After eating dinner and taking a shower, I got a ride over to LAX. I was dropped off at terminal 5 to catch a red-eye JetBlue flight over to Boston Logan Airport. Just from walking throughout the terminal, I noticed that both of my Achilles were feeling a bit tight and achy. It felt better when I walked around, but not when there's any bit of incline. I guess that's to be expected since I have been running a high volume of races as of late.
Chasing the unicorn
Departures
Dog at work
As soon as I boarded the plane and got situated in my seat, I started watching The Matrix Resurrections. I'm glad that I did not bother paying to see it in the movie theater or through a streaming service. I could barely stay awake for this hot mess. How can a movie made 20+ years after the original be worse off? This hot garbage of a movie was lazy and very unoriginal. There were so many callbacks that there was pretty much nothing new added to the original trilogy. What little new material was added was just plain bad. What they did to Niobe was pretty much the same crap that they did to Luke Skywalker in the god awful Star Wars sequel trilogy. What a waste of time! This was 2 big thumbs down for me!
The Matrix Resurrections
Friday 4/15
The plane landed at Boston Logan Airport at a little after 6:30 am. My car rental reservation was for 8 am, so I wasn't in a hurry after I got off of the plane in terminal E. I decided to get breakfast at the nearest Dunkin' that I came across. I skipped the line and placed my order on their mobile app for the usual avocado & roasted tomatoes toast and a medium coffee.
Breakfast
After finishing my breakfast, I headed outside of the terminal and waited for the next shuttle to take me over to the Rental Car Center. When I arrived there, I found a seat to sit down and wait. I waited until it was closer to 8 am before I went and got in line for the Thrifty counter. In hindsight, I didn't need to wait as it was taking forever for both of the employees to finish helping their customers. When it was finally my turn, thankfully it didn't take too long to complete all of the paperwork. The employee did a hard sell on me to prepay for tolls with PlatePass as all of the tollways are now automated. There are no longer toll booths collecting tolls. It was $12.49 per day. I mentioned that I was heading down to Rhode Island where there shouldn't be any tolls. She said that there would be a toll to just leave the airport area. Just so I could leave quicker, I went ahead and prepaid for tolls. When I went to the garage, I got a Hyundai Venue.
Waiting for the rental car shuttle
Along the way down to Newport, Rhode Island, I decided to stop off in Brockton to eat a second breakfast at Chick-fil-A. There was an ALDI supermarket in the same parking lot, so I went there and bought a gallon of water before going inside Chick-fil-A. Per the usual, I used the mobile app and placed my order for a hash brown scramble bowl with grilled filet, a Greek yogurt parfait with granola, and a medium Sunjoy. After finishing my second breakfast, I hopped back in the car and continued with my drive heading south.
Second breakfast
I arrived at The Wayfinder Hotel at about 11 am. Unfortunately, packet pick-up on Friday didn't open until 1 pm. For some reason, I remembered that it would be open earlier. I hopped back in the car and drove down to the Club Wyndham Inn on the Harbor to see if my room was ready for me to check-in a few hours early. Parking was very tight at this property. I parked in the tiny parking lot on the lobby level. They also had a lot underneath. As to be expected, my room was not ready. However, the lady at the front desk was able to take down all of my info that was needed for check-in and would call me as soon as my room was ready. To pass the time, I walked around the area for a bit to have a look-see and check out the nearby restaurants and stores.
Eventually, I walked back to my car and drove over to McDonald's at nearby Middletown to pick up lunch. I used the usual 'buy 1 quarter pounder with cheese at regular price, get a second one for 29 cents' mobile app deal. After I got my food, I hopped back in the car and drove back to The Wayfinder Hotel. I ate the 2 burgers in my car before going inside to pick up my race packet.
Bib pick-up
Race shirt
Back of race shirt
The rental property left me a voicemail letting me know that my room was ready. So after picking up my race packet, I hopped back into my car and drove back to the property. This time, I parked the car in the lot underneath. It was nicely shaded down there. I didn't plan to use the car again until it was time to leave for the airport. I picked up my room key from the front desk and headed up to my unit. I was assigned room #609. I thought that the layout of the unit was a bit awkward with the bed right at the entrance and the partial kitchen in the back.
Bag of candy given during check-in
Candies
Later that evening, I went out to get dinner. I first checked out The Red Parrot which was right across the street. They were pretty slammed with no openings at the bar so, I decided to go find another place. I walked over to The Lobster Bar as my second choice. The restaurant was right at the end of the wharf with a nice view of the Newport Harbor. It was also pretty packed inside so there was a lengthy wait for a table. Instead of doing that, I walked over to the bar and was able to snag a seat as a party was settling their bill and was about to leave. After looking over the menu, I ordered the lobster burger and an iced tea. The bartender was a nice guy, but man, he was super busy with a lot of drink orders! Even so, he refilled my glass whenever it was empty. There weren't a whole lot of lobster pieces in the burger, but it was an okay burger.
Iced tea
Lobster burger
After settling my bill, I walked back to my room. Before heading back to my room, I headed up to the rooftop to check out the views based on the recommendation during the check-in process. I wasn't up there for very long. It was quite windy and there were lots of bird poop.
View from the roof
Back in my room, I laid out my flat runner for tomorrow's race. I took a shower before getting ready to call it a night. Per the usual for a Saturday race, I ended up watching some WWE Friday night SmackDown until I was nice and tired.
Flat runner
The Usos
Saturday 4/16
I got ready and left my room at about 6:15 am. It would appear that I might have been among the very few that had decided to walk to the race start. The temperature wasn't too cold, but it was quite windy. Besides the wind, it was a very nice picturesque walk. Once I reached Easton's Beach parking lot, I made my way into the covered parking area that was closer on the eastern end. It was significantly warmer standing in there as most of the wind was blocked.
Cliff Walk
Each Other by Kay Worden
While milling about, I found Cade and Glen in the gear check line. After hanging out with them for a while, I went to get in line to use one of the portapotties one last time before the start of the race. As the start time approached, the race announcer had us gather in the starting area out on Memorial Blvd. I positioned myself near the 4 hour pacer.
The race started promptly at 7:30 am. I started the race running with the 4 hour pace group. The Achilles tendinitis made it quite uncomfortable even at the slower pace than I what was accustomed to when I blast right out of the gate. Thankfully, after about half a mile, the discomfort dissipated. The course had plenty of rollers and for the most part, my pace was pretty even. My legs started to fatigue after reaching mile 5. It was nice running along Ocean Ave with a view of the ocean, but it was quite windy. At about mile 9, I took my first walk break. Then again at miles 11 and 12. It was somewhat demoralizing to see all of the half marathoners blast past me with their finish line coming up. I tried my best to stay out of their way especially when taking my walk breaks. I reached the halfway point in under 2:10 and was hoping that my legs would allow me to run somewhere near that pace for the second half.
Start line
Ready to go!
The second half was a bit of a grind for me. Even though I had quit drinking for several years, this song was playing in my head: Jameson Rodgers, Luke Combs - Cold Beer Calling My Name. From time to time, I still miss those post race beers. I liked that the course was less crowded without the half marathon runners. I tried sticking to taking a walk break for every 2 miles that I've run. That worked until I reached mile 17 where I felt like I should increase the frequency of those walk breaks. Per the usual, I hit the proverbial wall at mile 20. Starting from there, my pace started to slow down quite a bit and was all over the place. With each new mile that I had covered, my legs felt like they were more on the verge of cramping up on me. One of the things that kept me motivated was that I knew that I was close to finishing in under 4:40 and indeed, I did.
Ran a bit with her between miles 14 and 16, I couldn't keep up with her
Cade at 3 hrs into the race, about mile 18 for me
Approaching the finish line
Finish
Finish line
| First half: | 2:07:25 |
| Second half: | 2:31:53 |
| Finish: | 4:39:18 |
It was a nice feeling to finally cross off State #49! Originally for Rhode Island, I had the Amica Newport Marathon that was scheduled for October of 2020. I now only have one more State to go to finish off my goal of completing a marathon in all 50 States. I plan to run the Boston Marathon for the final State of Massachusetts. Most likely, I will have to go down the charity route to run Boston. However, I'm still hoping that I could put in a decent training cycle and see if I can actually run a qualifying time.
After receiving my finisher medal, I grabbed a cutie tangerine and a bottle of water. I used a portapotty before I started my walk back to my room. The walk back felt much longer than the walk to the race this morning. However, I think the walk helped with the overall recovery of the legs.
Finisher medal
Post race
The wind didn't die down, so the walk back was a chilly one. Once I got back to my room, I fired up the stove and boiled some water for hot cocoa. It really hit the spot, so much so that I used the second packet to make another cup. Those packets look like they've been there for a while. After taking a shower, I continued to veg out until it was time for dinner.
Hot Cocoa
A few minutes before 5 pm, I walked across the street to eat at The Red Parrot. After running a marathon, this was probably as far as I was willing to walk for dinner. I was hopping that that was early enough to avoid any dinner rush and it was. They were able to seat me at a table without a reservation and any wait time. It was definitely nowhere near the crowd that I saw yesterday. After looking over the menu, I ordered the lobster bisque and the surf & turf burger. The bisque was not bad, but that burger was mighty delicious!
The Red Parrot
Lobster bisque
Surf & turf burger
Later that evening, I tried to check into my flight. For some reason, I couldn't check-in with both the mobile app as well as the website. I was too tired to deal with it, so I went to sleep and planned to try again tomorrow morning. I wasn't too worried as it was an evening flight.
Sunday 4/17
I slept in a bit and started my day with the usual Premier League and FA Cup matches. In the buildup to the first match, the commentators were rehashing the matches from yesterday. They kept gushing over the hat trick performance by Ronaldo. Sure CR7 was great in his prime, but these days, he's a lazy cherry picker. Plus they barely beat a team destined for relegation!
I still couldn't check into my flight, so I gave them a call. Apparently, there was a lot of people trying to call customer service as the wait time was over an hour. Thankfully, they allowed me to leave a callback number instead of waiting on hold. The guy that helped me out was able to get me assigned a seat and checked-in, but he informed me that I'll have to print out my boarding pass at one of the kiosks once I had arrived at the airport.
After checking out of my unit at about 10 am, I dropped off the keys at the front desk and hopped into my car for the drive up to Boston. After about an hour of driving, I stopped in Brockton again to have lunch. I decided to get a bowl of pho at Pho Town 6. I was somewhat regretting my choice of restaurant when I saw on the menu that they did not use MSG. Is it really pho if they don't use MSG? :) I decided to give it a try as I didn't exactly have a backup restaurant in mind. I ordered their pho dac biet and spring rolls. The rolls weren't that great, but the pho was actually pretty good. The broth was good. I paid my bill and used the restroom before continuing on with my drive north.
Spring rolls
Pho dac biet
Before heading to the airport, I drove over to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum to check it out. Prior to this visit, I've only been to two other presidential libraries:
- William J. Clinton Library and Museum in Little Rock, Arkansas
- Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta, Georgia
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum
I thought about purchasing a souvenir from the gift shop, but I quickly reminded myself that I was out of storage space back home. I hopped in the car and started heading to the airport. It should've been a short drive, but as I got near the Rental Car Center, I apparently missed the exit for returning rental cars, so I ended up looping around the airport and headed over the Ted Williams Tunnel again. After coming back for the second time, I got in the correct lane. Thank goodness for GPS, although it kept cutting out whenever I went through a tunnel. Unfortunately, the GPS failed me by directing me to the Shell gas station using Transportation Way. There were pylons there preventing cars from making a left turn into the gas station. I continued on and turned left onto Porter St where I found a small lot where I could turn into and come back around. The better way would've been entering from Tomahawk Dr instead. After gassing up the car, I finally made my way into the Rental Car Center to drop off the car. In haste, I hopped on the shuttle that was about to leave. Unfortunately, it turned out to be the incorrect shuttle. I needed either the 33 or 55 shuttle to get to terminal C. Instead I had hopped on the 22 shuttle which only went to terminals A & B.
Filling up the tank before returning the rental car
Thank goodness, I always show up to the airport super early. I had no luck printing out my boarding pass, so I got in line for customer service. The line was long and there were only 2 employees there. One was helping with general issues and the other was helping with special accommodations. Eventually, they finally got another employee to come help out. The employee that helped me had zero interpersonal skills. Zero. He wasn't interested in hearing anything that I had to say or what I had already tried. All he wanted from me was my ID. No wonder people get frustrated dealing with them. If you're seriously not going to learn how to communicate with people, please don't work in customer service. Surprise, surprise, he couldn't fix the issue and had to get his supervisor to help him out. They need to do a better job training their customer service employees!
After getting through the TSA checkpoint, I went looking for dinner at about 5 pm. I didn't want to walk all over the terminal to find something good to eat, so I ended up just getting a cheeseburger at the Boston Public Market. It wasn't cheap at $12.65, but at least it was pretty decent.
Cheeseburger
For my flight home, I watched Spider-man: No Way Home. For my second viewing, I still thought that the dialogue was horrible and not very well thought out. While I did like the bringing together of the different Spider-men via the multiverse, however this was probably the worst possible way and reason for the assembling of the Sinister Six. Even with its shortcomings, I still thought that it was an entertaining movie. Andrew Garfield is still my favorite version of Spider-man as he was the most low tech out of the three and I liked his story with Gwen Stacy. I dislike Tom Holland as I don't think he's a very good actor and his version of Spider-man had way too much help from Tony Stark. In the end, I feel that how much you enjoy this movie will most likely depend on how much of the old comic books you've read. As almost always is the case, the comic books were much better.
It was about 10:30 pm when I landed at LAX. At that hour, I would hope that the traffic would be light. However, I went outside to find that the LAX horseshoe was completely packed with cars. It was a complete traffic jam. My ride had just about reached terminal 1, but they were stuck in bumper to bumper traffic. I walked from terminal 5 over to terminal 2 to make it easier to catch my ride. At the rate that the cars were moving, it would've taken another hour for them to reach me at terminal 5!
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