I got ready and left the house a little before 5:30 am. I arrived at the Laguna Hills Mall parking lot at just before 6 am. Per the usual for this race, I parked in the lot that was across the street from Citibank. I then walked over to the parking lot on the other side of the Nordstrom Rack to pick up my race packet. After getting my bib, I was wondering where they were passing out the race shirts. It would turn out that we needed to pick them up at the finish line area. I bumped into my friend while getting in line to use one of the portapotties. He was pacing the 2:45 group.
Luis
When I got back to my car, I bumped into Pony Espresso aka John at his car. He's one of the remaining legacy runners at the LA Marathon and a fellow Marathon Maniac. It's always inspirational to see him out there still running races. I got my handheld from my car and headed over to the starting corral. Before I went inside the corral, I stopped by the announcer stage to say hi to my friend.
Start line
Andrea
After a pretty mediocre race last weekend, I was not very hopeful for today's race. I tried to warm up the legs a bit this time to see if it would help. Even with a slow jog, both of my Achilles were feeling really tight. To make things worse and more interesting, I noticed as I was making my way into the starting corral that a piece of the sole of my right shoe was peeling off. I guess it's time to retire this pair.
Starting corral
The race started a few minutes after 7 am. It actually felt almost normal from the get-go, running at about an 8:30 minute per mile pace. I guess warming up helped. For about 2.5 miles, I thought I would have a decent sub 2 hour race. However, it was not to be. The Achilles tendinitis flared up big time just as I made the right turn onto Alicia Parkway and came up to where the 5k runners split off for their finish line. I seriously contemplated making that turn with them. My friend was there cheering from the sidewalk. I headed over to her as I really needed to take a walk break. She thought I was going to drop out. Perhaps, I should have. Both Achilles felt like they were on fire! Being the dumb dumb that I am, I wanted to see if I could walk it off and just jog it in. To make things even more annoying, just like last weekend's race, the sweat on my nose was causing my glasses to slide down my nose as soon as I push them up. Eventually, I just took them off until I was less sweaty. I might need to buy some new frames that are better for running. By about mile 5, I was finally able to find a pace that was manageable. It was just a little below an 11 minute per mile pace. For the most part, it was fine running on flat and downhill sections. However, I did feel the tightness and discomfort whenever there was any little incline. At about mile 6.9, we hopped onto the little dirt trail. That section was only for about 8/10th of a mile. Shortly after getting off of that dirt trail was the turnaround. It was a slow and steady grind over to the finish line at the Laguna Hills Community Center. That little steep climb up to that final stretch was actually a sight for sore eyes! Per the usual, my friend was there cheering on each runner!
Finish line
Finish: 2:13:06
Click here for my Garmin data.
After crossing the finish line, I received my finisher medal. I continued down the finisher chute where I got a banana, an orange, a Nature Valley trail mix bar, and a bottle of water. I then headed over to my friend to join her in cheering on my fellow runners for that final stretch.
Finisher medal
Post race fruit
Andrea
Sarah
Kim
Albert
After my friend, Albert, came through, I headed over to the finish line to meet up with him. We sat down, hung out a bit, and rested as it ended up being a pretty warm day. Eventually, I walked over to check out the Chick-fil-A pop-up tent. They had a pretty limited menu. If they had frosted lemonade, I would've bought one from them.
Chick-fil-A pop-up
I almost forgot to pick up my race shirt. Good thing that I remembered before we started heading up the hill for the shuttle pick-up location. The volunteer first gave me a polyester tech shirt. I exchanged it for a cotton shirt. My friend went to go check out the booths as I went to go use one of the portapotties. One of my old running friends spotted me. It's always great to see her at races after all of these years! We used to run so many marathons every year!
Race shirt
Back of race shirt
JQ
They didn't have too many shuttles running this year probably due to a smaller participant turnout. They had 2 small shuttles and 1 large motor-coach making continuous runs. There were quite a few people that gave up on waiting and decided to walk back to their cars. My friend and I weren't in a rush, so we continued to wait in line. Fortunately, we got on the larger, more comfortable motor-coach. After being dropped off at the mall parking lot, we went our separate ways.
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