After eating lunch, I decided to drive out to Long Beach to pick up my race packet even though they did have free race day packet pick-up. They had set up a few tables in front of the LBS Financial Credit Union where they had one line to assign race bibs and a second line to pass out the race shirt. Even though there was a rather long line when I had arrived at about 1 pm, it moved quickly.
Race shirt
Later that evening we had a family dinner over at Spaghetti Eddie's Cucina Italiana. It was our first time here. There were 10 adults and 2 kids in our party. It was good food, but it was on the pricier side at about $32-35 for each plate. Here's what we ordered on my end of the table:
Garlic Puffs: This was a good appetizer if you love garlic. It was free with a check-in on Yelp.
Salmon Milano: The salmon was cooked perfectly, medium rare!
Shrimp & Scallops Da Vinci: This was our favorite dish!
Linguine Alla Pescatore: This had a good variety of seafood.
Pork Osso Buco: This was my dish. It was not bad, but it arrived a bit on the lukewarm side.
Sunday 6/9
I left the house just after 4:30 am to make the drive out to Long Beach. I made a stop at the Marina Pacifica to get coffee at Starbucks. Fortunately for me, this location was already open at 5 am. I ordered the usual grande blonde vanilla latte. After I got my coffee, I drove across the way to park my car at the lot where they held the Long Beach Farmers Market. The lot was pretty empty so I had my pick of any spot.
Starbucks Marina Pacifica
Grande blonde vanilla latte
Even though I had arrived pretty early, I parked way out here because I just didn't want to deal with the hassle of parking at Mother's Beach lot or the lots near the Marine Stadium. After shedding some layers, I grabbed my handheld water bottle and my coffee before crossing the 2nd St bridge to get to the starting area.
Parking map
I finished my CLIF bar and coffee on the walk over and found a group of my friends in between the packet pick-up tents and the cache of portapotties. I grabbed some selfies with them before they had to go back to their cars to get ready for the race. After using one of the portapotties, I milled around the area to check stuff out and to pass some time before the start of the race that was scheduled for 7 am. I was eyeing a female runner (bib #990) that was wrapped in an eye-catching blanket. She saw that I was staring, so I asked if that was a Pedro Pascal blanket. Indeed, it was! Once we were instructed to enter the starting corral, I positioned myself next to the 1:50 pacers. I knew that with my current level of fitness that I would be able to finish a half marathon right at 1:50. I was hoping to have the pacers help drag me just under 1:50.
Karen
Robert and Ginny
Karen, Robert, Almi
They were giving out samples
$75 for next year
Luis
Starting corral
Half marathon course
The race start was delayed by about 5 minutes. It was a tad congested from the get go, so I opted to run slightly ahead of the pacers in order to get some space. However, before we even got to the first mile marker, the pacers went on ahead of me. I got to the first mile at 8:17 which was plenty fast to run a 1:50. My second mile was even faster at 8:12, but they were already gapping me. My third mile was a 8:13 and I was continuing to lose ground on them, so I started to ease off on the pace. At about mile 4.5, we crossed Ocean Blvd and hopped on the dreaded Shoreline Way beach path. This section has always been my least favorite section of the Long Beach Marathon and it always will. Besides the course being a bit sandy, we also had to dodge other weekend non-race participants that were out for their morning stroll or exercise. After the turnaround point, we were now running into a slight headwind. I was quite glad to cross back over Ocean Blvd and get back to running on roads without any sand! On the last out and back along Bay Shore Ave as I neared mile 11, I saw the 1:50 pacers already heading the other way. They were about 5 minutes ahead of me! Hmm, maybe they were confused and thought that their assignment was to run a 1:45? After reaching mile 12, I tried to speed up a bit for the final mile. Unfortunately, with about a half mile to go, I sort of fizzled out. I coasted into the finish line, finishing a few seconds shy of being under 1:50. Those 2 pacers were nowhere to be seen.
Finish: 1:50:02
Click here for my Garmin data.
This was one of my better executed races. It was a relatively flat course and my splits were kept relatively even. Having Starbucks coffee with my CLIF bar before a race has started to become a pre-race routine for me. There's plenty of research that shows that caffeine before exercise will increase performance. As I get older, short of doping, I'll take any assistance that I can get! :)
After receiving my finisher medal, I took a quick finish line selfie before meeting up with Robert who had initially gone with the 1:50 pacers and finished about a minute ahead of me. We got some post race goodies and took a picture at the backdrop before entering the wine, sip, and savor festival area to get our post race In-n-Out burger.
Finish line
Finisher medal
Latino Heat
Finisher medal and post race In-n-Out
I'm not used to eating a regular cheeseburger from In-n-Out. I always prefer mine with raw onions. Still, it was nice to have one after running a half marathon. After we were done with our burgers, Robert and I, walked over to the course to catch Karen running by at the Appian Way bridge. After she ran by, he went to his car and I started making my way back to mine.
Karen getting over the last bridge crossing
Back at home, I got right into wrapping some zongzi with my parents for the annual Dragon Boat Festival (端午節). We're all getting older, so we didn't wrap as many as we have in the past. The total number wrapped wasn't planned, but the final count was 168.
Zongzi (粽子) or rouzong (肉粽)
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