I took an early morning JetBlue flight out of LAX. I gave up trying to find a spot in parking lot C, so I used SpotHero to reserve covered self parking at the WallyPark Premier parking garage. The gate attendant was very courteous when I arrived to get my entrance ticket. When he found out that it was my first time, he instructed me to park in a spot up on the 4th or 5th floor. The first thing that I noticed about this place was that they had padded cloth barriers between parking spots to prevent dings. After I found a spot, I took the elevator down to catch the shuttle to the terminals.
Once I boarded my flight and got seated, I connected and signed into the complimentary WiFi, called Fly-Fi. Before taking a snooze, I decided to watch Red Sparrow. I thought it was a pretty decent story with a nice plot twist thrown in, but some of it was quite bloody and disturbing even for the airplane edited version!
Red Sparrow
After landing at JFK airport and getting off of the plane, I made my way over to the AirTrain. Although I prefer going to Howard Beach, the first one that arrived was headed to Jamaica Station which was what I took. Fortunately I still had plenty of money on my MTA card. I was able to skip the long lines to put money on my MTA card to pay for the AirTrain ride ($5). I took the E train over to 7th Ave Station and walked over to the NYRR Runcenter to pick up my bib for tomorrow's race. The premium for this race was a pair of New Balance socks. I like that NYRR gives out useful items besides the usual race t-shirt. I have enough shirts to last me many lifetimes.
After I was done with that, I headed down to 50th St to check into my hotel. For this trip, I booked a room at the Amsterdam Court Hotel. The reviews for this hotel were average. I booked it because of several reasons. It was rather inexpensive, I had 1 night free on Hotels.com, and I wanted to stay near Central Park this time. Now that I'm a WorldMark by Wyndham owner, I'm trying to wean myself off of Hotels.com and other hotel chains to switch exclusively over to Wyndham properties. Unfortunately during this process I will have to endure sub-par hotels such as this property. The room was incredibly tiny, barely large enough to hold the queen sized bed. Besides the bed, there were two nightstands and pretty much nothing else. There were no chair, table, desk, or even a folding rack to place your baggage. The bathroom was also very tiny. It was so tiny that there was barely a spot for me to put my toiletries and I was constantly bumping into something. However they did have vegetable soap! It was actually nice to use since it didn't dry the heck out of my hands like normal soap.
For dinner, I went to a nearby McDonald's. It has been really hard to pass up such great deals that they've been having on their app! I got a free bacon, egg & cheese biscuit sandwich with the purchase of a $1 cheese burger. I placed a second order for another $1 cheese burger which qualified me for a free order of medium french fries. I took that back to my room.
Free bacon, egg & cheese biscuit sandwich with $1 purchase cheese burger
Free medium fries with $1 purchase cheese burger
After finishing my second McDonald's meal back at my room, I went back out to the nearby Duane Reade to buy some drinks and snacks. I ended up buying a bag of veggie chips which was okay, but tasted a bit too healthy. I snacked on the chips while watching a boxing match on ESPN. I also took the time to lay out my flat runner for tomorrow's race. Originally I thought about buying a bottle of the usual Powerade, but eventually decided to use up my remaining Nuun tablets.
Veggie chips
Alexis Bastar vs Rigoberto Nava
Flat runner
Saturday 7/21
I got ready and took the C train up to 103rd St station. From there I walked with a bunch of other race participants over to the starting area on East Dr. I got there in time to use a portapotty before getting into the corral for the 7 am start time.
Start line
That first mile was surprisingly congested and very slow. I ended up following the pacer that was holding the 7:37 min per mile sign as she carved through the crowd. Once it wasn't as congested, she took off as I maintained about an 8:20 min per mile pace. I thought I could keep that pace for at least 6 miles, but I had to fall back to plan B after the 3rd mile. I was feeling hungry, hot, and out-of-shape. It felt a lot like the second half of a marathon. Since this was a training run, I decided it was best to start taking walk breaks every time I reached another mile marker. I could definitely feel the tightness all throughout my left leg, the glute, hamstring, and calf. Eventually my left foot would cramp up. I had to jog and walk a bit just to get the foot cramps to go away. As I was jogging to the finish line I finally noticed the panther/mountain lion statue aka Still Hunt off to the side on East Dr. I guess that's why it's appropriately named cat hill.
Finish line
Finish: 1:54:58
Click here for my Garmin data.
Completed NYRR race #6 of 9.
Given my recent times for the half marathon, I was expecting to finish under 1:50. However I was really slowed down by the warm weather and tightness in my left leg which eventually led to a foot cramp. I actually had to work pretty hard just to finish where I finished.
After eating a bagel and drinking some water, I headed back to the 103rd station to take the subway back to my hotel. Unfortunately they were doing a bunch of track work during the weekend, so the train did not stop at 50th St. I had a choice to get off at 59th St - Columbus Circle or 42nd St - Port Authority. I chose the latter and headed up to the hotel.
After taking a shower, I quickly hoofed it up to the NYRR Runcenter to meet up with a local friend. I gave him the gift certificate that I had won at the last race. I was glad that it would get used instead of going to waste. It was good catching up with him.
On the way back to my room, I stopped by McDonald's to pick up lunch. I used the app to order a $1 McDouble and a Happy Meal since I saw that a kid had gotten Frozone for his toy. My set is almost complete. I'm still missing Dash and the second version of Jack Jack. :)
$1 McDouble plus Happy Meal
Frozone
I watched a little bit of The Open Championship before walking down to the AMC Empire 25 to catch an afternoon showing of Skyscraper. The Rock has come a long way since the Scorpion King. His acting has definitely gotten better. Although the movie was entirely predictable and quite cheesy at times, it was still incredibly entertaining.
Skyscraper
I stopped in at the Duane Reade on the way back from the movies to pick up some drinks. I was definitely thirstier after running that 12 miler. I probably shouldn't have bought the can of Green Tea as it gave me a little stomach ache. I've been pretty successful at weaning myself off of all sugary drinks. The only exception would be the Powerade or other sports drinks during a marathon.
Drinks
Once again, the McDonald's app was having issues. I finally gave up and placed my order with one of the cashiers. Fortunately the app was still able to display the discount QR code for $3 off an order of $10 or more. I used that to order the Filet-o-Fish and Quarter Pounder with Cheese.
Filet o' fish and Quarter Pounder with cheese
Back at my room, I watched some of the Star Wars marathon that was showing on TNT. I caught some of the Return of The Jedi and most of The Force Awakens. There were a lot of good dialogue in ROTJ between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker as well as the Emperor and Luke Skywalker. I still think TFA was a pretty good film if it wasn't just a rehash of A New Hope.
The Force Awakens
Sunday 7/22
I walked over to the McDonald's one last time for some breakfast. Thankfully the app was working this morning. I used it for the buy 1 Egg McMuffin, get 1 free deal. I checked out of my room early, just a little after 9 am to go catch the morning showing of The Equalizer 2. It turned out that the movie theater didn't open until 9:30 am, so I had to wait outside for about 15 minutes. The MoviePass app said that I was able to watch the 10 am showing, but it was listed as an IMAX feature film. With all of the recent changes, I'm not quite sure which type of movies I'm limited to see. I think the reviews were pretty bad for this sequel, but I thought it was okay. I've certainly seen much worse.
Buy 1 Egg McMuffin, get 1 free
As soon as the movie ended, I got out of theater and headed straight for the nearby Port Authority subway station to head for the airport. Originally I was going to take the E train over to Jamaica Station, but there were no E trains running out of this station. So I quickly switched over to the other platform to catch the A train to Howard Beach. The first train that arrived was an express train headed to Lefferts Blvd. I rode that until Rockaway Blvd station where I got off to catch a train heading to Far Rockaway. I got off at Howard Beach and took the AirTrain over to terminal 5.
One of the things that's starting to annoy me about flying with JetBlue is that your screen controls are on the armrest. Every one of my row-mate sitting next to me would constantly hit the controls and be oblivious about it. They've all looked confused when I tell them to stop touching my controls. Virgin America planes have the controls in the armrest as well, but at least the controls are protected by a cover to prevent the buttons from being accidentally pressed. Anyways the guy sitting next to me was one of those nightmare passengers. Not only did he constantly change the channel or volume for my screen, but he was a messy eater, frequently got up to go to use the lavatory, and constantly moving around bumping me every now and then when I'm trying to sleep. I eventually gave up on trying to catch some Z's and ended up watching the Star Wars marathon.
"You're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view."
The plane landed a bit early at LAX. Fortunately there was an available gate so we didn't have to wait forever on the tarmac for an open gate. After deplaning, I walked over to the curb on the upper departure level to catch a shuttle back to the parking structure. I didn't have to wait too long before a shuttle arrived. Thank goodness because the pickup spot was right next to the designated smoking area. Once I was dropped off at the parking structure, I went to the front desk with my entrance ticket and the printout of my reservation confirmation email. The lady then printed out an exit ticket for me to use to get out of the structure. The direction to the exit was very well marked. I just might have to keep using this parking structure in the future.
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