I drove out to the Irvine Transportation Center to catch an early morning Amtrak train down to San Diego. The train was late, but thankfully not too late. I arrived at the Santa Fe Depot at about 9 am. From there I walked over to the San Diego Convention Center for the race expo. The expo and packet pick-up was pretty standard for a Rock n' Roll event. It was very streamlined. After picking up my bib, I made my way over to the tables to pick up my race shirt. Once again I bumped into my friend, Dexter, who was volunteering. Always good to see him at the races!
Legacy runners
It's Dexter
Race shirt
I made my way through the official merchandise and into the expo to check out the vendor booths. I went through about half of the booths before coming up to the Rock n' Roll area, where I waited for a computer to register for next year's race. It was $69 plus $9.99 processing fee for the marathon. My friend found me while I was registering for my race, so I ended up going through some of the expo with her.
Race swag
One of the booths that I found amusing was the WWF (World Wildlife Fund) booth. I said, "hey! It's the World Wrestling Federation!" The guy there was not amused by my comment. I recalled that they had a long litigious battle to secure that acronym from pro wrestling. I did take the card that they were handing out and quickly moved along. :) The card was for their stand-up paddle board event.
WWF
Goofing around with my friend
One the way out, I was pulled aside by someone that was doing a research project for UC San Diego. The project was headed up by a guy that had attended UCSD around the same time I did. He was studying those that were running the full marathon and their hydration strategy. After taking a short survey on their tablet, they took down my weight. Just as I was finishing up, I bumped into my friend who would be pacing one of the groups for the half marathon.
Bumped into Jen
From there, I walked over to the Regal movie theater over at Horton Plaza to catch a showing of Deadpool 2. It was pretty hilarious and not quite as raunchy as the first one. However I totally fell asleep during one of the last battle scenes. If I'm tired, mindless loud explosions and noises usually will put me to sleep like a lullaby. :)
After the movie, I walked over to the McDonald's near Balboa Park to eat a late lunch. I placed my order on the mobile app as I was walking up. I got the usual Quarter Pounder with cheese and medium french fries. With the app, I was able to get $1 off my order.
Lunch
After lunch, I hoofed it over to my place for the weekend, WorldMark Inn at the Park. I went up Park Blvd and cut across Balboa Park. The park was quite busy and filled with a lot of people doing various activities. It was pretty cool to cross over the Cabrillo Bridge outside of running it during the AFC Half Marathon. I was pretty tired and sweaty as I got to the property. I was hoping to get into my room right away and take a quick shower before meeting up with my friend for dinner, but my room was not ready.
When my room was finally ready, they gave me the room keys, and the concierge invited me to an owner update presentation. I told him that I just recently had one, but he insisted that I go. Oh well, if you say so and want to give me more free Wyndham Rewards points.
After checking into my room, I dropped off my bags and washed my face before heading back out for an early dinner with my friend at the nearby Hachi Ramen. Once we went inside, I ordered the duck ramen and shiso edamame. I always love eating duck meat, but the bowl didn't really stand out for me. However I really liked the shiso edamame. I've had the traditional salt and other flavor variations, but this flavor combination was the best that I've had.
Duck ramen and shiso edamame
Dinner with Jen
After dinner, I stopped in at the 7 Eleven on the way back to my room to buy some drinks and get hydrated for tomorrow's race. It was pretty amusing to see the many Deadpool decorations!
Deadpool!
Drinks
Back at my room, I watched the last few innings of the Dodgers v. Rockies game. It was good to see that the Dodgers were finally working their way through all of the injuries and doing much better with both their pitching and hitting. They're too good of a team to be down in the cellar with the Padres! I also took the time to lay out my flat runner so that I would be ready to go tomorrow morning.
Let's go Dodgers!
Flat runner
Sunday 6/3
It might have been a pain in the butt to get to on foot yesterday, but it was sure mighty convenient to be staying just footsteps from the start line. I stayed in my room for as long as possible before I went outside to the starting area. I checked my gear bag and went to the starting line to wait for my friends to the take the pre-race Marathon Maniacs photo. The event staff was preventing us from positioning ourselves under the starting banner, so we ended up not getting all of the Maniacs in this photo. A few of them were on the other side of the corral.
Marathon Maniacs pre-race photo
I started out of corral 5. I ended up bumping into a bunch of familiar faces while waiting for the race to start.
Corral
I didn't exactly come into this race feeling fresh, so I made sure to start off as slowly and comfortably as I possibly could even though during that first mile, I love to bolt out like a madman. It was one of the few times where I didn't go out running a sub 8 min first mile. I got to run a couple of miles with my friend through the neighborhood between the 805 and 15 freeways. Unfortunately I had to let her go on ahead as she was running the half marathon and was going a tad faster than I know I should be running. It was so much nicer once I reached the course split between miles 8 and 9. I really dislike running a race where there are participants in the half marathon mixed in with the full marathon. On the upside while heading West on University Ave, I got to see some of my friends that had started in later corrals. After a stretch of downhill, it was followed by a couple of very steep short hills on Robinson Ave and Georgia St. From there the course headed West towards Presidio Park for the halfway point.
Then it was down to Sea World Dr for a few miles at the Southeast corner of Mission Bay. It's not one of my favorite sections of the course, but at least it was pretty flat. My friend caught me between miles 17 and 18. She tried to pinch one of my butt cheeks, but she couldn't grab anything as I have a pretty flat butt. :) I stopped for a portapotty break just before turning onto Friars Rd. There was a long stretch next to the Riverwalk Golf Course. It was ever so slightly uphill which caused me to take more breaks than the usual scheduled walk breaks. It's always nice to finally reach that aid station next to Fashion Valley Mall.
My goodness I just had to stop to take a picture of the scary Pennywise clown at the entrance of the dreaded 163 freeway. Yes, the 163 was indeed the real nightmare! It hits you in 2 ways: the road is cambered and it's pretty much 1 mile of straight climbing. I wouldn't complain as much if it was at the beginning of the race instead of during the late miles.
I was trying to hold it together during the last mile. I looked at my watch and was feeling pretty relieved that I was going to finish my 200th marathon in just under 5 hrs. However my internal thoughts of what I was going to do post race were abruptly interrupted. I found it odd that we were being instructed quite loudly by the police officers that were stationed at intersections to get off of the streets and to get as close to the buildings. Shortly after making the final turn onto Ash St and passing the mile 26 marker, we were told to stop, that nobody was allowed beyond Third Ave. Some runners and spectators were being uncooperative, but the police officer at that intersection was quite stern in his instructions. We knew it had to be something serious. They didn't tell us much, but they told us that it was an active shooter situation. They held us there for about 20 minutes before telling us to turn around and head for the San Diego City College at the corner of Park Blvd and B St. They told us that they would be bringing the finish line over to that location. I waited at the school for a few minutes before one of the officers told us that the original finish line has been reopened and that we could now finish the race.
Having that 30 minute or so break helped refreshed my legs. I was able to run pretty well over to the finish line. It was good to have a little shout out from Rudy, the race announcer, as I crossed the finish line!
Finish line
Finish: 5:38:43
Click here for my Garmin data.
Well, that was an interesting way to finish my 200th marathon! I kept the watch running the whole time and it showed that I tacked on about 1 - 1.5 miles to my total distance. More importantly I was glad to hear that no one was hurt from the incident except for an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound by one of the responding officers. It would turn out that the person arrested had only an air-soft gun. Oh the times that we live in where stuff like this has become the norm.
Click here for the official race statement concerning the incident.
After getting my finisher medal, it was certainly odd to see no finish line photographers. I guess they were sent home. I got a bottle of chocolate milk, bottle of water, bottle of Gatorade, as well as other various snacks.
I then walked over to the Waterfront Park to pick up my gear bag. I only stayed long enough to give away my free beer ticket. Then I walked over to the Wyndham Harbour Lights to attend the owner presentation. Originally I was going to have enough time to get back to my room and shower first. However when I went to the desk to check in, they informed me that I could not attend another presentation so soon after purchasing credits. I thought that that was the case. They apologized because the concierge should've caught that during the check-in process. They ordered an Uber ride for me. However I waited for about 10 minutes and having been cycled through 2 different drivers, I figured that with the downtown road closures due to the marathon that it was next to impossible to get through the traffic. I told them to cancel the ride and that I would walk it. They thought I was crazy probably because it was uphill the entire way and I had just completed a marathon. I think it helps with the recovery to keep the legs active right after a marathon.
After getting cleaned up, it was time to relax in my room. Later that evening, I turned on the TV and watched game 2 of the NBA Finals. I watched quarter 1 before walking over to Hane Sushi for dinner. They had the game on in the bar area, so I ended up watching it there as well. Since it always takes time for my stomach to recover after running a marathon, I was kind of glad that this restaurant was more about quality over quantity. Their Kobe beef sashimi was good and their sashimi was really fresh! After dinner I went back to my room and watched the remainder of the game.
Kobe beef sashimi
Sashimi dinner
Monday 6/4
I woke up at about 1:30 am, about 15 minutes before my alarms were set to go off. I guess my body was done sleeping. I took a shower and packed up for my long walk down to the Santa Fe Depot to catch the 4 am train into work. It's always a bit unnerving to be walking through any downtown area at dark o'clock. Otherwise it was an uneventful train ride back into Irvine.
Well, that was my 200th marathon overall and the 16th consecutive time that I've run this race. I wonder just how much longer I could keep this up!
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