I took a morning flight out of LAX with US Airways. I drove to the airport early so not to get stuck in the morning work traffic. The first leg of my flight to Madrid took me to Philadelphia first. Fortunately I scored a a seat that had lots of leg room. There was so much leg room, that people were using it to wait for their turn to use the lavatory.
LAX to PHL: Plenty of leg room for once!
During my layover in PHL, I ate at Cibo Bistro and Wine Bar. I had a glass of Dona Paula Estate Malbec and their Cibo burger cooked medium. A good burger and a glass of red wine. I could get used to this kind of eating. A little pricey but it was definitely not bad for airport food!
Dona Paula Estate Malbec
Cibo burger
I got a bulkhead seat on my flight from PHL to MAD. Loved the extra leg room although some passengers decided to use that room to cross from one aisle to the other.
PHL to MAD
During the flight to Madrid, I was finally able to watch American Hustle and Grudge Match. American Hustle was a pretty entertaining movie with some clever dialogue, but not as good as the critics had made it out to be. Grudge Match was your typical Stallone movie. Plenty of action, but not a very intelligent movie.
4/25 Friday
I landed in Madrid on Friday morning. Even though I had activated an international data plan with my Verizon phone prior to the trip, it was completely useless. But I had printed out maps as a backup as well as studied their rail system. I tried to get some Euros with my credit card, but they kept asking for a PIN number so I ended up changing 81 USD for about 50 Euros.
I then walked over to the Metro station to pick up my 5 day unlimited ride rail pass that I had prepaid. It was a very good deal. They gave a 50% discount for tourists. It came out to a little over 19 USD for the pass. They gave me some maps along with the pass and with the pass in hand, I started heading over to the expo. The line that runs from the airport was the number 8 line which I took to Nuevos Ministerios. I then switched over to the number 10 line heading for Puerta del Sur. I got off at Lago station. I took a roundabout way, but eventually I found my way to the location of the expo at the Pabellón de Cristal de la Casa de Campo. It would've been nice to have the use of Google maps. The español that I learned in high school and college came in a little handy at the expo. I could understand almost everything, but I had difficulty coming up with phrases let alone sentences when I had to open my mouth. :)
Meb!
After I was done with the expo, I took the rail to go check into my apartment. I took the number 10 line and got off at the Tribunal station. Then I switched over to the number 1 line heading towards Valdecarros. While I was waiting for the train at Tribunal, an older gentlemen started talking to me in Spanish. I replied to him in my broken Spanish. I found out that he's from Chicago and I told him that I'm from Los Angeles. So we switched over to English. We talked a bit about the marathon. He told me that the course was not easy. He was entered for the half marathon. We both got off at the Antón Martín station. His hotel was close to mine, so he was pretty determined to help me get to my place. The place that I booked was an apartment called Apartamentos Good Stay Prado.
My room was not ready for me to check in. So I waited in the office. I took the opportunity to charge my phone while using their WiFi. It was good to be connected to the internet again. You just don't realize how dependent we are to it until we're without it.
Water heater up near the ceiling
Race shirt
Race packet
After relaxing in my room for a little bit, I went back out to buy some soccer scarves for my friends back home. I took the Metro over to the Futbolmania over at Puerta del Sol. It was also nice that I had a coupon for 10% off for one item. The Plaza Puerta del Sol was a pretty busy place. There was lots of people everywhere with a lot of stores. I picked up some drinks from a nearby convenience store before heading back to my room.
My whole eating schedule was off because people in Spain do everything later in the day. I stopped by a nearby pub called La Maripepa to eat something. With my very limited Spanish, I tried to ask the bartender what was the best item on their menu. He basically told me that everything was good. So I just picked the Iberian ham and a local Mahou beer.
Iberian ham
4/26 Saturday
I caught up on a little bit of sleep. Then I headed back out to the expo to eat at the Pasta Party that began at 1 pm. It was free for race participants. You just need to bring the ticket that was included in the race packet. When I got there, there was already a very long line of people waiting to get in.
Lago station
Pasta Party ticket
They were definitely controlling the amount of people going in and out. There were a couple of lines where they were handing out food. To each person, they passed out a bowl of pasta, a roll, a tangerine, and a bottle of water. Then at the end of the line, you can have a soda or beer. Inside the huge hall were a lot of tables and chairs. You can pretty much sit anywhere and with strangers if you wish. There were some entertainment provided while you eat.
Pasta Party food
After the pasta party, I went back to my apartment. Then I took a walk over to the Parque del Retiro to explore the gear check location at the finish area so that I would know what to expect the next day. Along the way I saw a lot of statues, fountains, flowers, and a lot of trees. I had been living in an urban jungle for so long that I missed seeing so much greenery.
Nice spot for a picnic
After exploring the park for a little bit, I headed back to my room. I stopped in at the McDonald's along the way to pick up some food. It was super crowded inside, but the lines moved pretty quickly especially if you used one of the kiosks to place your order. I ordered a happy meal with a cheeseburger, potato wedges, apple slices, and water. It came with a Spider-Man mask/glasses. I also got a Big Mac. The kiosk didn't take my credit card since it doesn't have a chip, but I was able to still pay with Euros up at the counter. I ate the food back in my room.
At about 8 pm I went out to eat a late dinner at the nearby Phuket Thai. For Spain, that's actually considered an early time for dinner. The restaurant wasn't even open for dinner until 8 pm. Thank goodness the wait staff spoke English very well as my Spanish was extremely rusty. I started off with a Mahou beer. I then ordered their Spring rolls and the Pad Thai con gambas. The rolls were good but very tiny. The Pad Thai was also very good but it was a small portion. You definitely should come here for quality over quantity.
Mahou beer
Spring rolls
Pad Thai con gambas
After eating dinner and getting back to my room, I got my race gear ready. But I was unable to fall asleep with the time change. I could hear people walking up and down the street and making noise until about 3 am.
Race gear
4/27 Sunday race day
Gear check opened at 7 am and the race started at 9 am. So a little before 7 am, I left my room and headed over to the Parque del Retiro to check my bag. Along the way, I walked by tons of drunk people that have yet to go home. Before this I had started to think that all Spaniards were more sophisticated. I even saw one guy just walk in between two parked cars and started taking a whiz. Classy. I'm only used to seeing that during a marathon or a trail race.
After checking my bag, I made the walk over to the starting corrals at the Plaza de Cibeles. I used one of the portapotties there before getting inside corral 2. I made it to the front of the corral and watched some of the faster runners in corral 1 warm up. As the race start got closer, the corral filled up. They had several guys parachute down in front of the starting line. Somehow I ended up just behind the 3 hr pace group before the race started.
"Ánimo! Vamos! Venga!"
The first 6k was pretty much a steady climb. I was pretty pooped by the time we got to the turnaround. My friend who had run this race before had warned me about the difficulty of this course. It was definitely full of rollers. The race ended with a steady climb from 33k to the finish. I was pretty surprised to see that I had finished right at about 4.5 hours as it did get kind of warm near the end. It was a pretty nice foot tour of the city of Madrid. The crowd support was fantastic.
10k: 0:53:04
15k: 1:19:36
20k: 1:49:28
Halfway: 1:56:59
25k: 2:22:03
30k: 2:59:38
35k: 3:36:02
40k: 4:15:24
Finish: 4:30:09
Finish line
After I got cleaned up I went out to have a big recovery meal at Fatigas del Querer. It was actually a long walk to the place, but it always makes my legs feel better to walk a bit after a marathon. I ordered their paella, the tripe stew, and a glass of Berceo red wine. I love seafood and paella is one of my favorite dishes. It was good! Unfortunately the tripe stew wasn't that great. It was a bit overcooked and chewy for my taste. The service was good and they were able to understand English, but my waiter totally sized me up and thought I couldn't eat everything that I wanted to order. He kept telling me that it was too much for one person. So I had to prove it to him by eating the paella first and then ordered the tripe stew. That caused a rather lengthy wait because it took a while for them to cook the tripe stew. I guess it's not a very popular item on the menu. He did bring me a plate of olives to eat while I waited.
Copa Berceo
Paella
I love olives
Callos madrileña
All gone
I saw this nice looking Chow Chow just chilling in front of a store every day when I walked over to the Antón Martín station to take the Metro.
When I got back to my room, I spent the rest of the evening watching mostly shows on the Disney channel on TV. I turned on the subtitles and the español was basic enough that I could understand most of it.
Phineas y Ferb en Español
4/28 Monday
I had a noonish flight to catch, so I gathered up all of my stuff and started heading for the airport pretty early. Since the office wasn't opened that early, I had to drop off my apartment keys in the drop box. Then I headed for the Metro station for one last time. I took the number 1 line to Tribunal, switched over to the number 10 line to Nuevos Ministerios, and lastly took the number 8 line that ends at the airport.
At an airport restaurant, there was a cool statue of a steer. I wasn't hungry yet or else I would have eaten there!
During my layover in Philadelphia, I decided to eat at Cibo Bistro and Wine Bar again. I had a glass of McWilliams shiraz and their turkey BLT. The wine was good, but the turkey BLT was not. Perhaps it was because they made it with turkey bacon. To be fair, the bartender did warn me that it wasn't real bacon and asked if I was okay with it.
McWilliams shiraz
Turkey BLT
On my way back to LAX I saw The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and Lone Soldier. For The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, I loved the Life magazine quote: "To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other, and to feel. That is the purpose of life." It was a somewhat intriguing movie. They kept you wondering what was on the missing frame. It was also pretty funny how they had incorporated eHarmony into the movie. Now for the Lone Soldier, that was one intense movie. I thought as a whole it was a well done movie but there were too many scenes that were way too sensationalized. That's Hollywood for you.
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