The first leg of my drive brought me out to Indio for a charge at the Tesla Supercharger and for me to have some breakfast at McDonald's. They had added 40 additional charging stalls since the last time that I was here! I ordered a Sausage McMuffin and used a mobile app deal to get a large coffee for 99 cents. I also ate a small cutie tangerine that I had brought along with me. After finishing my breakfast, I used their restroom before returning to the car. When I got back to my car, I found it somewhat amusing that it was telling me that if I were to leave with the current charge that I'll need to keep it under 80 mph.
Tesla Supercharger Indio, CA
Breakfast at McDonald's
Sausage McMuffin and 99 cents large coffee
Stay below 80 mph
I wasn't about to gamble and roll into Mesa on very little charge, so the second leg brought me out to Ehrenberg, AZ for a charge at the Tesla Supercharger. At first, I wanted to check out the newer and much larger charging station over in Quartzsite, but this was one of my preferred locations. The Flying J had good drink prices as well as a decent well maintained restroom. I usually buy my sports drink here for my races in Arizona. My body doesn't seem to like BODYARMOR, but I decided to give it another try.
Tesla Supercharger Ehrenberg, AZ
BODYARMOR 2 for $5.50
Prior to this trip, I had to remind myself that Arizona was an hour ahead as they do not observe the daylight savings nonsense. At about 1:45 pm local time, I rolled into the parking lot just north of the Sheraton Mesa Hotel at Wrigleyville West. We were told in a race email that the lot that was adjacent to the hotel was reserved for hotel guests. After finding a parking spot, I walked across the street to pick up my race packet. Once I got my race bib and gear bag, I went inside to get my race shirt and to check out the race expo. I made sure to pull up the mobile app and enter the vendor codes to earn some points. The rep at the Frontier Airlines booth made me sign up for something before he gave me their code. There was a booth selling Girl Scout cookies. I couldn't resist, so I bought a box of the Adventurefuls for $5.
Race shirt
Back of race shirt
Participants name wall
Found my name
Expo haul
I next drove over to the Tesla Supercharger over at The Pavilions shopping mall in Mesa as it had the cheapest charging rate in the area. After the car was done charging, I then headed over to the Chick-fil-A that was near my timeshare rental for lunch. On the mobile app, I ordered a Cobb salad with grilled nuggets and a mango passion frosted lemonade. The order was pretty simple, but they messed up my drink. First they gave me a mango passion Sunjoy. When I told them, they made me the frosted lemonade, but also let me keep the Sunjoy. Then when the salad was brought out to me, they brought out yet another frosted lemonade! I think the extra treats definitely canceled out my salad.
Tesla Supercharger Mesa, AZ
Mango passion frosted lemonade
Cobb salad with grilled nuggets
After finishing my lunch, I drove out to my resort for the weekend. For this trip, I stayed at the Club Wyndham Legacy Golf Resort. I had booked this location using Wyndham Rewards points. I only used a total of 13,500 points for the 2 nights. That's normally the amount required for only 1 night. I was a bit wary when I first booked this place, but not so much when I arrived at the property. I had stayed at some pretty bad places near Phoenix, so I never know what I'm going to get whenever I go to a new property for the first time. During check-in, they knew that I was a VIP owner, but for some reason my email address was missing a few letters. I was assigned to unit 4103. Then I was told to attend an owner presentation so that they can show me all of the newly acquired Shell Vacations Club resorts. In addition to giving me yet another Club Wyndham member's directory, they were also going to give me a $100 Tango gift card for an hour of my time. Since they were throwing in the gift card, I committed to going on Sunday at 8 am before I headed out.
I wasn't here too long after getting settled in as I needed to head over to the Culinary Dropout in Gilbert to meet up with my friends for dinner. There was a little bit of what I would assume to be after work traffic, so the drive over took about 30 minutes. Our reservation was for 5:30 pm. We were seated at a table out in the covered patio area where there were some very noisy birds hanging out in the trees. Those birds would quiet down once the sun went down. They had heat lamps out there to keep us warm. After I had the chance to look over the menu, I decided to order the Korean Style Ribeye Cap. The waiter told me that they might be out of the ribeye cap, in which case they would substitute it with the prime skirt steak. Even with the meat substitution, it was good. However, it was quite salty.
Korean Style Ribeye Cap
Back at my unit, I took a shower and laid out my flat runner for tomorrow's marathon. I think for once, I'll actually be putting my waterproof gloves to use. I then caught the remainder of WWE Friday Night SmackDown, Randy Orton vs. Sami Zayn in an Elimination Chamber qualifying match. Orton won that match with Drew McIntyre showing up and getting up into his face.
Flat runner
WWE Friday Night SmackDown
Saturday 2/10
I got ready and left the unit at about 3:50 am. I had no trouble getting to the Rio Salado Parkway exit from the 101 freeway. My original plan was to the park in the lot between Clark St and Sheffield Ave. However, from that point on, the traffic on the left lane was just inching along. Eventually, I gave up and did a u-turn to try going up Cubs Way to access a parking lot near the hotels. I wasn't alone in this failed attempt. A bunch of us came up to where all of the buses were queued up. Unfortunately, it was a 2 lane road and some of the buses decided to just park right down the middle so no cars could get through. Eventually, a volunteer came up to each of our cars and told us to back up and park in the adjacent lot as those buses weren't moving anytime soon. After I was parked, I got my stuff ready and started the walk over to the bus loading area for the marathon over on Sheffield Ave. I ended up chatting a bit with the guy that was parked next to me. He was from Texas. I bumped into my friend while waiting in the line to board a bus.
Parking & busing map
We were dropped off on Ellsworth Rd near the Rio Salado Sportsman's Club, Usery Mountain Shooting Range. We headed south towards the start line with a cache of portapotties lined up on both sides and heat lamps down the middle of the road.
Facing the bus drop off
Facing the start line
The race was scheduled to start at 6:30 am. However, we didn't start until about 20 minutes later. They were making pre-race announcements, but my friends and I couldn't make out what they were saying from where we were waiting. If there was the singing of the national anthem, we never heard it. I ran with my friend Robert as we were both planning to run the first half in about 2 hours. Shortly after reaching mile 7, my friend had to stop for a portapotty break. He would catch up to me and overtake me shortly after reaching mile 11. My legs were already starting to feel tired so I thought it would be prudent for me to not and try to follow him. The 2:03ish first half felt more difficult than the 1:52:41 that I had run last weekend at Surf City.
I had to adjust my pace for the second half. Ultimately, the rain became a pretty steady heavy drizzle. It was cold enough that I rolled the arm sleeves back down and put the gloves back on. I took a couple of extended walk breaks around miles 15 and 18 to eat my Honey Stinger waffles. In the late miles, I ended up running a bit with bib #9480, Brianna. She saw my singlet and came up to me to ask if I had run 100 marathons or if it was my goal. I told her that today would be my 252nd marathon and that I was working towards to 300. She told me that Arizona was going to be her 10th US State as she was working towards running a marathon in all 50 States. I ended up crossing the finish line just a couple of meters behind her. During the last couple of miles, the muscle cramps started to settle in. First it was my arms and then in the last mile, my left foot cramped up. While I was taking a walk break to let it loosen up, my friend Pascal passed me.
Happy to reach the finish line
Finish: 4:30:09
Click here for my Garmin data.
Going into this race, I was thinking that I would finish closer to 4:20 with 4:30 as a worst case scenario. I wasn't too pleased with those 9 extra seconds, but in all consideration, it was close enough since I wasn't expecting my foot to cramp up.
After receiving my finisher medal and getting my finisher photo, my friend and I continued down the finisher chute. He had finished about 15 minutes ahead of me and waited for me. We received some fruit, a granola bar, and a bunch of drinks. They gave us some small little bags to help carry our post race goodies. Once we got the printout of our results, we went our separate ways.
Finisher medal
Finish
Post race goodies
I got back to my unit in time to catch the remainder for the Leverkusen v. Bayern match. I was surprised to see that Bayern was down 2 nil. They dominated possession, but had 9 shots with only 1 on goal. To pour salt on their wounds, they pulled Neuer late for a corner which resulted in Leverkusen getting an open goal. A 3 nil Leverkusen win was not what I had expected even with all of the Bayern injuries to some key players. A win by Bayern today would've put them at the top of the league.
Leverkusen v. Bayern
I was feeling pretty wiped out, but I was also feeling quite hungry. So for an early dinner, I drove over to the nearby In-n-Out to get the usual. I ordered 2 Double Doubles with raw onion and a Neapolitan shake. Normally, I would take it back to my place to eat. I decided to just eat it there. I was hungry enough that I could've easily eat 2 more Double Doubles.
The usual: Double Double x2, Neapolitan shake
Sunday 2/11
I got up about 6 am to start my day. I took a shower and caught the West Ham v. Arsenal match that started at 7 am. That was quite the 4 nil thrashing just in the first half! I ate the banana and drank the little bottles of juice for breakfast. I had packed up most of my stuff before heading over to the clubhouse for my 8 am owner update. Upon check-in, I was given the member's directory and the gift card was emailed to me. I was assigned to a guy named, Chaz Turner. He told me that he was a former professional fighter from Chicago. He found it odd that I was given a member's directory. It seemed to me that they did not provide him with a printout of my ownership details. He was sitting there just asking me basic information. A few minutes of that, I explained to him that I was a WorldMark owner at the platinum level and that I wasn't planning on purchasing any more credits or Club Wyndham points any time soon. I just didn't want to waste his time and more importantly, my time. I took a bottle of Welch's grape juice on the way out.
Another Club Wyndham member's directory
I checked out of my unit at a little after 9:30 am. I drove over to the Tesla Supercharger in Goodyear to charge the car. As I exited the freeway and made a right turn onto Litchfield Rd, I saw a Tesla parked along the curb which seemed odd as that appeared to be a "no stopping at anytime" curb. I pulled into a vacant stall and plugged the car in for charging. I then walked across the parking lot to get coffee at Starbucks. On the mobile app, I ordered a Grande pistachio latte. After finishing my drink, I used the restroom before heading back to my car. It turned out that the coffee made me go #2 again. I normally don't have multiple BMs in the morning. On the walk back to my car, I saw a couple of guys pushing a Tesla towards the charging station. It looked to be that same Tesla that was parked along the curb. That was a first for me to witness. She was so close to making it!
Tesla Supercharger Goodyear, AZ
Grande pistachio latte
Once my car got a full enough charge, I unplugged the car and headed out. As I neared the State line, I waffled between exiting at Quartzsite or Ehrenberg. Eventually, I exited the freeway to get a charge at the Tesla Supercharger in Ehrenberg as well as to eat lunch. After plugging in for a charge, I headed inside the Flying J to use the restroom before stopping at Wendy's for lunch. On the mobile app, I placed an order for a Dave's Single. I also used a mobile offer to get a second Dave's Single for free. That was a savings of $7.49! Since when did a single cheeseburger get that expensive?!
Tesla Supercharger Ehrenberg, AZ
Dave's Single x2
Dave's Single
I didn't really need to stop at Indio for a charge, but I was fading a bit and wanted to use the restroom. I decided to get a drink and use the one at Starbucks. Using the mobile app, I ordered a grande pistachio cream cold brew. The ladies waiting to use one of the restrooms didn't know the code, so I had to ask one of the employees for it. With the drink in hand, I went back to the car for the final stretch home. That coffee was enough to keep me alert and get me home.
Tesla Supercharger Indio, CA
Grande pistachio cream cold brew
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