After I finished eating lunch, I made the drive out to the Club Event Center in San Bernardino to pick up my race packet. To my surprise, there was a lot of traffic especially on the 215 freeway. Thankfully, besides the traffic, it was very easy to find. It was near where the 215 meets the 10 freeway. I exited Waterman Ave South while heading east on the 10 freeway. The drive took nearly an hour.
The packet pick-up process was very well streamlined which has always been the case for Revel races. After picking up my bib, I was then given my race shirt and a gear bag. Inside the bag was a bunch of goodies. I've gotten so used to not receiving anything at race expos these days. It would seem that vendors are beginning to return to the old days and giving out samples of their product.
Packet pick-up
Race shirt
Back of race shirt
Participant name wall
Expo haul
The drive back home also took about an hour. Today, I was reminded as to why I hate driving on the 60 freeway. There's always a ton of construction, a ton of traffic, and a lot of slow drivers that don't understand that they don't belong in the fast lane especially when the freeway condenses down to 2 lanes! The left lane is for passing only! I don't care if you're driving the speed limit, but if you're not passing anyone, please move back to the right lane.
Saturday 11/13
I got ready and left my house just before 3 am. I wanted to get there a little before 4 am as the last bus was set to leave at 4:15 am. I arrived and parked at about 3:45 am. I met up with my friend, Albert. Having run this race before, he suggested that I use the portapotty before getting on the bus as it's somewhat of a long drive up to the starting area. The buses for the marathon was at the northeast corner of the lot on E Carnegie Dr.
Race day parking map
Portapotties at bus pick-up
Bus ride
The bus ride took about 45 minutes. We were dropped off at the Greyback Amphitheater. We were greeted by 20 degree weather as we got off of the bus. Thank goodness, Revel races always include a pair of throwaway gloves and a mylar blanket as part of their race packet.
Start line
I went and used a portapotty to take care of my pre-race business before meeting back up with my friend at the dark amphitheater. It was just a bit further north of the parking lot. Although it was dark, it was a nice place to sit a spell before the start of the race.
Poop here for power-up!
Greyback Amphitheater
As the start of the race approached, a bunch of the Marathon Maniacs gathered together next to the gear bag truck to take the usual pre-race photo. It's always great to see the same familiar faces at the race. I can't wait for the pandemic to be over so that I can do some more traveling instead of running mostly local races.
Heather and Krista!
Marathon Maniacs
Start corral
The race started just a minute or two after 6 am. My goal was to see how close I can get to finishing this race in under 4 hours. I was pretty confident that my PR of 4:13:19 was going down. That was set way back in May 17, 2014 at the YMCA Famous Idaho Potato Marathon on a non-downhill course. I was warned by several of my friends prior to the race to not go out too hard. They all advised me to take it easy for the first 8 miles as there are some decent climbs during that stretch. Even if my friends had not given me that advice, I already came into this race planning to just coast the entire way. I actually had to take a walk break during a climb at about 2.5 miles into the race. It think it had more to do with the elevation as my heart rate spiked and my breathing was more labored than I had liked. Fast Eddie came up to me and was telling me that his Garmin failed to get a signal so he was pacing blind. He asked about the pace that I intended to run. I told him that I was going to keep it easy and that I was trying to run a 4 hour flat marathon. Since he was pacing 3:50, he had to push on ahead of me.
Fast Eddie pacing 3:50
Early in the race
Halfway: 2:00:00
I guess my pacing was spot on as I reached the halfway mark at 2 hours flat. It was nice when the course finally had us turned towards the west so that the sun wasn't in our eyes. It would appear that I need to get new glasses as the lenses were no longer turning dark when there's sunlight. I took a walk break at miles 16 and 17. I was hoping that that would be it for the walking, but the sun came out in force especially for that last 10k. I knew that my legs would cramp up if I didn't take walk breaks, so from mile 20 on, I took a quick walk break after reaching each new mile marker. During this stretch, there was one runner dressed in all pink head to toe that was quite annoying. Actually to be more precise, her crew was annoying. She was dealing with cramps, but her crew kept encouraging her and cracking the whip to get her to keep running. She would push ahead of me only to be overtaken by me over and over again. There was at one point they were pretty much carrying her... uh, isn't that a DQ?
When the course wasn't as downhill
It was nice to reach mile 25 and making the right turn onto Opal Ave. It was also nice to be passing people that blew past me early on in the race. The heat was definitely playing a factor as there was an ambulance driving up and down the course treating downed runners. With the final left turn onto San Bernardino Ave, the finish line was in sight. Sure I could see the finish line, but it felt so far away! Even though I knew that I had a PR in the bag if I were to take a walk break, I forced myself not to walk.
Finish line up ahead
Finish line
Finish: 4:09:42
Click here for my Garmin data.
In addition to free race photos, we were also given a personalized YouTube video.
Even though I finished over 4 hours, I was quite happy with my race. I believe not taking a walk break during that final stretch gave me a sub 4:10. Although it was a new PR, it comes with an asterisk as the course was a big downhill course. I'll need to continue to improve and start running better times on a normal course. This was my first time running this race, but I thought it was pretty well planned to have the finish line on the south side of the Redlands Sports Park as elsewhere in the vicinity was pretty brown and barren.
After getting my finisher medal and a post race photo, I continued towards the recovery area. I received a couple of drinks from the volunteers and then got in the long line to get a printout of my results as well as the Triple Reveler medal. The other two Revel races that I had run this year was Wasatch in May and Sun Valley in June.
Finished with a PR
Marathon finisher medal
Post race drinks and cookie
Results
Triple Reveler
Once I took care of that, I headed to the beer garden to meet up with my friends. They're all much faster than me. It turned out that all of us pretty much had a good race day. After swapping race stories and taking a bunch of photos, it was time to go get my car and go get lunch.
Post race recovery
Food
Beer garden
Latino Heat and Ward
Friends in the beer garden
I skipped on the post race pizza, but I did get the cookie before heading out with Robert. On our way to the bus pick-up location for a ride back to our cars, we ran into Dexter. With this pandemic, it felt as if I hadn't seen him in forever! As a courtesy, they had surgical masks available before getting on the bus. I took one as my cloth mask was a bit moist from being in my pocket for the duration of the race.
The bus dropped us off near the half marathon pick-up location. It's always a bit harder to find your car when you parked it while it was dark. It was easy for me as the Tesla app told me the location of the car on the map. It would turn out that we parked really close to each other.
Ran into Dexter
My friends from Chicago wanted to get lunch at In-n-Out, so I joined them. There was one really close by to where we parked. It was near the corner of Harriman Pl and Tippecanoe Ave. I got there first at about 11:45 am and it was already starting to get busy in there. I washed my hands in the restroom, got in line, and order the usual, 2 Double Doubles with onion and a Neapolitan shake. After my food was ready, I found a table and started eating. I made sure to eat slow so that I wouldn't end up just watching my friends eat. I was done with my first burger before my friends arrived. I must say that those burgers and the shake really hit the spot after today's marathon!
Double Double with onion x2 and Neapolitan shake
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