I grabbed my bags and drove down to the Irvine Transportation Center to catch the 8:26 am train down to San Diego. Lately I've been making a conscious effort to drive less in order to reduce a lot of the stress from having to deal with traffic. I must say that it was a quite relaxing train ride except for the train nerds sitting in front of me. They were talking nonstop about anything and everything to do with trains. They were a pretty socially awkward bunch. It reminded me of Sheldon Cooper and his fondness for trains from The Big Bang Theory. After listening to them for about 2 hrs, I was pretty anxious to get off as the train rolled into its final stop at the Santa Fe Train Depot.
Amtrak to San Diego
From the station, I walked straight down to the San Diego Convention Center for the expo via Kettner Blvd to Harbor Dr. As I entered the convention hall, I went straight over to my table to pick up my bib first. As I was headed out to pick up my shirt, I noticed that there were stars on the floor. The stars where similar to the Hollywood Stars and there was one star for each of the remaining legacy runners with this year being the 20th year.
Deo's legacy star
After finding my friend's star, I then made my way over to the table to pick up my race shirt. It turned out that my friend, Dexter, was one of the volunteers handing out shirts. He showed me the medal that he received for donating his 100th gallon of blood! That's one medal that I'll never be able to earn since I have a phobia of needles!
Dexter and his special medal
After getting my shirt, I made my way through the official merchandise area and into the exhibition area. I tried to get to all of the vendor booths, but it was very crowded and it got very hard to maneuver since I had my bags with me. I did wait in line to sign up for next year's race for $69. It came out to $78.99 after all of the convenience fees.
Prius carbo-loading challenge
I then walked up to Ramen Yamadaya over on Broadway and 6th Ave to eat lunch. I haven't eaten a bowl of ramen in a while, so I decided to scratch that itch. I ordered their Yamadaya bun and the premium shoyu ramen. If you're tired of the greasy and fatty tonkotsu broth, you can try their premium ramen which comes with broth made from chicken and anchovy. The bun was good. The fat from the pork belly just melts in your mouth!
Yamadaya bun
Premium shoyu ramen
After lunch, I walked down to the Ralphs at G St and 2nd Ave to buy some drinks. I then walked across the street over to Horton Plaza to watch a movie. I used to come here all the time when I was going to UC San Diego many years ago. I slowly made my way up to the top floor to the United Artists Regal movie theatres. I bought a matinee ticket for Wonder Woman. The next showing was at 1:45 pm, so I had some time to wait. The teller told me to come back about 30 minutes before the start of the movie. I found a nice nearby bench where I got a good view of the Horton Plaza Park. I waited there until it was movie time.
Drinks
Horton Plaza
I grew up watching Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman and I thought this was a much better representation of how Wonder Woman should be. Finally, the DC universe has itself a decent superhero movie since Michael Keaton and Christian Bale as Batman and Christopher Reeves as Superman. Gal Gadot did a great job at portraying Wonder Woman as a goddess as well as display the physicality of an Amazon warrior. The fight scenes were very well done. However the dialogue was poor and at times it was just painfully corny. It was bad enough that it rivaled the Star Wars prequels.
Wonder Woman!
After the movie, I walked over to my hotel, WorldMark San Diego at Balboa Park. This was my first time staying at a WorldMark resort since becoming an owner. I felt like everyone that worked there were very friendly and treated me well during my short 2 night stay. It was a studio room with more amenities than I'm normally accustomed to when I stay at regular hotels. I could've bought groceries and cooked in my room.
For an early dinner, I went across the street to McDonald's to pick up food from my usual pre-race place. It almost seems as though I book my hotels based on the proximity of a McDonald's. :) Anyways I got a Quarter Pounder sandwich and used the McDonald's app to buy 2 large french fries for the price of 1. I do love their fries!
View from my room
Quarter pounder and 2 large fries
After I finished my dinner, I went through the expo haul. They actually had some samples in the bag this year. More and more races these days give you an empty bag to be used solely for checking your gear. I got the Rock n' Roll water bottle and towel for signing up for next year's race.
Expo haul
Race shirt
I then laid out my flat runner. I decided to go with my Chargers visor for this race. They might have moved up to Los Angeles, but to me, they'll always be a San Diego team... the LA Chargers of San Diego. :) I used Tailwind for the drink in my handheld. I want to use it as much as possible, because it seems to be much better on my gut. I still used the Shot Bloks for the second half of the race since I would have to refill my bottle with whatever was available at the aid stations. For this race, it was Gatorade.
Flat runner
Sunday 6/4
Per the usual... I got up early. I got dressed up. I made the walk up 6th Ave to the starting area. As with most downtown areas, you have to mind your surroundings and walk briskly. Once I got closer to the starting area, I blended in with other runners also walking up from their downtown hotels or residence. Eventually we came up to the drop off spot for those that took the shuttle. My friend spotted me at the UPS truck as I was taking off my pajamas and checking in my gear bag. We got in line to use the portapotties and ended up hanging out near our starting corral.
Corral
This was a rough marathon experience for me. If it weren't for the fact that it was my 15th year in a row for this particular marathon, I might have just posted a DNS. I certainly had a lot of sentimental reasons for wanting to complete the race. The main reason was that it was at this very marathon where I ran my first marathon. Some secondary reasons include San Diego being one of my favorite cities in California. Everything felt okay for the first few miles. Then I had to slow it down since the left ankle was still feeling sore from tendinitis. As I approached the wear blue: run to remember mile at around mile 5, I pulled over to the side. I walked and read silently the names of all of the fallen soldiers.
Apparently I had accidentally hit my lap button on my watch during my walk. My mile alarm was all off for the rest of the race. I tried to hold things together for at least the first 13 miles, but I only got to about mile 10 before I had to resort to taking extended walk breaks. It was cool to see a bunch of my friends out at various points along the course.
Latino Heat!
My legs were cramping up pretty bad even before I had reached the dreaded section on the 163 freeway. I had to walk most of those miles next to the golf course and Fashion Valley Mall on Friars Rd. Then I hopped on the 163 and did the best I can... which was mostly a slow walk. It was the combination of incline and road camber that made that 1 mile section such a brutal grind. Once to the top, it wasn't too bad heading for the finish on Ash St with one last short hill up 5th Ave.
From Nadia about to get on the dreaded 163
Finish: 5:25:36
Click here for my Garmin data.
Shortly after crossing the finish line, I bumped into my buddy, Marathon Mitch. The guy started an hour behind me and nearly beat me to the finish line all while dribbling a basketball. We got our medals and then proceeded through the finisher chute picking up snacks and drinks along the way. We then made our way down to the Waterfront Park to pick up our marathon finisher jacket. First I went to go get my gear bag so I could free up my hands. Just as with prior years, the lines for the jackets were long and a bit chaotic. It would turn out that there were two lines, one for male and another for female. Thanks to the lady that told me since I was waiting in the wrong line. She was actually a runDisney employee that I've volunteered with at some of their races.
Finish
Medal
Marathon Mitch
Post race snacks
After I got my jacket, I gave away my free beer ticket and started heading back to my hotel. I saw my friend Robert waiting for his girlfriend, so I waited with him. I just wanted a reason to stop since I wasn't feeling too great. It wasn't too long of a wait before she showed up. He went to the finish area to meet up with her, so I said my goodbyes and started walking again. Along the way, I saw Ed, the Jester welcoming and encouraging all of the runners to the finish line. I cheered for them as I continued walking. I actually started to feel better, so I stopped at the corner just across from my hotel to cheer and wait to see if I could find some of my friends.
The Jester doing his thing!
Larry Macon!
Forrest Gump
After getting cleaned up, my friend and I went to eat a burger at Hodad's where I was finally able to treat him for finishing his Half Ironman earlier in the year. Even though we were there at an odd hour in between lunch and dinner, there was still a long line to get seated. It turned out that my friend from the state of Washington was ahead of us. We ended up getting seated next to each other. I started things off with a vanilla shake, my one dessert for walking up that long cambered hill on the 163. Then for my burger, I got their single bacon cheeseburger. It was larger than most double cheeseburgers that I've eaten elsewhere.
Line for Hodad's
Bumping into friends at Hodad's
Vanilla shake
Single bacon cheeseburger
After dinner, I watched some TV back at my room, but I went to sleep pretty early since I would be catching an early Amtrak train in to work tomorrow morning.
Monday 6/5
I woke up early to get ready and pack up my bags. I checked out of my room and dropped off my keys at the front desk before making the walk over to the train station. This time I knew where to wait for the train as a holder of an unreserved seat ticket. They had set up lines just next to the waiting room at the train depot. The train would depart just before 6 am.
Taking the Amtrak to work
