After work, I swung by the OC Fair & Event Center to pick up my race packet. Per the usual, I parked at the TeWinkle Park across the street and walked over since they charged $8 for parking at the fairground. I arrived a little before 4 pm. Just like in prior years, there was already a very long line of people waiting to get inside. As I approached the end of the line, I spotted a familiar face. My friend paces a lot of the races that I run. I waited in line with him.
Once inside, I went to the half marathon booths to pick up my bib. This will be the first time I'll be running the half marathon at this event. For some reason, I've always run the full marathon (2007, 2014, 2015, 2017). After getting my bib, I picked up my race shirt before moving on to the next building to peruse the vendor booths. Along the way there, there was a banner covering the fence with the names of all of the race participants.
Since they were going to charge $10 for race day parking, I pre-paid $8 cash over at the parking booth. After going through all of the booths and not seeing anything that I needed to buy, I made my way back to my car.
Saturday 5/5
Originally I thought about going to Disneyland, but I decided to rest instead of logging more steps on the FitBit. I did go out to gas up the car as well as to get a haircut. However I was out of cash and the barbershop only accepted cash. It actually took a while for me to find a Vons supermarket in order to get some cash back with my Discover card. Most of the markets in the surrounding area were Asian markets and I was pretty sure that they did not do cash back.
Sunday 5/6
I got up early and headed over to the fairground to catch a bus over to the start line. I arrived at about a quarter 'til 5 am.This would be only the second time that I've ever parked at the fairground. I usually park at the start of the race at Fashion Island. I made sure to take a picture of where I parked my car so it would be a lot easier to find after the race.
After being dropped off, I made my way over to the Newport Beach Marriott Hotel to meet up with some of my friends. I took a picture with my fellow Marathon Maniacs before going inside to wait as the start time for the half marathon was 45 minutes after the start of the full marathon.
My legs felt pretty dang good, so I started the race at a quicker pace. However just like always, I made sure to not get too crazy especially during the first couple of extended downhill stretches. I stuck to the usual walk breaks at every 30 min interval. Just shortly after reaching the 10k mark, as I turned onto PCH, my left foot tendinitis started acting up. From that point on, the race became increasingly more of a struggle as the pace continued to slow with each passing mile. Just as I was coming up the half/full marathon split at Mesa Dr, I spotted my Marathon Maniac friend, Dale. I was able to say hi to him and wish him luck in the second half of his race before going on to finish mine. I was quite glad that the finish line for my race was only about 1 mile away! After checking my watch, I knew that I should finish in under 2 hrs, but I couldn't exactly walk it in. I still had to grind out the last mile to finish in under 2 hrs, which I did with about a minute to spare.
Finish: 1:58:50
Click here for my Garmin data.
After crossing the finish line, I spotted one of my friends from San Diego. She was taking a bunch of finish line photos with her new Samsung Galaxy S9 phone. It was actually pretty cool to use one especially when compared to my outdated Samsung Galaxy S5!
After getting my medal, I was handed a bottle of water, Gatorade, TruMoo, banana, and other various snacks. They also handed out a plastic bag so we could carry everything. However the bag was too heavy, so the handle broke. Even without the handle, it was still convenient to have everything in one bag. I then made my way over to the hanger to pick up my extra medals. I got one of the Surf City/OC Double Dare bottle openers as well as the much coveted Beach Cities Challenge shark medal. Out of the hundreds of medals that I've gotten throughout the years, it was definitely one of the neater ones! I then found a table to sit down where I ate the Noosa yogurt and drank the TruMoo. I gave away my free beer tickets before heading back to my car.
Later that evening I went out with my family to celebrate my dad's birthday. For his birthday, we always get sushi since that's his favorite food. For this occasion, we went to Kamon Sushi. My parents had been here once before, but it was my first time. After looking through their very colorful menus, I decided on their Kamon chirashi and the uni & ikura chawanmushi. The quality and selection of the fish was good, however I thought their prices were a bit too high as their quality wasn't quite as good as Ootoro.
Kamon chirashi
Uni & ikura chawanmushi
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