Rock n Roll San Diego Marathon 2018

Saturday 6/2
I drove out to the Irvine Transportation Center to catch an early morning Amtrak train down to San Diego. The train was late, but thankfully not too late. I arrived at the Santa Fe Depot at about 9 am. From there I walked over to the San Diego Convention Center for the race expo. The expo and packet pick-up was pretty standard for a Rock n' Roll event. It was very streamlined. After picking up my bib, I made my way over to the tables to pick up my race shirt. Once again I bumped into my friend, Dexter, who was volunteering. Always good to see him at the races!

Legacy runners

It's Dexter

Race shirt

I made my way through the official merchandise and into the expo to check out the vendor booths. I went through about half of the booths before coming up to the Rock n' Roll area, where I waited for a computer to register for next year's race. It was $69 plus $9.99 processing fee for the marathon. My friend found me while I was registering for my race, so I ended up going through some of the expo with her.

Race swag

One of the booths that I found amusing was the WWF (World Wildlife Fund) booth. I said, "hey! It's the World Wrestling Federation!" The guy there was not amused by my comment. I recalled that they had a long litigious battle to secure that acronym from pro wrestling. I did take the card that they were handing out and quickly moved along. :) The card was for their stand-up paddle board event.

WWF

Goofing around with my friend

One the way out, I was pulled aside by someone that was doing a research project for UC San Diego. The project was headed up by a guy that had attended UCSD around the same time I did. He was studying those that were running the full marathon and their hydration strategy. After taking a short survey on their tablet, they took down my weight. Just as I was finishing up, I bumped into my friend who would be pacing one of the groups for the half marathon.

Bumped into Jen

From there, I walked over to the Regal movie theater over at Horton Plaza to catch a showing of Deadpool 2. It was pretty hilarious and not quite as raunchy as the first one. However I totally fell asleep during one of the last battle scenes. If I'm tired, mindless loud explosions and noises usually will put me to sleep like a lullaby. :)

After the movie, I walked over to the McDonald's near Balboa Park to eat a late lunch. I placed my order on the mobile app as I was walking up. I got the usual Quarter Pounder with cheese and medium french fries. With the app, I was able to get $1 off my order.

Lunch

After lunch, I hoofed it over to my place for the weekend, WorldMark Inn at the Park. I went up Park Blvd and cut across Balboa Park. The park was quite busy and filled with a lot of people doing various activities. It was pretty cool to cross over the Cabrillo Bridge outside of running it during the AFC Half Marathon. I was pretty tired and sweaty as I got to the property. I was hoping to get into my room right away and take a quick shower before meeting up with my friend for dinner, but my room was not ready.

When my room was finally ready, they gave me the room keys, and the concierge invited me to an owner update presentation. I told him that I just recently had one, but he insisted that I go. Oh well, if you say so and want to give me more free Wyndham Rewards points.

After checking into my room, I dropped off my bags and washed my face before heading back out for an early dinner with my friend at the nearby Hachi Ramen. Once we went inside, I ordered the duck ramen and shiso edamame. I always love eating duck meat, but the bowl didn't really stand out for me. However I really liked the shiso edamame. I've had the traditional salt and other flavor variations, but this flavor combination was the best that I've had.

Duck ramen and shiso edamame

Dinner with Jen

After dinner, I stopped in at the 7 Eleven on the way back to my room to buy some drinks and get hydrated for tomorrow's race. It was pretty amusing to see the many Deadpool decorations!

Deadpool!

Drinks

Back at my room, I watched the last few innings of the Dodgers v. Rockies game. It was good to see that the Dodgers were finally working their way through all of the injuries and doing much better with both their pitching and hitting. They're too good of a team to be down in the cellar with the Padres! I also took the time to lay out my flat runner so that I would be ready to go tomorrow morning.

Let's go Dodgers!

Flat runner

Sunday 6/3
It might have been a pain in the butt to get to on foot yesterday, but it was sure mighty convenient to be staying just footsteps from the start line. I stayed in my room for as long as possible before I went outside to the starting area. I checked my gear bag and went to the starting line to wait for my friends to the take the pre-race Marathon Maniacs photo. The event staff was preventing us from positioning ourselves under the starting banner, so we ended up not getting all of the Maniacs in this photo. A few of them were on the other side of the corral.

Marathon Maniacs pre-race photo

I started out of corral 5. I ended up bumping into a bunch of familiar faces while waiting for the race to start.

Corral

I didn't exactly come into this race feeling fresh, so I made sure to start off as slowly and comfortably as I possibly could even though during that first mile, I love to bolt out like a madman. It was one of the few times where I didn't go out running a sub 8 min first mile. I got to run a couple of miles with my friend through the neighborhood between the 805 and 15 freeways. Unfortunately I had to let her go on ahead as she was running the half marathon and was going a tad faster than I know I should be running. It was so much nicer once I reached the course split between miles 8 and 9. I really dislike running a race where there are participants in the half marathon mixed in with the full marathon. On the upside while heading West on University Ave, I got to see some of my friends that had started in later corrals. After a stretch of downhill, it was followed by a couple of very steep short hills on Robinson Ave and Georgia St. From there the course headed West towards Presidio Park for the halfway point.

Then it was down to Sea World Dr for a few miles at the Southeast corner of Mission Bay. It's not one of my favorite sections of the course, but at least it was pretty flat. My friend caught me between miles 17 and 18. She tried to pinch one of my butt cheeks, but she couldn't grab anything as I have a pretty flat butt. :) I stopped for a portapotty break just before turning onto Friars Rd. There was a long stretch next to the Riverwalk Golf Course. It was ever so slightly uphill which caused me to take more breaks than the usual scheduled walk breaks. It's always nice to finally reach that aid station next to Fashion Valley Mall.

My goodness I just had to stop to take a picture of the scary Pennywise clown at the entrance of the dreaded 163 freeway. Yes, the 163 was indeed the real nightmare! It hits you in 2 ways: the road is cambered and it's pretty much 1 mile of straight climbing. I wouldn't complain as much if it was at the beginning of the race instead of during the late miles.

I was trying to hold it together during the last mile. I looked at my watch and was feeling pretty relieved that I was going to finish my 200th marathon in just under 5 hrs. However my internal thoughts of what I was going to do post race were abruptly interrupted. I found it odd that we were being instructed quite loudly by the police officers that were stationed at intersections to get off of the streets and to get as close to the buildings. Shortly after making the final turn onto Ash St and passing the mile 26 marker, we were told to stop, that nobody was allowed beyond Third Ave. Some runners and spectators were being uncooperative, but the police officer at that intersection was quite stern in his instructions. We knew it had to be something serious. They didn't tell us much, but they told us that it was an active shooter situation. They held us there for about 20 minutes before telling us to turn around and head for the San Diego City College at the corner of Park Blvd and B St. They told us that they would be bringing the finish line over to that location. I waited at the school for a few minutes before one of the officers told us that the original finish line has been reopened and that we could now finish the race.

Having that 30 minute or so break helped refreshed my legs. I was able to run pretty well over to the finish line. It was good to have a little shout out from Rudy, the race announcer, as I crossed the finish line!

Finish line

Finish: 5:38:43
Click here for my Garmin data.

Well, that was an interesting way to finish my 200th marathon! I kept the watch running the whole time and it showed that I tacked on about 1 - 1.5 miles to my total distance. More importantly I was glad to hear that no one was hurt from the incident except for an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound by one of the responding officers. It would turn out that the person arrested had only an air-soft gun. Oh the times that we live in where stuff like this has become the norm.

Click here for the official race statement concerning the incident.

After getting my finisher medal, it was certainly odd to see no finish line photographers. I guess they were sent home. I got a bottle of chocolate milk, bottle of water, bottle of Gatorade, as well as other various snacks.

I then walked over to the Waterfront Park to pick up my gear bag. I only stayed long enough to give away my free beer ticket. Then I walked over to the Wyndham Harbour Lights to attend the owner presentation. Originally I was going to have enough time to get back to my room and shower first. However when I went to the desk to check in, they informed me that I could not attend another presentation so soon after purchasing credits. I thought that that was the case. They apologized because the concierge should've caught that during the check-in process. They ordered an Uber ride for me. However I waited for about 10 minutes and having been cycled through 2 different drivers, I figured that with the downtown road closures due to the marathon that it was next to impossible to get through the traffic. I told them to cancel the ride and that I would walk it. They thought I was crazy probably because it was uphill the entire way and I had just completed a marathon. I think it helps with the recovery to keep the legs active right after a marathon.

After getting cleaned up, it was time to relax in my room. Later that evening, I turned on the TV and watched game 2 of the NBA Finals. I watched quarter 1 before walking over to Hane Sushi for dinner. They had the game on in the bar area, so I ended up watching it there as well. Since it always takes time for my stomach to recover after running a marathon, I was kind of glad that this restaurant was more about quality over quantity. Their Kobe beef sashimi was good and their sashimi was really fresh! After dinner I went back to my room and watched the remainder of the game.

Kobe beef sashimi

Sashimi dinner

Monday 6/4
I woke up at about 1:30 am, about 15 minutes before my alarms were set to go off. I guess my body was done sleeping. I took a shower and packed up for my long walk down to the Santa Fe Depot to catch the 4 am train into work. It's always a bit unnerving to be walking through any downtown area at dark o'clock. Otherwise it was an uneventful train ride back into Irvine.

Well, that was my 200th marathon overall and the 16th consecutive time that I've run this race. I wonder just how much longer I could keep this up!

Laguna Hills Memorial Day Half Marathon 2018

Monday 5/28
Not sure what was going on with my right groin, but it didn't feel right when I woke up and was getting ready for the race. I didn't do anything to strain it, but it felt like a groin pull. Perhaps I was overcompensating for my left leg issues at the half marathon 2 days ago and it was just now showing up. It didn't feel bad enough for me to take a DNS, so I went ahead and drove down to the Laguna Hills Mall for the race.

Just as with years prior, I drove down the 5 freeway and exited at El Toro Rd. Upon exit, I went straight ahead on Paseo de Valencia and turned left on Calle de la Plata. A lot of the road was coned off, but there wasn't much direction provided either by road signs or a volunteer. I only knew where to go because I've run this race numerous times. I arrived at about quarter till 6 and parked in the lot just West of the Nordstrom Rack.

I walked over to the registration table to pick up my race packet. It was good to see that this race also has gone to assigning bibs as people check-in. This way, the process can be a lot more efficient as each participant can go to any volunteer to get a bib. Also, no bibs have to be wasted on no-shows. After being assigned a bib, I moved over to the race shirt table where I saw my friend, Dexter. He was once again volunteering as well as running in the race. In additional to the shirt, the participants in the half marathon also received a trucker hat.

Race shirt and trucker hat

After using a portapotty, I went back to my car to eat my pre-race snack and to relax a bit. I had bumped into my friend who was pacing the 2 hr group, so we made our way to the starting area as I had to meet up with my running group for a pre-race photo and he had to meet up with his pacing team.

Half Fanatics

Beast pacers

Start line

The race started a couple of minutes after 7 am. That first mile was a bit congested and my stride felt awkward with that groin issue. However thankfully the groin thing cleared up fairly quickly during that first mile. Having run this race multiple times, I knew not to overdo it during the first 5k as the second half of this race has quite a collection of uphill climbs. The 5k runners definitely were pulling me a bit as I was running a tad faster than I had wanted to run. I pulled back a bit as I turned the corner at the Laguna Hills Community Center onto Alicia Parkway. That was where the 5k runners split to cross their finish line. The 1:50 pace group caught and overtook me as I was running on Wood Canyon Dr heading down to Aliso Canyon Rd. I was still moving fairly well, but not good enough to keep up with them. At about mile 7, we hopped on the little dirt trail. This trail section was new to me. We were pretty much on the trail until almost the turnaround. My faster friend caught me at around mile 9. He had run a marathon on 2 consecutive days and was still going strong! He went on to chase down the 1:50 pace group. The last 3 miles were quite the struggle, but I focused on keeping up the same leg turnover even though the legs weren't generating much power. I made sure to save enough in my legs to go up that very final short steep climb before the finish line.

Final stretch (pic from Latino Heat)

Finish: 1:57:44
Click here for my Garmin data.

Here are some interesting facts about me with this race:

• This was where I ran my first half marathon back in 2005.
• I've run it a total of 9 times. 2005-2008, 2010, 2011, 2015, 2016, and 2018.
• This was where I ran my first sub 2 hr half marathon in 2008. I finished in 1:57:44.
• I wasn't trying to, but 10 years later, I finished in the same exact time, 1:57:44.

I don't always run this race every year, but it would seem that every time that I return, I would see some new improvement with this race. It's good to see that they do not remain stagnant and continue to make changes to the race for the better!

Finish line

After crossing the finish line, I got my finisher medal, a bottle of water, and a Munk Pack double dark chocolate protein cookie. My friend said it was pretty sweet, so I ended up saving the cookie for my coworkers the next day when I went back to work. I don't have much of a sweet tooth.

Finisher medal

Post race cookie

I went over to the Southeast corner of the soccer fields just at the top of the final steep hill to meet up with my friends. We hung out at that spot for a bit and cheered on other runners while we waited for some of our friends to finish.

AK-47 and Latino Heat

Once our last friend came through, we met up with her over by the finish line area. I went to the nearby booth and got a vanilla bean flavor Noosa yogurt. I think they're pretty good! We would shoot the breeze for a little bit before we started heading out.

Noosa yogurt

We headed up the hill to catch a bus back to the Laguna Hills Mall to retrieve our cars. They seemed to have maybe 2 buses running and the line of people waiting was long, but it was worth the wait as they were able to get a lot of people onto each bus. Along the way, we saw some of the people that were impatient and had decided to make the walk back to the mall. They could've been on the bus with us had they waited.

Calico Centennial Celebration Road Half Marathon 2018

Friday 5/25
In order to avoid the typical weekend traffic, I took an early start on my drive up to Las Vegas. I gassed up the car and was on the road at a little after 4 am. I made pretty good time and crossed the CA/NV border at about 7 am. That meant that I would get into town a bit early, so I decided to stop by the Seven Magic Mountains. Apparently it was on display starting on May 11, 2016 and should be there until the end of 2018. I've seen pictures of them from my friends, so I decided to check it out for myself. I was there for maybe a total of 10 minutes which included parking the car and walking about 100 yards up to the display. There was a couple doing weird poses for pictures when I got there. Just as I was leaving a bunch of people pulled up. I guess it was a pretty popular stop.

Seven Magic Mountains

From there, I drove to the Cracker Barrel near the Silverton Hotel on Dean Martin Dr. Per the usual, it was pretty busy in there, but I was able to get seated right away after a quick stop in the restroom. Once seated, I ordered coffee and their Old Timer's breakfast.

Old Timer's breakfast

After I was done with my meal and settled my bill, I drove over to Town Square to catch a matinee showing of Solo: A Star Wars Story over at the AMC Town Square 18. The earliest showing was at 10:45 am, so I had some time to pass. I walked around Town Square a little bit and found that only the coffee shop was open for business. I ended up walking over to Fry's as they opened at 9 am. From what I've read, the movie theater normally opens about 30 minutes before the start of their first movie which was at 10:30 am. So at about 10 am, I showed up at the box office to wait with a few others for the theater to open. Once they were open for business, I used one of the kiosks to buy a ticket with my MoviePass.

After being utterly disappointed by The Last Jedi, I had zero expectation for this movie. It wasn't in any stretch a great Star Wars movie, but at least it wasn't filled with lame juvenile jokes and the story wasn't horribly written. It was a safe average movie just to show how Han, Chewie, and Lando all met. I can live with that.

After the movie, I drove over to my place for the weekend. It was the WorldMark Las Vegas - Spencer Street property. It was pretty quiet place, located just South of E Flamingo Rd. During check-in, the concierge got me to commit to attending an owner presentation. Once I got to my room, I got unpacked and relaxed a bit.

For an early dinner, I decided to walk over to the nearby McDonald's. Since it was pretty hot outside, the walk felt much longer than it actually was on the map. I used the app on my phone to get a pretty good deal. It was for free medium fries and medium drink with the purchase of a Quarter Pounder with cheese. This McDonald's definitely wasn't one of the cleaner ones. I normally get an unsweetened ice tea, but the top of the dispenser wasn't covered and it looked pretty gross. I ended up drinking Powerade instead. There was also quite a bit of trash in the dining area. I quickly finished my meal and headed back to my room.

Saturday 5/26
The directions for this race was very straightforward: head North on highway 15, get off at exit 80, turn right and keep going until you see the race. As I exited the freeway, almost right away I came up to the mile markers for the race so I knew that I was at the right place. It looked like a nice road for the road half marathon until I came up to a somewhat rocky road. My Mini Cooper definitely wasn't designed for this kind of terrain. It kind of made me miss my old Toyota Tacoma pickup truck with the big tires. Even though I was running the road half marathon which started at 6:45 am, I timed it so that I would arrive at about 5:40 am so that I could see a few of my friends before they started their marathon and 50k races.

After parking my car, I got my bib and race shirt. I dropped it off at my car before coming back to the start line to take a picture with my Marathon Maniac friends.

Race shirt, front

Race shirt, back

Marathon Maniacs/Half Fanatics

6:00 am 50k and marathon start
6:30 am trail half marathon start
6:45 am road half marathon start
7:00 am 5k and 10k start

Before

Start

The field for each of the races were quite small. I started off the race as was my usual style: hard effort, but not too hard. The course started off with a little out and back. It was a gentle climb going out which felt pretty good for my gimpy left ankle. It would be the downhill sections that would cause the same 'ol discomfort and slow me down. After the first out and back, it would be another longer out and back in the opposite direction. The course took us through the rocky road that I drove on while getting to the race. Although my ankle didn't like the rocky terrain, that was pretty much the only section where we had respite from the blazing sun. This out and back took us out just past mile 8. From there, it would be entirely uphill all the way to the finish line. There wasn't as much discomfort going uphill, but my left foot was just not having it by this point. It was good to see my friend not too far behind at the turnaround. Before the race, I told her that I would be her rabbit to catch. Indeed she would catch me about a mile from the rocky road section where we ended up leapfrogging each other. Whenever she went ahead, I would use her to pull me along. A couple of times, I thought for sure that I would eventually be unable to keep up with her. After a walk break, I decided to just run and not stop again.

During

Finish

Finish: 2:13:48
Click here for my Garmin data.

The heat really got to me. I was a bit dizzy and uncoordinated as I got my finisher medal. The volunteer at the finish line was talking to me, but my response was slurred and incoherent as if I was having a stroke. I couldn't articulate the words that I wanted to say. I stumbled over to a nearby table to prop myself up to prevent myself from falling down. I took a few deep breaths and felt better. My friend was just behind me, so I waited for her to cross the finish line.

Medal

We both grabbed a cold wet towel and waited a bit in the shadow next to the truck to cool down. We spotted our friend near the portapotties as he had finished the trail portion of his race and was working on getting through the road portion.

After

I was tired and hungry, so I started heading out after I changed my clothes and said bye to the race director. Man, my clothing and visor were all caked in salt! Once again I had to go very slow through the rocky road portion of the course. Also the other cars and I didn't want to kick up too much dust for the runners on the course.

I stopped in at the Cracker Barrel on E Craig Rd for some breakfast. My dining experience here was pretty standard for a Cracker Barrel. It was very crowded inside, but they were still able to seat me right away. My table was in the section with one of the friendliest waiters that I've ever come across. I ordered coffee and the Country Boy breakfast with a medium rare sirloin steak. Man, did that meal hit the spot! At first I thought it was too much food, but I ended up eating it all.

Country Boy breakfast

I went back to my room, got cleaned up, and turned on the TV to watch the UEFA Champions League Final match between Real Madrid and Liverpool. It should've been a good competitive match, but Sergio Ramos would go on to injure Liverpool's best player, Mo Salah, early in the match. Salah tried to play through the shoulder injury for a little bit, but he had to be subbed out. Even without the miscue by Karius, it would've been hard for Liverpool to overcome a couple of amazing goals by Gareth Bale!

Sadio Mané picking up the slack

My owner presentation was scheduled for 2 pm, so at 1:30 pm, I went down to the lobby to get a shuttle ride over to the WorldMark property on W Tropicana Ave. It looked to be a larger and much nicer property than the Spencer St location. The 1 hr owner update turned out to be a one-on-one meeting with someone that I would characterize as the closer. Wyndham has been in the process of bringing the value of WorldMark credits up to the level of Wyndham points. That meant that the number of credits to reach the Diamond Elite status would be going up very soon. This closer was very hard-nose, not taking no for an answer despite every reason not to purchase that I threw her way! Long story short, they offered me 7,000 credits at the old Trendwest prices and I bought them to get myself to 35,000 credits and the Diamond Elite status. I mainly did so, so that I could have Personal Choice and use my credits to make purchases same as cash for things such as airfare. However since I'm not rolling in the money, I will definitely be frequenting McDonald's more for the next 5 years or so as I work on pay everything off. :)

The WorldMark by Wyndham vacation rental definitely works for me. For one, it has put me up in much better accommodations. However in the long run, it will pretty much break even in terms of money spent. If I have someone to whom I could pass the ownership once I'm gone, that person would benefit greatly if they also like to travel even if they have to take over on the maintenance fees.

Sunday 5/27
I got ready and checked out of my room early in the morning to hit the road. I was hoping to avoid all of the traffic with an early start home. With about another hour to go before reaching home, I stopped in at the Cracker Barrel in Victorville for a pit stop. I ordered their Grandpa's breakfast with the chicken fried steak. This was the 3rd Cracker Barrel location that I'd visited on this trip alone!

Grandpa's breakfast

After paying my bill and starting my drive home, I nearly got t-boned coming out of the parking lot. While I was going to make a left turn, a car driving in a right turn lane decided to drive really fast going straight. Good thing I was just rolling and haven't stepped on the gas for my left turn. Never assume that the other drivers will follow the rules of the road! Other than that, it was a pretty uneventful drive home.