Originally I was going to go straight to the airport after work. However once I had received a notification that my flight was delayed, I decided to go home first. My flight out to JFK was out of one of my favorite airports, the Long Beach Airport. Getting through TSA here is a million times less stressful compared to LAX. Flying through this little airport has always been a relaxing experience. You even get to board the plane from both ends while walking on the tarmac.
Thankfully JetBlue's fleet consisted primarily of Airbus planes. The Boeing 737 MAX 8 and 9 planes like the one I flew on last weekend were recently grounded after 2 crashes due to the malfunction of a anti-stall feature. :( A lot of flights were being canceled on the other airlines that had a lot of those Boeing planes in their fleet.
During the flight, I watched most of the movie, First Man. I thought the movie was a little bit boring and it was past my bedtime, so I kept nodding off. I'm not quite sure if I liked how Ryan Gosling portrayed Neil Armstrong. He made Armstrong appear quite robotic, similar to his role in Blade Runner 2049.
First Man
Saturday 3/16
The plane landed at JFK just after 5:30 am. After getting off of the plane, I made a beeline for the AirTrain, but it was down... again. They had free bus service that would take us over to Federal Circle where we caught the AirTrain over to Jamaica Station. They didn't charge for that abbreviated AirTrain ride. Since my last Metro card had expired, I had to wait in line for a kiosk to purchase a new card. From there I took the usual E train into Manhattan.
I got off at 5th Ave/53rd St and walked over to my usual spot, Connolly's on 45th St, for breakfast. Apparently I had just beaten the crowd, as a ton of Irish bagpipers showed up shortly and were there drinking a pint of Guinness or having shots of whiskey before their St Patrick's Day Parade. The pub actually had bouncers checking ID's at the entrance as a lot of people were drinking quite early in the morning prior to the start of the parade. Normally I would have the place to myself. I ordered my usual full Irish breakfast and coffee. Their dishwasher was probably broken as they were using all disposable plates and utensils.
Coffee
Full Irish breakfast
After I was done with my meal, I hopped on the 1 train down to the Metropolitan Pavilion for the race expo and packet pick-up. They were doing track work so the 18th St station wasn't available as a stop. Instead I got off at 14th St and walked a few blocks up to the expo.
Metropolitan Pavilion
Although it was pretty crowded inside, the packet pick-up process was very well streamlined. Since they assigned bib numbers during pick-up, I was able go to any available line to be assigned a bib number and corral. First I had to show them my NYRR QR code so they could scan it. After getting my bib, I was given a green long-sleeve race shirt and a bag for gear check.
Expo entrance
Bib pick-up
Race shirt
They had the participants name wall which has become pretty standard at race expos these days. No matter how many races I've run, it's always cool to find your name among tens of thousands of other names. I checked out the rest of the expo before leaving to see if I could check into my room a few hours earlier than the regular 3 pm check-in time.
Participants name wall
Found my name
Running lab
Good luck, runners!
From the expo, I walked over to 8th Ave and took the A train down to Canal St. Since I had time to pass, I decided to swing by the fire station that was used for the Ghostbusters Headquarters. I got a much better picture this time around. The last time I was here, the building was covered with scaffolding as they were doing renovations to the building.
Ghostbusters HQ
I then walked over to the Sheraton Tribeca Hotel to check-in. The lady at the front desk took my information including my credit card to cover incidentals, however I was told to come back at 3 pm to pick up my room keys. First I hung out in the lobby charging my devices while checking to see what movies were playing at all of the nearby AMC Theatres.
There was still time to pass before the movie that I wanted to see, so I walked over to the nearby McDonald's to eat lunch. I placed my order via the mobile app. The deal I got was the standard buy 1 QPC for regular price and get a second sandwich for 25 cents. After I was done with the two burgers, I took the A train up to the 42nd St/Times Square/Port Authority station.
Quarter pounder with cheese x2
I had decided on watching Five Feet Apart at the usual AMC Empire 25 with my A-List membership. It was about 2 teenagers with cystic fibrosis that meet in a hospital and fall in love. The movie was a bit like a drawn out Grey's Anatomy episode. Certain scenes were a bit over-sensationalized. That's not really a bad thing as I thought that the two main actors did a really good job. I think we'll be seeing Haley Lu Richardson in more movies in the near future. It was a bit strange to see Cole Sprouse all grown up. I was used to seeing him as Cody Martin on the Disney show, Suite Life of Zach and Cody. He reminded me a lot of a young Leonardo DiCaprio.
Five Feet Apart
After the movie, I hopped on the A train back down to Canal St to pick up my room key and go up to my room. After unpacking and getting situated, I took a much needed shower before relaxing and watching some PGA Championship golf.
For an early dinner, I decided to pick up something quick at the nearby McDonald's. First I stopped by the 7-Eleven to picked up some drinks for the weekend and the race tomorrow.
Water and Powerade
At McDonald's, I used a deal on the mobile app for $1 off a Quarter pounder with cheese and bacon. I also ordered their cheesy bacon fries. This time, I took the food back to my room. I did not like the fries. I definitely prefer eating them plain with salt only. As for the Quarter pounder, they messed that up. Instead of adding bacon, they added an extra patty. Oh well, I wasn't too keen on adding the bacon as I hardly ever eat pork these days.
Quarter pounder with cheese and cheesy bacon fries
After finishing dinner, I laid out my flat runner before getting ready for bed. It was going to be a cold morning, so I prepared to wear arm sleeves, gloves, and a blanket. They were having the usual Star Wars marathon on TNT, so I watched some of that before falling asleep. As bad as The Prequels were, I still think they're much better than the dumpster fire called The Last Jedi! The network probably agreed with me as they always leave out Episode 8 every time they have a marathon.
Flat runner
"You're breaking my heart!"
Sunday 3/17
I got up pretty early for the subway ride down to Prospect Park in Brooklyn. A girl in the lobby was also running in the race. I think she took the opportunity to follow me to the subway station. I don't blame her as there's always some unsavory characters at the subway station during that time of the day. I took the A train over to Jay St - MetroTech. From there I transferred over to the F train and took that to 15 St - Prospect Park station. At that point there were already a bunch of runners all headed to the race start, so we followed each other like a pack of lemmings.
Since I was there quite early, there were no lines for security check. Going through the metal detectors was really easy. On the other side of security check, they were passing out mylar blankets which everyone was glad to take! After using one of the many portapotties, I headed over to wait by the entrance to my starting corral G. Once the corrals were opened, I went to the front of my corral near the entrance of corral F for my friend, Marathon Mitch. Since he wasn't planning to run the race fast, he decided to just start in corral G with me.
Corral G
Marathon Mitch
This was my third time running this race and the course was different each time. All 3 courses had their own pros and cons. The first 2 times, it was pretty much the same, a run from Central Park down to through Times Square ending near Battery Park. For this course, I thought it was pretty cool to start at Prospect Park in Brooklyn, run across the Manhattan Bridge, run up FDR, and ending in Central Park.
I started the race off with the goal of running about a 1:50, making sure that I didn't run that first mile too fast. Everything was going fine until I started feeling lethargic as I made the left turn off of FDR onto 42nd St which was about mile 10. I tried my best to hold it together, but by the time I had reached Times Square, I just felt like I was out of gas. When I reached the aid station, I thought it was as good a time as any to pull over and take a photo before continuing on to the finish line in Central Park.
Running through Times Square
For some reason when I reached Central Park, my mind thought that I still had to run all the way up to the Harlem hills, so I was feeling pretty demoralized. Thank goodness we turned left on Terrace Dr at about 72nd St to head for the finish line. It was good to be spotted by one of my local NYC friends just as I was getting close to the finish line.
Finish line
Finish: 1:53:33
Click here for my Garmin data.
Shortly after crossing the finisher line, I received my finisher medal followed by a mylar blanket and a recovery bag full of post race snacks and drinks. I think out of the 3 NYC half marathon courses that I've run, this was my favorite.Relive 'New York City Half Marathon'
Finisher medal
Post race recovery food and drinks
It was still pretty cold after the race, so I didn't hang around the finish area too long. Per the usual, there was a lot of congestion heading out of the finish area. I had to swim through a lot of people to get to the subway station at Columbus Circle. From there I hopped on the A train for the ride down to Canal St.
Back at the hotel room, I got cleaned up and pretty much stayed in my room for the rest of the day. I ate the apple and the bag of mini pretzels while watching the English Premier League match between Fulham and Liverpool.
Fulham vs Liverpool
For dinner, I decided not go to McDonald's again and to check out Black Burger which was really close by where I was staying. It was a really small place. A little more than half of the restaurant was the kitchen. On the customer side of the counter there were some counter spots for you to eat your burger, but not enough for more than a few people. I wasn't feeling particularly hungry, so when it was my turn, I ordered just their Black Burger with cheese, cooked medium. I got it with their standard ingredients... lettuce, tomato, pickles, onion, and house sauce. They gave a discount for paying in cash. I hardly ever carry cash these days, so plastic it is! Once my order was up, I took it back to my room to eat. The single patty burger didn't look very impressive, but it did taste good. Also the bun didn't disintegrate while I was eating it. If I do come back here, I'll probably get a double cheeseburger or one of their specialty burgers.
Black burger with cheese
Monday 3/18
My flight home was in the early evening and I was planning to stop by the NYRR RunCenter for the complimentary medal engraving, so I wasn't in a hurry to get ready and check out of my room. It was actually quite nice to sleep in for once.
After checking out, I hopped on the A train up to Columbus Circle. I timed it so that I would arrive at the RunCenter a few minutes before 12 pm, the time that they've posted for when the engraving would start. There was already a long line of people waiting to get their medals engraved. Per the standard procedure, we were given a sticky-note to write down our name, finishing time, and a number for them to send a text when they were done engraving the medal. Once I got to the counter, I gave them my medal and my NYRR membership number for them to confirm that I was an active current member. I then found a spot in front of the lockers to sit and wait.
NYRR RunCenter
I picked up my medal as soon as I received the text. I then headed over to the Go Go Curry on E 53rd St just a little over a block East of Lexington Ave for lunch before heading to the airport. I ordered my usual Home Run plate with chicken and added fukujinzuke. I ended up sharing a table with Andrew Makarushka (he spelled it out for me), a retired professor at San Diego Mesa College. We ended up talking about running as he noticed that I was wearing my Marine Corps Marathon jacket. It would turn out that he was quite the runner back in the day. He was from the San Diego area, so we knew some of the same people from the running community. What are the odds that I would run into him at a Japanese restaurant in NYC at that specific time? We also talked about our backgrounds. He told me that his family was the only Ukrainian family among Jews to come over on a boat to America back in the day.
Home run with chicken and add fukuzinjuke
We had a good conversation going, but eventually I had to excuse myself to go catch the E train out to JFK Airport. This time around, the AirTrain was running. I took that over to terminal 5 for my flight home with JetBlue. After getting through TSA, I had some time to get something to eat, but there really wasn't any good cheap food options in the airport terminals these days. For the most part, they had taken away my McDonald's and replaced them with high-priced fancy restaurants.
$$$$ I want my McDonald's back!
Instead of eating something in the airport, I opted to wait at the gate and to just snack on the plane. JetBlue flights do have some of the best snacks among the US domestic airlines. I especially like those Pop Corners. It was a pretty uneventful flight home. I watched some TV on the screen, but decided to nap as much as I could.
Off we go!
The plane landed at Long Beach Airport at about a quarter after 8 pm. It was pretty quick and painless to get off of the plane as we could exit from the rear of the plane as well. It was also very easy to walk back to my car and to be on my way home without having to wait for a shuttle. It was so much easier that I'm going to try my best to never fly out of LAX until they're done upgrading that airport.
Landed
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