I left the house at about 3:45 am to head over to Ontario Airport to catch an early morning flight out to Seattle. When I pulled into parking lot 5, I noticed that the lot was unusually fuller than normal. I actually had to hunt for a vacant parking spot. It was Labor Day weekend, so all of the airports were expected to be very busy. I didn't see a shuttle around, so I decided to just hoof it over to terminal 2. Even though it was still dark outside, the temperature was already in the 80's. I really want to move to some place cooler.
Parking lot #5
Fortunately, during check-in, I was able to select one of the window seats in an exit row. The two other passengers that were in my row appeared to be father and son. The kid looked really young. You had to be at least 16 years old to be sitting in the exit row. The first thing the flight attendant did was to ask the kid for his age. Then he proceeded to brief us before getting our verbal confirmation to help out in the case of an emergency. For this flight, I actually used my old cellphone to listen to music instead of the old iPod Shuffle.
We landed at Seattle Tacoma Airport at just before 9 am. I made my way outside to catch a shuttle over to the SeaTac Rental Car Facility. The line for the shuttle was really long. This was my first time having to rent a car as I've always taken the Link light rail into downtown Seattle. Although the line was long, they seemed to have enough shuttles running so that the line kept moving. Once we were dropped off, I headed over to the Dollar Car Rental counter. Thankfully, the line wasn't too long with only 1 couple ahead of me. I definitely couldn't say that about other rental car companies. They looked to be slammed! When it was my turn, the lady tried to entice me with a deal to upgrade to a SUV. I declined as I didn't want to pay for the fuel! After taking care of the paperwork, I picked up the car keys at the booth inside the parking garage. Then I went to inspect the car for any damages. I noted the scratches on the bumper as well as the front right wheel before heading out.
Waiting for shuttle to Rental Car Facility
The drive out to Bellevue started off kind of slow as it was raining which inevitably helped contribute to several multi-car crashes along the way. I arrived at the Hyatt Regency Bellevue, the venue for the race expo, at about 10:30 am. I pulled into the adjacent Wendy's parking lot to check out my parking options on Google Maps. That lot was a paid lot, so I was there only briefly. I eventually pulled into the parking lot by BevMo! at the corner of NE 12th St and Bellevue Way NE. Unlike my usual self, I had forgotten to check the final instructions prior to coming here as to where I should park for free. It said that we should park in one of the Bellevue Square parking structures.
After going through the first floor to collect my bib and going through the official merchandise, I headed up the escalator to collect my race shirt and swag bag. I then checked out the vendor booths. While they were taking registrations for other Rock n' Roll races, they were not taking the usual early registration for this race. I guess the future of this race is still up in the air. After finishing all of that, I used the restroom before heading out.
Race shirt
Expo haul
After getting back to my car, I headed east on NE 12th St to get lunch at Dick's Drive-In over at Crossroads. Upon my arrival, I parked the car and walked up to the window to place my order. Even though it was just one person ahead of me, they actually opened up a second window for me. I ordered the usual, 2 Dick's Deluxe with everything and a chocolate shake. I took the food back to my car to enjoy.
A bag of Dick's and chocolate shake
After finishing my food, I started driving back to the airport. Before heading to my hotel, I stopped at the Target in Southcenter to purchase some drinks for the weekend. The line for self checkout was long and a lot of those people need to just get into a regular line for an employee to check them out as they're not very good at doing it themselves.
Drinks from Target
I finally headed over to the La Quinta Inn that was just south of the airport to see if I could check into my room early. I got there at about 12:30 pm thinking that I would have to wait a couple of hours for my room to be ready. However, the lady at the front desk was able to check my into my room, 427, without having to wait. While my room wasn't spotless, it was relatively clean despite the horrifying reviews that I had read for this hotel. The towels looked to be brand new!
I ended up taking a nap while watching stuff on TV. I woke up a little before 5 pm and walked over to the nearby L&L Hawaiian Barbecue to pick up dinner. I ordered their loco moco and a Portuguese musubi. I brought it back to my room to enjoy. It was not bad, but I much prefer eating at Zippy's! The gravy here tasted tangy and a little off. Oh well, I didn't get sick. I can't wait to hit up Zippy's again when December and the Honolulu Marathon rolls around.
Loco moco and Portuguese musubi
While I was starting to get ready for an early bedtime, I noticed that the Link light rail was running by pretty close to my room. The noise wasn't too bad and didn't bother me at all. I laid out my flat runner and took a shower before calling it a night.
The Link light rail from my room
Flat runner
Sunday 9/4
I left the hotel at about 4:20 am. The drive over to Bellevue took a little over 20 minutes. I entered the Bellevue Square parking garage off of NE 8th St right before reaching 100th Ave NE. I drove down to the southern end of the parking garage before finding a parking spot. I parked right next to the stairwell that led out to NE 4th St.
Parked in Bellevue Square parking structure
It was definitely nice to feel a little bit of chill in the air, but it wasn't cold enough for long sleeves or gloves. I started heading over to the start line on Bellevue Way. I cut through Bellevue Downtown Park where I used one of the portapotties. As I got to the starting line, I bumped into Ann, the race announcer for the Rock n' Roll race series. You know, you run too many races when you're friends with most of the race announcers! We chatted a little bit about our injuries that seem to come more frequently as we get older. We then went our separate ways to get ready for the race. I headed over to the AC Hotel by Marriott to meet up with my friends. I hung out in the hotel lobby while I waited for them to respond to my text. I used the restroom near the hotel bar before heading up to their room.
Start line
Once my friends were ready, we hopped on the elevator to start heading over to the start line of the race. It just so happened that one of my friends from Hawaii got on the same elevator car. What a coincidence! Right before it was time to run my race, I checked into my flight for tomorrow. Once again, I was able to get a window seat in an exit row. We got a pre-race photo before we went into our separate corrals. It was pretty much me and my Washingtonian friends.
Pre-race photo
I started the race near the back of my assigned corral 2. In hindsight, I should've just started with my friends in corral 3. The course started with some gentle climbs. I followed behind one runner that was running at about the same pace at around 8:51 for the first mile. I took a quick walk break as I made the right turn at NE 24th St. I started having pain in my left calf during a short stretch of downhill, so I took another walk break as I approached the right turn at 112th Ave NE. While I was able to run that stretch down to the left turn at NE 12th St, I was struggling with my running gait. This was just too much discomfort to deal with so early into the race where I haven't even reached mile 3! However, eventually I adjusted my gait enough so I wasn't pushing as much with my calves. The toughest part of the course was when we turned left onto Bel-Red Rd. After a short downhill, it would be followed with about 1.75 miles of sustained climbing. The climbing ended with a right turn onto 156th Ave NE. It was a nice downhill stretch down to Lake Hills Blvd.
I ended up trailing a female runner (bib #4519) that wore a purple tutu. I think subconsciously, I didn't want someone wearing a tutu to beat me, so I tried to keep up with her. At first I couldn't quite keep up. She would run ahead, but then would take walk breaks during some climbs which allowed me to catch up as it was actually easier for me to run the uphill sections. After a few miles, it felt as if she was teasing me. Sometimes with endurance running, you just have to find anything to motivate you to continue with the grind! :)
After a nice stretch of downhill, I saw signs along the side of the road of sasquatch sightings. As I approached mile 10, I pulled over to take a picture with one of them. I took a walk break at mile 11 as we made a left turn onto 112th Ave SE. I was finally able to pass tutu girl! I then took my last walk break after reaching mile 12 after a short climb on Bellevue Way SE.
Sasquatch
As I was approaching the left turn onto Main St, I noticed a familiar person at that corner cheering on the runners. It was Roosevelt Cook, a runner from the Cal Coast Track Club. He did this at Lake Havasu as well after winning that race. As I jogged by, I asked if he had won the race and he replied, "yes!" I think we were on the same flight out of Ontario Airport yesterday. Even though there were some late short climbs, I had enough left in the tank to not take another walk break until I crossed the finish line.
Finish line
Finish: 2:14:47
Click here for my Garmin data.
I waited for tutu girl to cross the finish line to give her a fist bump before I headed down the finisher chute. I wanted to thank her for unknowingly pacing me for about the last 5 miles. Even though I had crossed the finish line ahead of her, she had beaten me handily by almost 4 minutes according to our chip times.
After receiving my finisher medal, I got in line to get an official finisher photo taken. Might as well since I had pre-purchased race photos. After taking care of that, I continued down the finisher chute where I found my friends that had finished ahead of me.
Finisher medal
#1
Post race snacks and drinks
After we were done sharing our race stories and taking those post race pics, I got a couple of post race drinks, snacks, and a banana. A couple of the girls wanted to check for their official finishing time for a possible age group award, so the Pres and I went back to our cars. He changed clothes while I dropped off my post race stuff and my water bottle. We were pretty much parked in the same spot. I was just one level above him. On our way back to the park to meet up with the girls, we ran into a Canadian couple that the Pres knew. When we finally got back to the park, we all walked over to the girls' hotel so that they can shower and check out of their room.
Walking back to their hotel
While waiting, I caught the remainder of the Man United v. Arsenal match. Man, it certainly warmed my heart to see Arsenal lose. They were sitting at the top of the table after winning their first 5 matches. However, this meme was on point. "Arsenal on top the league table is like an elephant on top of a tree, nobody knows how it got there but everybody knows it will fall down."
We walked over to Central Bar Restaurant over on NE 6th St just west of 105th Ave NE. However the hostess said that without a reservation, they wouldn't have a table for us until about noon. I guess a lot of places were slammed due to it being Labor Day weekend. We then headed over to Earls Kitchen Bar where the hostess told us that the wait would only be about 10 minutes. We waited outside until she came and got us. After we were seated and I had looked over the brunch menu, I got their steak and eggs.
Steak and eggs
Pic before we eat our food
The food here had good presentation and we all loved what we had ordered. I always enjoy a good plate of steak and eggs, and that was a good one! After we were done with our food and had settled our bill, we went our separate ways.
When I got back to my hotel, I was about to pull into the same parking stall in front, but there was some guy just sitting there smoking... something, so I parked around the side of the hotel. After taking a shower, I lounged around for a bit. At about 3:30 pm, I drove over to the nearby 76 gas station to fill up the gas tank before hopping on the 5 freeway to go eat an early dinner at the Jollibee in Southcenter. The parking lot was a complete zoo. When I found a parking spot, I walked over to find that the place was totally slammed. The line was super long, so I tried placing my order on the mobile app which was telling me that the wait was estimated to be 71 minutes. Yikes! No thank you. I'll go somewhere else. The adjacent Seafood City Supermarket, Grill City, Chowking, Crispy Town, and Red Ribbon Bakeshop were also packed. To be honest, I've never seen so many Filipinos gathered in one place at the same time! I hopped back in the car and headed over to the SeaTac Rental Car Facility to drop off the rental car.
Gas up the rental car for $5.25 per gallon
Long ass line at Jollibee
I then got in line to get on a South Terminal shuttle for the airport. Once we were dropped off at the airport, I started walking back to my hotel. Along the way, I stopped in at the L&L Hawaiian Barbecue to pick up dinner. I got their garlic shrimp rice plate. Man, that was some good garlic shrimp outside of Hawaii! So much garlic and oil. However the oil leaked out and through the paper bag, so I had a little bit of cleanup to do.
Garlic shrimp
Monday 9/5
I woke up early and got ready to head over to the airport for my early morning flight home. I checked out and dropped my keys off at the front desk just a little before 4:30 am. The guy at the front desk must have been engrossed in whatever he was looking at as he just sat there as if I was invisible! This was my first time walking up to SeaTac Airport to catch a flight. I usually arrive via the Link light rail. It was a nice quiet dark walk where I got to enjoy the cool morning air before returning home to the heat wave in Southern California.
Early morning walk to the airport
Once we had landed at Ontario Airport, it was time to head over to parking lot 5 to retrieve my car. Normally, I would just walk it, but it was pretty dang hot already at 9 am. I crossed over to the median to catch the shuttle. After being dropped off, it was time to pay for parking and head home. Apparently, if you go to a lane where the booth is manned by an operator, the kiosk doesn't work. I remember back in the day, it was fine for me to enter the ticket at the LAX exit kiosk regardless of the booth being manned or not. The employee sounded rather annoyed that I didn't give her the ticket in the first place. I'll be sure to remember that the next that I park here. Most likely, I'll just make sure to go to an unmanned exit.
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