I got ready and left the house at about 9 pm to head out to LAX to catch a red eye flight. I had arrived a few minutes ahead of the 10 pm start time for my parking reservation at Joe's Airport Parking garage. I scanned the QR code and drove up to the roof to park my car. Unlike the previous times that I had parked here, it was quite full up on the rooftop level. I had to drive around before finding a spot that I liked.
Joe's Airport Parking
When I took the elevator down to the ground floor to catch a shuttle ride, I saw that there was a large group, quite possibly a family, waiting there. Their shuttles were the smaller ones, so I decided to just walk over to the terminals. Having flown with Delta a few times now, I knew that I could go through TSA security screening in terminal 2 even if the gate for my flight was over in terminal 3. Before heading over to the gate area, I made a stop at the Starbucks to get some coffee. I ordered my usual tall flat white.
Tall flat white
Terminal 3
Saturday 7/11
At right about midnight, the boarding process started. Since I was in the last boarding group, overhead compartment space tend to be scarce. There wasn't any near my seat, so I had to head back against the boarding traffic to find space for my duffle bag. Once I got situated, I put on the movie, Michael. I thought it was a good movie showing his childhood leading up to when his popularity shot through the roof. I thought Jaafar Jackson did a really good job portraying his uncle.
Cookies and drink
After the movie, I tried to get a little bit of shuteye. The plane landed at MSP Airport at just after 6 am. Oh how I wished that it was this easy a few weekends ago when I needed to be here to go run Grandma's Marathon! I had about a 2 hour layover before my next flight.
Layover in MSP
Eventually, I made it over to gate C26 to wait for my flight. While waiting, the gate agent made an announcement that they had an excess of emergency row seats. Anyone that met the requirements were allowed to make a seat change for one of those seats. I made that change and was bumped up to boarding group 5. The plane pulled in and the passengers were let off. However the boarding process was unusually delayed. Eventually, they informed us that they had found damage on the plane during pre flight inspection where it needed to be repaired. Originally, it was delayed to 11 am. However, they quickly pivoted to getting another plane to cut down on the delay. With the plane change, we were directed to head over to gate A9 with a departure time of 8:45 am.
Gate C26
Moved to gate A9
During the flight, I had a nice conversation with the lady sitting next to me. Her name was Dawn. It turned out that she was running the Mad Half Marathon. She had just recently taken up endurance running and had a goal of running a race in each of the 50 States. She mentioned that her travel companion would be running in the full marathon. I told her that I would keep an eye out for them before the start of the race. The pilot got us to Burlington BTV Airport at just after 12:30 pm.
Burlington BTV Airport
After using the restroom, I made my way over to the Budget car rental counter to pick up my car. After taking care of the usual paperwork, I was handed the keys to the car. What was funny was that the lady told me to go to the garage and press the panic button to find my car as they do not know where the cars were parked. Instead of doing that, I first looked at the make, color, and license plate of the car on the tag attached to the key fob. That was enough for me to locate the car without having to press that panic button. I wasn't very familiar with a Jeep Compass, so it took a minute for me to adjust everything before I started heading out. It was certainly a lot more car than what I was expecting with a reservation for a Toyota Corolla or similar.
Jeep Compass
The drive down to Waitsfield took just under 1 hour. Per the instructions for race packet pick-up, I pulled up to Lawson’s Finest Liquids via Carroll Rd. There was a group of cars parked in the dirt lot, so that was where I parked. If I were still drinking alcohol, I would've definitely checked out their taproom. Packet pick-up took at most 5 minutes. I was assigned a bib number. Then I was given a race shirt, a tote bag, and a runners handbook. As a Marathon Maniac, I really liked my assigned bib number of 247. Very apropos as we're always running a marathon 24-7!
Heart of the Valley Trail
Race bib
Race shirt
Tote bag
I was pretty tired from the flight over, so I didn't hang out too long. I was staying at a hotel out in Willison. I pulled into town at about a quarter to 3 pm. I decided to get something to eat over at the Starbucks in Maple Tree Place. I only came here to earn bonus stars for completing their personalized weekly challenges. This week I had to order something after 2 pm for at least 2 days in a row. I ordered one of my usual, ham & Swiss on baguette and a tall flat white. While the app registered last night's coffee, it did not recognize today's order as fulfilling the challenge. I guessed that it had something to do with changing time zones. At this point, I was just too tired to care or even want to complain. I found an open table to eat my food and drink my coffee.
Starbucks Maple Tree Place
Tall flat white, ham & Swiss on baguette
After I was done, I hopped back in the car and drove down the road to check in at the Fairfield Inn. Check-in was a little strange. While the guy found my reservation, he wanted to collect money from me. After I told him that the reservation was prepaid, he checked again and confirmed that it was. Still he needed my credit card on file as a deposit for incidentals. I was assigned room #102 at the end of the hall. This was one of the few times where I was staying at a non-Wyndham brand hotel.
Fairfield Inn Williston
After I had gotten settled into the room and had gone through the race packet, I headed back out to buy some drinks and the usual salty snack. There were several nearby supermarkets, all about the same distance from my hotel. I decided on going to the Shaw's as it was pretty close to where I was going to pick up dinner. I bought the usual items, a gallon of water, a bottle of Gatorade, and a bag of Boulder Canyon kettle style potato chips. I paid for my items while using one of the self checkout kiosks.
I then drove across the street to pick up dinner from Jersey Mike's. Sure I'd been to Subway or Quiznos, but I had never been to some of the newer sub restaurants. I came here because I saw that it was participating in the AAdvantage Dining Program. It was also on the Upside app. On the mobile app, I ordered the #56 Big Kahuna Cheese Steak before going inside to wait for my food.
Jersey Mike's
#56 Big Kahuna Cheese Steak
I pretty much inhaled my sandwich when I got back to my room. I then went through the bag of chips before I started winding down for the night. I laid out my flat runner for tomorrow's anticipated warm marathon before taking a shower.
Flat runner
Sunday 7/12
I got ready and planned to head out at about 5 am. As I was headed out to my car, I came across a young lady that was waiting in the lobby. It was very obvious that she was dressed to run a marathon. She asked if I was also running it. I said yes. As it was her first time running this race, I warned her about the hilly course. I checked her results after the race. She (#64) was definitely a very strong runner and was able to conquer that hilly course!
When I rolled into Waitsfield, I didn't know quite where to park the car. I ended up parking over in the Shaw's parking lot as other race participants had already parked there. When I walked over to use one of the portapotties, I saw that a lot of runners had parked in the smaller lot in front of the post office. After I was done and heading back to my car, I bumped into Dawn #1330 and her travel companion Christine #250 that I had briefly met at the airport.
Finish line area
I ended up hanging out and chatting with #1025 (Lyman) and #1026 (Katie), because he was wearing a shirt that mentioned running for second breakfast. I always love a funny Lord of the Rings reference! They both worked at Michigan State and were running the half marathon. As the 7 am start time approached, we headed out onto Main St for the start line. Initially, I couldn't find the 4 hour pacer, so I queued up around the 2 hour pacer for the half marathon. I quickly found a familiar face, Cade. It was a very low key start.
Start line
Cade
Marathon course map
Having run this race before in 2015, I knew that the course was challenging. It was full of rollers throughout. I knew that I had to just run it by feel. It was impossible to run even splits. I started the race heading east along Main St followed by a right turn onto Bridge St. By mile 2, it would be an entire uphill mile along Joslin Hill Rd. Next I veered left onto N Rd towards mile 3 with a nice stretch of downhill. At about mile 4.5, I turned onto Meadow Rd for a short out-and-back before turning left back onto N Rd for another out-and-back with the turnaround at about mile 6. On the way back along N Rd, what was downhill became uphill starting at about mile 8. Shortly after reaching mile 9, I turned left to get onto E Rd for a short out-and-back. On the way back, I veered left onto Common Rd. I would stay on that road until just after reaching mile 12 to turn left onto Warren Rd. I reached the halfway point at about 2:22.
1: 8:49
2: 11:44
3: 9:04
4: 8:43
5: 9:26
6: 10:11
7: 9:38
8: 10:21
9: 13:50
10: 11:28
11: 13:00
12: 11:31
13: 12:41
Mile 8.25: So hilly!
I was hoping to maintain that pace for the second half. However, that would be a tall order as the weather kept getting warmer. On my way to mile 16, I made a left onto Roxbury Mountain Rd. Shortly after reaching mile 16, I made a right turn onto Senor Rd. At about mile 17.5, I turned right onto Fuller Hill Rd. Then at mile 18, I made a right turn onto Plunkton Rd. As I approached mile 19, I veered right onto Brook Rd. The road would become Warren Rd at the Roxhury Mountain Rd intersection. I was starting to struggle quite a bit by the time I had reached mile 20. The downhills on the way out, now were very steep climbs on the way in! The best that I could do for those sections was to power-hike them! I finally reached the beer aid station at about mile 24.5. It was right in front of The Inn at the Round Barn. I asked if they had any non-alcoholic beer. Unfortunately, they didn't have any. The lady directed me to the non-alcoholic Gatorade! :D I stopped to use the portapotty before continuing on. I had leapfrogged a bit with #139, but she fell behind from here. I didn't see her again until the finish line. It would turn out that her friend or family that was out there cheering had the "run now, beer later" sign. At about mile 25, Warren Rd turned onto Bridge St. For a good portion of the race, I was chasing and leapfrogging with runner #141. I tried to hang onto her in the last couple of miles, but unfortunately, my legs cramped up during the final stretch!
14: 13:20
15: 14:19
16: 12:41
17: 12:39
18: 12:54
19: 12:05
20: 14:35
21: 13:10
22: 14:33
23: 15:31
24: 14:24
25: 11:56
26: 14:58
26.2: 3:49
Mile 13.8: Vermont cows!
Mile 20.3: Tracy
Mile 22.3: So so hilly!
Mile 23.3: Very scenic
Mil 25.2: Covered bridge
About a mile to the finish line
Finish: 5:21:17
Click here for my Garmin data.
After a very slow trot across the finish line, my friend JC awarded me my hard-earned finisher medal. We chatted a bit before I stumbled my way over to the finisher tent to get something to drink. They were passing out apple cider. I had to make sure that it wasn't hard cider. I hung around the finish area until some of my friends came through. Eventually, it was time for me to head out. I used one of the portapotties before going back to my car. It was a bit tricky as my legs were cramping up as I squeezed myself into the driver seat.
Finisher medal
Close up of medal
Apple cider at the finish line
Finish line selfie
Oof, just as back in 2015, that was a rough marathon! Back then I finished in 6:17:07. While I would've liked to finish in under 5 hours, all in all, I was happy with the 55+ minute improvement. I supposed it helped to set the bar very low!
On the way back to my hotel, I made a stop at Jersey Mike's to pick up food. I really liked the sandwich that I ate yesterday, so I ordered the same thing. However, this time I went with giant size. I had to make sure to get enough food as I definitely wasn't planning on going back out for food once I get back to my room.
#56 Big Kahuna Cheese Steak, giant
Monday 7/13
With a flight home that was later in the afternoon, I had planned to drive out to downtown Burlington to check out a few spots. I got ready, packed up my stuff, and checked out at about 9 am. Before driving out, I decided to head over to Starbucks to get my morning coffee and to put in an hour of work. I got my usual tall flat white.
Tall flat white and work
At about 10:30 am, I packed up my laptop and drove over to the Church Street Marketplace. I found parking at the City Hall Park along St Paul St. I used the ParkMobile app to pay for 45 minutes of parking. Gone are the days of feeding meters with coins!
The first thing that I checked out was the plaque at the SW corner of College St and St Paul St which designated the original location of Ben & Jerry's. I then walked a few blocks south along Pine St to check out the Thirty-odd gift shop. I arrived just ahead of the 11 am opening for a Monday. Since I only wanted to check out the rhino busting through the wall, I was good with just a photo of the store from the outside.
Original location of Ben & Jerry's
Thirty-odd
From there, I headed back up to the Church St Marketplace to get some ice cream at Ben & Jerry's. Along the way, I came across The Flynn. It was a warm day, so I was quite sweaty when I finally reached my destination. I definitely earned my scoop of ice cream! The group ahead of me wasn't ready, so they had me go ahead of them. I got a single scoop of Chunky Monkey on a sugar cone. I waited to pay for my cone, but I seemed to be ignored. I tried to pay the girl at the register, but she told me that my scooper had to ring me up. He was busy with another customer, so I had to wait for him to finish. It turned out that he thought that I was with the other group. I was pretty much done with my ice cream by the time I paid for it.
The Flynn
Ben & Jerry's
1 scoop of Chunky Monkey on sugar cone
I had to hurry back to my car as the 45 minutes was almost up. I thought it was a bit sad that everywhere I go, there were unsavory homeless people hanging around the park. From there I started heading over to the airport. I made a stop at the Shell gas station to fill up the gas tank before I returned it. Before heading inside the terminal, I noted the mileage and the parking stall. When I dropped off the keys at the car rental counter, the old guy wasn't interest in any of that information. What a Mickey Mouse operation. No wonder they didn't know where their vehicles were located!
Shell gas station
Noted the mileage
Noted the parking stall
After finishing off the rest of my water, I proceeded to go through TSA security screening for my 1:20 pm flight. Unfortunately, my flight was delayed. The airport WiFi was terrible, but I was able to log in and do some work. After we changed gates, we started boarding at around 3 pm. I had a window seat near the very back of the regional jet. I ended up having a pretty decent conversation about living in Florida with the French guy sitting next to me.
Gate 11
Snacks and drink
The plane landed at Detroit DTW Airport at just before 5 pm. Fortunately, my next flight was at 6:20 pm. So the layover in Detroit ended up being pretty short, just long enough for me to get something to eat. My gate was over in concourse A. I first made a stop at the Starbucks to get my usual tall flat white to earn 75 bonus stars. I then headed over to McDonald's to get some food. Unfortunately, airport locations had all stopped taking mobile app deals. I ended up ordering a McChicken sandwich and a Daily Double for full price.
DTW
McDonald's
Starbucks by Gate A20
Tall flat white
McDonald's
McChicken $3.99
Daily Double $4.99
I had a middle seat for the flight home. When I got seated, I scrolled through the library of movies. I decided to finally watch Lincoln. This movie was released back in 2012. Better late than never. I always love watching documentaries or movies based on history. Daniel Day-Lewis did a great job playing Abraham Lincoln. Definitely worthy of the Academy Award for best actor that he won. I thought James Spader's performance was really good as well. He was W.N. Bilbo, one of the lobbyists securing votes for the 13th Amendment. Unfortunately, I did not like Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stephens and Sally Fields as Mary Todd Lincoln. They were both too much of themselves instead of the characters that they were playing. When I was much younger, I naively thought that the government was much more civil back in the day and that Americans were much more united as a country. Not even close! There were assholes in every generation!
Finally watched Lincoln
During the flight I got some Milano cookies. Perhaps I should switch from American Airlines to Delta Airlines as my primary choice for flights. The plane landed at LAX at about 8 pm. I got off of the plane into terminal 3. However I stayed inside and headed into terminal 2 before exiting. From there, I walked back to Joe's Airport Parking to get my car.
Milano cookies!
When I checked out of my hotel, I received a copy of the guest folio via email. I noticed that the address on file was for Bangkok, Thailand. A couple of days later on 7/15, I received an email written in Thai, wanting feedback for my hotel stay. The booking was done via the American Airlines website which actually went through Rocket Travel by Agoda. Apparently, they're the world's largest travel distribution network with a hub in Thailand. I guess that would explain the confusion during check-in.
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