Brea 8k Classic 2020

Sunday 2/23
I've only run this fantastic well-organized race 2 other times, 2016 and 2019. With my plan to cut back on racing, I hope to be able to run this local race every year going forward.

Packet pick-up was scheduled to start at 6:30 am, so I left the house to make it down to the race around that time. I arrived at the State College Blvd and Birch St corner where there was a barricade there blocking Southbound traffic. However it was somewhat ambiguous as to if it was also meant to be blocking Westbound traffic on Birch. I decided to slip right through as the final race instructions had stated that the Brea Marketplace was one of the parking options. This wasn't an issue in prior years as you could get into the parking lot from State College Blvd. Unfortunately that entrance was closed as there was a lot construction in progress.

I parked the car in the lot just to the West of Pei Wei. I then crossed the street and picked up my race packet inside the parking structure that was directly across the street. I addition to the race bib and shirt, I also got a tote bag, a packet of Coach's Oats instant oatmeal, and a few useful coupons for a couple of nearby restaurants.

Bib

Race shirt

Tote bag

Race packet

Free food at McDonald's and Rubios

Before heading back to my car, I used one of the portapotties at the Southwest corner of State College Blvd and Birch St. The race was scheduled to start at 8 am, so I ended up walking around the Brea Marketplace to check out some of the restaurants and the nearby construction. All this time, I didn't realize that there was a 24 Hour Fitness tucked behind Jersey Mike's Subs. Most of the construction that I saw were for a parking structure in the back.

Start line

Having run this race a couple of times before, I knew what to expect. I tried my best to make sure that I had enough to make it up to Lambert Rd without taking any walk breaks. Not only did I fail on that part, but I also ended up taking 2 walk breaks while heading East on Birch St prior to making the turn on Associated Rd. For some reason I felt as if I was overheating. It could be because of the high humidity or that I had run yesterday. Once I made it up to the right turn on Lambert, it was a very slight gradual climb over to Kraemer Blvd. Once I hit that right turn on Kraemer, it was time to get on my horse and make up some time as it was pretty much all downhill to the finish line back at the Brea Mall.

Finish line

Finish: 39:31
Click here for my Garmin data.

After getting my finisher medal, I headed over to the famed food court. It served me well to remember to bring with me a plastic bag to carry stuff as they were giving out a lot of samples. I bumped into my friends in the food court. We traded race stories while we started looking at the food that was available. The two of them were sure that I had beaten them, but I knew that I had not which I confirmed when I got home. This was my slowest time in the 3 years that I've run this race. I'm just glad that I had finished in under 40 minutes.

Finisher medal

Food court

Pictures are worth a thousand words and they speak to just how amazing the food spread was that awaited the finishers. I believe I had visited all of the booths. It's possible that I could have missed 1 or 2. The ones I had visited were Mother's Market & Kitchen, Cinnaholic, McDonald's, Nothing Bundt Cakes, Rita's Italian Ice, T2, Jimmy John's, Red Robin, Mendocino Farms, BJ's, The Cookie Element, and Starbucks.

Post race goodies

Mother's Market & Kitchen

Cinnaholic Cold Brew Coffee

Nothing Bundt Cakes

Rita's Italian Ice

Jimmy John's Italian Sub

Red Robin

Mendocino Farms

BJ's

The Cookie Element

Starbucks

The food court was quite crowded when I started heading out. When I got back to my car and was ready to leave, there was a group of runners in the lot celebrating and taking millions of photos. I waited patiently in my car for them to disperse, but I finally got tired of waiting. I fired up the car and slowly backed out. They noticed my car and gave me space to pull out.

LA Chinatown Firecracker 10k 2020

Saturday 2/15
Race packet pick-up wasn't scheduled to start until 10 am, so I spent the morning watching a couple of EPL matches. In between matches, I went out for a short run around the neighborhood. I ended up leaving the house at about 9:15 am. I don't like driving into the Downtown area, so I usually drive out to the Sierra Madre Villa Station to take the Metro rail. For a while I took the rail from the end of the Gold line at the APU/Citrus College Station until they started charging for parking. As I was nearly at the exit for the Metro station, the sedan that was ahead of me swerved twice, first to the left and then hard to the right where it almost crashed into the car in the next lane. It was possible that the driver spilled hot coffee or something as it resumed driving straight. I wasn't going to wait around for an encore, so I quickly changed lanes and went around the car. Once I had parked the car, I used one of the machines to add value to my TAP card. Originally I tried to add value on the website, but for some reason it was only allowing me to add passes and not monetary value.

I arrived in Chinatown a few minutes before 10:30 am. It was a short walk from the Metro station. Per the usual, there were quite a few participants from the 20 and 40 mile bike ride finishing up their morning ride. When I went to pick up my race bib, not only was I asked for a picture ID, but also the email that showed my name and bib number. I'm guessing that they've had problems with dishonest people picking up other people's bibs. Included in the race packet was the usual drawstring bag, Minute cilantro & lime instant Jasmine rice, a small bag of Cheez-It Grooves, and a nice cotton year of the rat race shirt.

Race shirt

Race swag

After I got my race packet, I got in line to pick up my carbo-load snack. That term was a bit of an oxymoron as it's just a small to-go container of noodles and a fortune cookie. I found a spot near the Nike tent to eat my little snack.

Carbo-load snack

Noodles

Fortune

After I was done with my snack and read my fortune, I walked around the Chinatown Central Plaza to check out the different vendor booths as well as my annual visit to the Bruce Lee statue. Most of the booths were either informational or selling stuff. There weren't much freebies being handed out. I did pick up a few of the sample sized Power Crunch bars.

Bruce Lee

After that, it was time to head home. While waiting for the next train, I noticed from the platform that just beyond the parking lot across the street, there was a lot of construction taking place. It would appear that they are still in the process of gentrifying the area with new buildings going up.

Chinatown gentrification

On my way home, I stopped at the McDonald's to pick up lunch. I placed my order on one of the kiosks. Using the mobile app, I got a QR code that was good for a large iced coffee for 99 cents. I added the standard 2 for $3 deal to get a McDouble and a McChicken sandwich.

McDonald's

Later that evening, I laid out my flat runner for tomorrow's race. Normally I would either wear a Dodgers shirt or a Chinese New Year themed shirt, but this time I went with whatever was handy and looked comfortable. It was the 10k shirt from Disneyland Paris that featured the characters, Pain and Panic.

Flat runner

Sunday 2/16
The opening ceremony was scheduled to start at 7 am. I timed it so that I would get there around that time. As I was about a few miles to the exit for the Metro station, I saw that the other side of the freeway was shutdown by the highway patrol. From what I could see, a car had rolled over in a major accident. Later in the evening, I saw in the news that the accident was caused by a wrong way driver.
Once I had arrived, I first used one of the portapotties located on College St before heading over to the start line area. They were setting up to light the firecrackers. I settled on the North side of the start line hoping that any wind was blowing South. Prior to the lighting of the firecrackers, they had the traditional lion dance by the Immortals lion dance team.

Start line

Dr Sun-Yat Sen

Ready to light the firecrackers

The firecrackers were lit at about 7:30 am and boy were they loud! Unfortunately I didn't have any ear plugs and the smoke was headed my way, so I walked about a block North to get away from it all. After it died down, I headed back to the start line to catch the start of the 5k run at 8 am.

Doggy

5k start

1st male 5k

Doggy runner

Watching the 5k while staying warm

1st female 5k

Buster

Then after the 5k walkers departed at 8:30 am, I made my way into the start corral. It was a bit chaotic as the 10k race was scheduled to start at 8:45 am. There were 5k stragglers still starting their walk. I'm still a bit baffled as to why there's a separate start for the 5k walkers. They really should just start them with the 5k runners, in the back if they don't want them to get in the way of the runners.

10k start

Per the usual, it was super congested during that first mile as year after year, walkers push their way to the front. Having run this race multiple times, I made sure not to go out too hard during the first mile as the first half was all uphill. I made it a goal this year to run as much as I could on that climb. For the most part, my pacing was much better this year, but I still had to walk a few times as I was starting to overheat. Once I hit the peak, it was a nice long stretch of downhill. It felt nice to clock a sub 7 min mile. There was one last climb as the course wrapped around the Southern end of Dodger Stadium along Stadium Way towards Bishop Rd. After turning back onto Broadway, it was less than half a mile to the finish line. I tried to run as hard as I could to get in under 50 minutes, but I went over by a few seconds.

10k finish

Finish: 50:05
Click here for my Garmin data.

After crossing the finish line and getting a beautiful finisher medal, I headed down the finisher chute where I was given a small bag of Cheez-It Grooves, fortune cookie, apple, banana, and a bottle of water. I had brought with me a small plastic bag to carry the post race goodies. I hung out at the end of the finisher chute near the corner of College St and Broadway to wait for my friends. It was pretty cool that I got to see a couple of my friends that I have not seen in a while. I was able to catch up with one of my running friends. It was sad to hear that his mom had recently passed away.

Post race goodies

Finisher medal

After I found my friend to whom I usually give my free beer ticket, I headed over to the Metro station to take the light rail back to my car.

Palm Desert Half Marathon 2020

Sunday 2/9
The final race instructions had stated that race packet pick-up would start at 5:30 am, so I left the house at about 4 am. I made good time on the freeway and arrived at the City of Palm Desert Civic Center Park at about five minutes before 5:30 am. Having run this race last year, I knew that the packet pick-up location was in the gazebo, directly North of the Dreamer. Along the way, I decided to use the park restroom first before things got busy. After picking up my packet, I headed back to my car to get out of the chilly morning air.

Race bib

As the 7 am start of the race approached, I exited the car to look for the start line. It was in a different location this year. It was moved West a bit, closer to the road leading out to San Pablo Ave. My friends and I had to kind of guess since the race organizer hadn't set up the start line arch yet. The start of the race was delayed for a few minutes. The race announcer did let us know that due to the coronavirus over in China, the finisher medals unfortunately did not arrive in time for the race. There would be no finisher medal waiting for us at the finish line. :(

Half Fanatics

The Flash!

I've been making an effort these days to not run any more doubles whether it's a pair of half marathons and definitely not a double full marathon. However late last year, I had decided to make a push to run my 200th half marathon at the Nike LA 13.1 on April 5th. So here I was running a second half marathon in as many days. It just so happened that I ran this race for the first time last year and it was also a half marathon double.

Going into the race, I had planned to take regular walk breaks after reaching each mile. However I felt really good during that first mile, so I kept on running. After seeing my pace for that first mile, I made sure to pull back on the pace for the second mile. After reaching mile 2, it was a steady climb up to mile 5. That climb wore out my legs as I didn't have much for that long downhill stretch on Gateway Dr down to Dinah Shore Dr. That was followed by an uphill climb up Portola Rd. I had to take 3 extra walk breaks during that 8th mile. From there it was mostly downhill to the finish, but I was pooped. I was much relieved after making the right turn onto Magnesia Falls Dr which got me to mile 11. There was only 2 out-and-backs before entering the park for the finish line. Just like last year, I was dealing with leg cramps. I saw a couple of my friends quickly gaining on me which kind of motivated me to try and keep on moving. Although I was able to hold them off, I wasn't able to come in under 2 hrs.

Rounding the last corner

Finish line

Finish: 2:00:30
Click here for my Garmin data.

After the race, I met up with my friend and got some post race goodies which included tortilla chips, breakfast burrito, fruit, and a small bottle of water. I was hoping for some free ice cream from the truck, but it wasn't free.

Post race goodies

No free ice cream :(

After we were done with our food, we headed back to the last corner to wait for our friends and to cheer on runners. It was nice to enjoy the great weather while meeting some nice looking doggies and checking out some of the statues inside the park. 

Doggies

Mr. Thompson

Amador representing Team Red, White, and Blue!

Dreamer

The drive home took a bit longer as the Waze app notified me that there was heavy congestion on the 60 freeway due to a major car accident. I got around it by taking the 10 freeway and cutting back down the 15 freeway to the 60.