After eating lunch, I hopped in the car and drove out to the Rose Bowl Stadium to pick up my race packet. There were some spotty showers on the drive over. The rain was coming down pretty good near the San Dimas area. Thankfully, it was pretty sunny when I arrived in Pasadena. They had the bib pick-up out in lot K. It was like the LA Marathon, but on a much much smaller scale. I was assigned a race bib. Then I was given a race shirt and a loyal pin for having run the race last year.
Rose Bowl Lot K
Race shirt
Loyal pin
Sunday 4/27
I was still pretty tired after returning from Japan just a few days ago, but I managed to get up early to get ready for the drive out to the race. Normally, I would get there early enough to park in lot F. However, I timed it so that I would reach the Starbucks on Fair Oaks Ave at Orange Grove Blvd right as they opened to get some pre-race coffee. This particular location didn't open until 5 am. I placed my order for the usual grande blonde vanilla latte on the mobile app. With coffee in hand, I drove over to the Rose Bowl via Mountain St/Seco St. I was in line for lot F. However, starting with a few cars ahead of me, we were being rerouted to lot I.
Starbucks
Grande blonde vanilla latte
I found a suitable parking spot and relaxed in the car. I drank my coffee and ate my usual pre-race CLIF bar. As it got closer to 6 am, I left the car to go use one of the portapotties. First, I wanted to get a quick selfie with the Rose Bowl in the background. Just as I was taking that picture, I bumped into my friend, Ely. We then walked over to the portapotties. After I was done using one, I bumped into my friend Michael. We chatted briefly before going our separate ways to get ready for the race.
Race bib
Rose Bowl Stadium
Ely
Michael
At about 30 minutes before the start of the race, I gathered my stuff and started heading over to the starting corral. About halfway there, I had to double back as I had forgotten my paper towel to blow my nose. In addition to being tired from the time change, I had also brought back a cold from Japan. Thankfully, the symptoms weren't full blown yet.
Start corral with 1:40 pacer
The race started promptly at 7 am. I was running better than I thought I would at the start of the race with a 7:51 for the fist mile. I found myself laboring a bit too much during the second mile as we turned onto California Blvd for a decent steep climb. I pulled over for a walk break to let the heart rate drop a bit. I picked it back up after turning onto Orange Grove Blvd and then onto Colorado Blvd. Unfortunately, at about mile 3.5, I took a bad step and went down pretty hard. I slid on the asphalt, getting some gnarly road rash. Blood-wise, most of the damage was on the left knee and right elbow. Thank you to the fellow runner that was behind me. He retrieved my glasses for me and made sure that I was okay. I picked myself up and started walking while doing a quick assessment of my body parts. Adrenaline probably masked any pain, but for the most part, everything felt okay for me to continue on with the race. I took a walk break after reaching mile 4 just to ease myself back into things. While the next 2 miles went pretty well, I was starting to feel really worn out.
Shortly after reaching mile 7, I pulled over for a walk break. Things were definitely starting to unravel. I struggled through the next 2 miles. I tried to take advantage of the downhill sections during mile 10, but I was slowing down a lot. Once I descended onto West Dr, I knew that it was approximately one Rose Bowl loop or 5k left. I was hoping to finish strong, but the tank was pretty much empty. I took a few walk breaks as I knew it was a very gradual climb up to Washington Blvd. I wanted to take advantage of the downhill after turning right onto Rosemont Ave, but my left leg started to cramp up a bit. I focused on taking deeper breaths and tried to hold things together. I was so glad to finally enter the Rose Bowl and head for the finish line!
Finish: 1:59:32
Click here for my Garmin data.
This race took a lot out of me. Honestly, there just wasn't much in the tank from the get go! I was tired, sick, and took a hard spill pretty early in the race. I was very fortunate to eek out a finish in just under 2 hours. I was definitely running on fumes in those last few miles.
After getting my finisher medal, I milled around a bit in the finisher area as I knew that some of my friends weren't too far behind me. I even took a pic with a runner in a Liverpool kit. Today, they won the English Premier League after destroying my Spurs 5-1! I knew that we didn't have a chance of winning, but that was quite the beating! After a brief chat, I continued on and picked up a bunch of post race goodies and drinks.
Finisher medal
Lea
Almi
Liverpool wins the league
Post race goodies
Before heading out, I made a stop at the medical tent to get my wounds cleaned up. I thought that my right elbow and left knee would be the main concern as they were both quite bloodied. However, I probably will need to go see my doc for the right knee. Me being clueless, I didn't think anything of it even after the lady (nurse?) that was doing the cleaning had mentioned the lump on that knee.
A visit at the medical tent
All patched up
Right elbow
Right palm
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