I hadn't planned on renting a car and from what I could tell, there wasn't a real convenient way with public transportation to get to the expo at the Isleta Casino & Resort. So when I registered for the race, I paid an extra $20 to have the race packet mailed to me.
Shirt and bib mailed
For this trip, I was able to book a pretty cheap flight with Southwest Airlines flying out of LAX. I landed at Albuquerque airport at a little before 1pm. I waited for bus number 50 for my ride into Downtown. On weekends, the bus comes once every hour, so I had to wait a while for the 1:45pm bus. The bus fare was only $1. I got off at the bus stop at the corner of 2nd St NW and Copper Ave NW. I then walked a few blocks west to check into my hotel called The Hotel Blue. It looked a bit dilapidated on the outside. I also came across a bunch of shady looking characters along the way. Perhaps they've never seen an Asian before, but they just kept staring at me. I booked this hotel because of the excellent room rate and the convenient location. The Tempur-Pedic bed was nice and people working at the front desk were very friendly.
View from my room
I was pretty hungry so after checking out a few possible places on Yelp, I decided to eat at the nearby Q Burger. The restaurant was located at the Northwest corner of 3rd St and Central Ave. I ordered their Q Burger with Sweet Potato Tots. I don't like sweet potatoes and before coming here, I've never eaten them as tater tots. I've only eaten regular tater tots. I can honestly say that they were actually pretty good. The burger was pretty much their version of the bacon cheeseburger. It was pretty good for a burger. I had a Marble IPA to go with it. I went back to my room to relax a bit. Along the way, I stopped by the 7 Eleven to pick up some water and Powerade. One of my favorite movies was playing on TV, That Thing You Do! I noticed that beneath the TV was an electronic fireplace which was a bit cheesy looking. :)
Marble IPA
Q Burger with sweet potato tots
Electronic fireplace
For my pre-race dinner, I met up with my friends at JC's New York Pizza Department. Although it was a pizza place, I didn't order a pizza because my body doesn't really like pizza the day before a marathon. So I ordered the hot Italian Roast Beef Sandwich and a lemonade. The sandwich was actually pretty good. It was full of flavor and I sort of wished that it was a little bit bigger. It came with a small salad. Service was decent. The place wasn't very crowded so we had enough attention from our server. He was able to split up the check for all of us. The restaurant itself showed some age. The booths were a bit on the grimy side, but hey as long as the food is good and I don't get sick, I'm okay with it.
Italian Roast Beef Sandwich and a lemonade
A few Marathon Maniacs having dinner
After snapping a group photo, we went our separate ways. I went back to my room and got all of my stuff ready. I really need to buy some GU's soon as I was running out of miscellaneous ShotBloks and gels in my stockpile of runner stuff at home.
Race gear
10/19 Sunday
There was a little bit of chill in the air as I made my way from my hotel room to the starting area just in front of the Convention Center at 3rd and Tijeras. It was nice that the Convention Center was open, so that we could stay warm inside. It's also always nice to be able to use real restrooms instead of doing your business inside a portapotty before a race. As the start of the race approached, I went back outside and met up with my friends in the starting corral.
Starting line
The marathon started promptly at 7am. The shorter distances would follow later. The course was a pretty straightforward out and back course with a good majority of it on the Paseo del Bosque Recreation Trail. It took a few road miles before we got to the trail. The trail was pretty narrow but we were pretty spread out by then when the half marathon front runners came storming past us. I was feeling okay until about mile 10. The legs felt very heavy especially when we had to run up a big overpass. It took me a little over 2 hrs to reach the halfway turnaround point. The weather continued to get warmer and warmer. I was already beginning to feel the onset of leg cramps.
Course map
Lots of miles along the open scenic bike path
The majority of the mile markers were not in the right place so I just used them to get a general idea of how much further I had left. I started feeling a little dizzy at around mile 14. I had forgotten that Albuquerque was at a much higher elevation than the greater Los Angeles area! As I was dealing with the leg cramps, I kept leapfrogging with a tall guy, who I would talk to later on our way back to the same hotel. He was Brian from Houston, Texas. I kept pushing and plodding along as fast as I could, but had to keep taking walk breaks. For some reason, I was pretty determined to finish under 4:40. It really didn't matter, but perhaps I just wanted it to be over with as soon as possible. Running down the finishing chute was pretty nice.
Finish 4:39:48
Yay! Another finish line crossed in a new state! #28 in the books!
Medal
I bumped into a few Marathon Maniacs at the finish and I waited around for my friend to finish while drinking my chocolate milk. After my friend came through the finish line, we went our separate ways to our hotels to get cleaned up before reconvening at Q Burger. On my way back to my hotel, I bumped into the guy that I had been leapfrogging with during the later miles. We talked a little about the races that we've done and where we're from. I find that I've met so many interesting new people from running all of these marathons over the years and at different states.
After getting cleaned up, I walked back to Q Burger where I joined my friend at the bar counter. This time I had their BurQueño Burger with green bean fries. The green chile added a nice kick to the burger. I would definitely pick this burger over the regular Q Burger that I had yesterday. With the burger I ordered the La Cumbre IPA and finished with a Santa Fe Happy Camper IPA.
La Cumbre IPA
BurQueño Burger
After our meal, my friend had to go meet up with her old friend before catching a flight home. I wished her a safe flight and went back to my room to rest. I did not go back out for dinner as I had already consumed enough calories and just ate some post race snacks while drinking water.
10/20 Monday
After checking out of my room, I walked over to the bus stop at Tijeras Ave NW and 2nd St NW. On weekdays, the bus comes every 25 minutes. It was an uneventful relatively short flight back home. Upon landing at LAX, I drove over to my favorite ramen shop to eat a late lunch.
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