Saturday 6/9
I drove out to LAX pretty early in the morning to catch my Southwest flight to Seattle. I arrived at parking lot C a little before 4 am. Fortunately I was able to find a parking spot after a few minutes of searching. Since I was flying with Southwest out of terminal 1, I decided to forego the shuttle and walk over to the terminal.
Parking lot C
Southwest from LAX
I had to make a plane change at San Jose Airport. I actually had a couple of hours to pass at that airport and would've eaten at a McDonald's if they had one. Most of the restaurant choices were pretty pricey. Since the closest thing to a McDonald's was Smashburger, I decided to just wait until I got into Seattle to eat.
While on the second leg of my flight, I was able to catch some of the French Open Women's Championship match on my tablet using the inflight WiFi. After being down 1 set, I didn't think Halep would come back to win it!
French Open
I landed at SeaTac Airport at about 12:30 pm. After getting off of the plane, I made my way straight to the Link Station to catch the light rail into downtown Seattle. I still had money on my Orca card, so I didn't have to get in one of the lines to purchase rail fare.
I got off the train at the Stadium station and walked over to the expo located at the CenturyLink Field Event Center. The first thing I saw as I entered was the banner that listed the all year runners. I found my name pretty quickly as the list wasn't very long. The list included those that ran half marathons as well. I wonder how many have run the full marathon each year.
All year runners
After picking up my bib, I got my race shirt. The shirt was disappointingly similar to the one I got last weekend for Rock n' Roll San Diego. I guess one way to do things on the cheap is to reuse the same design template. Oh well, it's not like I need another race shirt.
Race shirt
I then went through the official merchandise area and saw that they had clothing that had all of the names of every participant on it. I briefly thought about buying one of them, but then quickly remembered that I don't need or have space for another piece of clothing!
Find your name
I then started visiting all of the vendor booths. I made a stop at the Rock n' Roll area to sign up for next year's race as well as to pick up my legacy t-shirt. In the weeks leading up to the race, I was sent an email instructing me to do so. It was an average looking tech-shirt, nothing too fancy. At least it was something. For a while I wasn't expecting them to do anything to acknowledge the legacy runners. I received another cotton t-shirt for signing up for next year's race.
Legacy t-shirt email
Legacy shirt
Legacy shirt, back
Race expo swag
After I was done with the expo, I started making my way over to Uwajimaya to buy some drinks and snacks. I normally don't check the prices when I shop here and I noticed that the prices were pretty high. So I walked over to the nearby Daiso to see if they have anything comparable. Unfortunately their selection was pretty small, so I went back and bought my drinks at Uwajimaya. I will have to look into buying my stuff somewhere else in the future to save a few extra bucks.
Uwajimaya
I was getting kind of hungry, so I started heading over to my usual spot, Ivar's Fish Bar, for some lunch. It was drizzling a bit, just enough rain to make you want to pull out the umbrella. For some reason my phone completely crapped out, I was unable to power it back up. Oh well, hopefully it's just a battery issue. When it was time for me to order, I got their 3pc Pollock and chips combo which came with a drink and cup of chowder for $11.99. The dining area was closed due to ongoing renovations, so there was very limited table options for me to eat my food. I had to settle for an open bench. It was open for a reason as the rain started coming down and there was no covering. I got a little wet, but it wasn't too bad.
Ivar's
After I was done with my food, I walked over to WorldMark Seattle - The Camlin to check into my room for the weekend. Once again they invited me to attend an owner's presentation during the check-in process. This time, I made sure to have them check my status. It was nice to finally get to my room and put my bags down and to take a shower.
Room came with a VHS player!
For an early dinner, I went over to the nearby McDonald's to pick up dinner. Thank goodness I was able to revive my cellphone. All it needed was a little charge. Still I think the phone is on its last legs and I'll need to get an upgrade soon! I used the McDonald's app to score a free Sausage McMuffin with egg sandwich for the Sounders FC Match Day giveaway deal. I took the food back to my room to enjoy. Afterwards I took the time to lay out my flat runner before going to sleep.
Salt water tank at McDonald's
Sounders FC Match Day free Breakfast Sandwich
Flat runner
Sunday 6/10
The race was scheduled to start at 6:30 am, so I timed my walk to arrive at the starting area at about 5:30 am. Despite the wet weather forecast, from what I could see, it would appear that the rain would hold off for the majority of the morning. That was great since nobody likes to wait in the middle of a downpour. After checking my bag at the UPS trucks, I went to go use one of the nearby portapotties. There were no lines. When I was done, my friends were waiting for me outside. Apparently they had spotted me going in. If I had known they were waiting, I wouldn't have been posting stuff on Facebook. :)
Nice morning view!
There wasn't a planned Marathon Maniacs pre-race photo, but I did get one with the President before we went into corral 2 to wait for the start. While waiting, I saw a couple of dudes dressed up as Wayne and Garth!
My local friends!
Corral
Corral
Wayne and Garth!
The legs felt pretty good from the start, but I knew my endurance wasn't there yet for a full marathon and I only wanted to finish under 5 hrs, so I made sure not to get too crazy. Also I knew that there would be a lot of rollers in this new course. The first significant uphill came pretty early on Olympic Pl as the course ran alongside Kinnear Park. It was followed by a pretty long stretch of downhill on 11th Ave. The course took us up to Nickerson St where we took that east until it turned into Westlake Ave. We stayed on Westlake Ave until Valley St and Fairview Ave which took us to Eastlake Ave. We took that up to Fuhrman Ave which turned into Boyer Ave. Turning onto 19th Ave off of Boyer Ave was a bit of a shock. It was a short, but very steep hill. From there we took Interlaken Blvd through Interlaken Park heading towards Boylston Ave where we headed south. The road then turned into Lakeview Blvd as we continued south until turning west on Republican St. Here would be where the course splits between the half and full marathon.
After getting a sniff of the finish line, I headed out for the second half of the race. The course headed towards the Alaskan Way Viaduct. It was good to see some of my faster friends having already done the out and back that took us out past CenturyLink Field. That wasn't so bad compared to the very long out and back on Aurora Ave that took us all the way out to Woodland Park. My friends caught me at the park just as we approached the mile 21 marker. This was my first time running to and through this park. It was actually quite nice to change up the terrain a bit. With about 4 miles to go, the weather turned a bit. It got a bit chilly and it started to rain. It wouldn't be a trip to Seattle without some rain! Eventually it felt cold enough that I had to wear the arm sleeves again. Right on cue, the rain let up and it got sunny as I approached the finish line.
My friend, Jack
My friends caught me at mile 21
Finish line
Finish: 4:50:43
Click here for my Garmin data.
Year #10 done. God willing, I'm hoping to go at least another 10 years! :)
After crossing the finish line, I got my medal and a bunch of post race food and drinks. I made my way over to the UPS trucks to collect my gear bag. I bumped into my friends there. They were off to the side eating their post race snacks. I took a picture of my medal in front of the International Fountain. We then entered an area fenced off for marathon finishers where they were serving pizza and sandwiches. I passed on the food since my stomach wasn't quite ready for solid food just yet. It was actually a bit chilly, so we moved over to the grassy area in front of the stage where there was warm sunshine. I gave away my beer ticket and drank my chocolate milk before parting ways with my friends.
Finisher medal
Chocolate milk
Along the way back, I saw a huge crowd of people in front of the Amazon Go store. It's supposed to be very innovative in that you just grab your items and go. The store will automatically know what you have taken and charge your account accordingly. I will probably have to check it out in one of my future trips. Right next to it was The Spheres. It definitely looked very unique. Here's their description of the place on their website:
"The Spheres are a place where employees can think and work differently surrounded by plants."
After getting clean up and waiting a couple of hours for my appetite to return, I headed out to get a late lunch and to catch a movie. I walked over to the Public Market to eat at one of my favorite non-seafood places in Seattle, Uli's Famous Sausage. I went with their sausage platter and my 4 choices were the Cajun Andouille, heavy garlic chicken, Hungarian, and Polish Kielbasa. Those were among my favorites. They surely did not disappoint!
Uli's Famous Sausages
After the meal, I walked over to the Regal Cinemas Meridian 16 at the corner of Pike St and 7th Ave to watch Ocean's 8 with my MoviePass. I'm a fan of Sandra Bullock and it was a pretty entertaining movie. However it just wasn't quite up to par with the other Ocean's movies. It also felt like they tried way too hard to make it a movie about girl power. The whole time, I kept waiting for George Clooney to make a cameo.
For a quick dinner, I went back to good 'ol McDonald's to pick up a meal. There weren't any more deals on my app to use, so I ordered 2 medium french fries for $5 as one of their local in-store deals and a Quarter Pounder with cheese sandwich.
Monday 6/11
I attended the owners presentation in the morning. They gave out the usual complimentary breakfast where I got some hard boiled eggs, a croissant, and some coffee. I remember hearing the same presentation from the same presenter last year. Thankfully they skipped the pressure sales pitch as I told him that I had just purchased credits a couple of weeks ago. After that I went back up to my room to pack up my stuff.
After checking out, I made the walk over to the nearby Taylor Shellfish Farms, located on Melrose Ave just south of Pine St, for lunch. Eating delicious Pacific Northwest seafood is the primary reason why I keep coming back each year to run this marathon. I've been to their other location on Republican St, so I was pretty confident that their food would be good here as well. After getting seated, I ordered their Harissa geoduck and the Moqueca Brazilian shellfish stew. I'm kind of over oysters lately, so I thought I'd order other types of seafood. I definitely did not go wrong with these two items. They were both very good!
Harissa geoduck
Moqueca Brazilian Shellfish Stew
After lunch, I walked over to the AMC Pacific Place 11 to catch a movie before heading to the airport. I decided to use my MoviePass to watch Hotel Artemis. If you liked the rest and recovery scenes at the Continental in the John Wick movies, this was pretty much the entire movie. The story wasn't great or well thought out. It was set in a time where people were rioting over the availability of clean water. Jodie Foster mailed it in for this one. For such a big name actress, that was pretty disappointing. I did like Dave Bautista's character in this one, but still I wouldn't recommend watching this unless you had a MoviePass and don't have anything better to do.
Hotel Artemis
After the movie, I hopped on the Link light rail and headed for the airport. I had an evening flight with Southwest Airlines. Normally I would stop at the Ivar's in the airport after going through the TSA checkpoint to have one last fish & chips meal before going home. However since their lease was not extended and they were no longer an option, my fallback plan was to eat at the ever so popular McDonald's in Concourse B. It was a madhouse! I escaped most of it by placing my order on my mobile app. I was able to buy 1 Quarter Pounder with cheese and get another for $1. I ate the 2 burgers near my gate.
No Ivar's at airport :(
Buy 1 Quarter Pounder with cheese, buy 1 for $1
Originally the plane was supposed to stop in Oakland without a plane change, but once we landed, we were notified that we were changing planes. All of us walked over to the terminal where we waited for our plane to LAX. Once the plane was ready, the fly-through passengers were allowed to board first.
For the remainder of the flight, I watched some WWE Raw on my tablet via the complimentary inflight WiFi.
No comments:
Post a Comment