of the bulgogi and brisket has seen better days. Next year, I should stick to the short ribs and shrimp. I'll probably grill up some gizzard and maybe some other seafood just to mix things up. After my meal, I headed home to watch the Superbowl... if I could manage to stay awake! Gettin' old! :)
Team beef!
Throwing some shrimp on the barbie!
No comments:
Post a Comment