After eating lunch, I hopped in the car to drive out to Ventura. The drive wasn't too bad. I arrived at the Downtown parking structure at just before 2:30 pm. It wasn't until the 3rd floor where I found a vacant parking spot.
Downtown Ventura Parking Structure
From there I walked over to Mission Park to pick up my race packet. This year, the race expo was actually located all along the Figueroa Street Mall. Once I located the bib pick up tent, I showed my QR code and was assigned a bib. Along with the bib, I was given a race shirt and a large tote bag with some swag. Finally, I checked out the vendor booths. I got a can of Pineapple Sunrise Barebells Protein Soda.
Mission Park
Race packet pick-up
Race shirt
Back of race shirt
Tote bag
Race swag
Sample Barebells protein soda
After getting back to my car, I drove over to the nearest Target to buy some snacks and drinks for the weekend. It turned out to be a pretty fancy 2 story Target connected to the Pacific View shopping mall. I ended up buying a pint of Ben & Jerry's and a bottle of Gatorade Mashups.
Target
Gatorade Mashups
Tempting!
Ben & Jerry's
This year, I booked a one night stay at a Days Inn Camarillo - Ventura. It was near Las Posas Rd exit off of the 101 freeway. The reviews were pretty dismal, but it was one of the cheapest places that I could find. I checked in and was given room #105. Thankfully, the room looked like it had just been recently renovated. I found everything to be clean and in working order. A few of the usual items such as cups and a luggage rack were not available in the room. The remote for the TV took a bit to figure out. Good thing, I had stayed at places with Spectrum TV service so I knew the channels for the channel guides.
After getting settled into my room, I opened and polished off the pint of ice cream while watching some TV. I then went through my race packet and relaxed a bit before going back out for an early dinner at senior citizen hours.
Pint of Ben & Jerry's non dairy Karamel Sutra
I decided to just get dinner at the Marie Callender's next door. If I had to guess, it had been a couple decades since the last time that I had eaten at one. The restaurant being on the AAdvantage Dining program definitely swayed my decision. Since I was eating pretty early, the place was rather empty. The restaurant was definitely showing its age. It reminded me of the 80s or 90s. The entire wait staff was very nice and friendly. After being seated and having looked through the rather extensive menu, I ended up ordering the Marie's Burger Combo with a cheeseburger and tater tots. It came with a slice of pie. I went with a key lime pie. It was a decent nostalgic meal.
Marie's Burger Combo with cheeseburger and tater tots
Key lime pie
After I was done with my meal and settled the bill, I headed back to my room. I laid out my flat runner, going with one of my usual orange Team OAR t-shirts. I then took a shower before calling it a night and going to sleep early.
Flat runner
Sunday 2/22
I got up pretty early to get ready. I checked out of my room at about 3 am as I was planning to get a quick charge at the Tesla Supercharger station near Downtown Ventura before catching the bus to the start line. It was a pretty small charging station with only one other EV vehicle there when I arrived. I was there very briefly, only there long enough to ensure that the car had about 20% charge leftover when I reached home.
Tesla Supercharger, Thompson Blvd, Ventura
I unplugged the car and drove over to the nearby parking structure. Unlike last year, I encountered a group of young kids on the way up to the 2nd floor. They looked to be listening to music and under the influence of something. As I made my way up to the 3rd floor, I came across some homeless people. As I reached the 4th floor, there was a lot of trash everywhere with most of the cars unoccupied. I parked there because the floors below had a 4 hour limit. As I parked at the corner near the stairwell, I noticed across the way was a parked car with someone in the driver seat. Eventually, he got out and another car drove off. Eventually, I got ready and started heading over to the Ventura County Fairgrounds on Figueroa St to catch a bus ride over to the start line up in Ojai.
The usual pre-race school bus ride
Once we reached our destination and had gotten off of the bus, I went straight to one of the portapotties before it had gotten too busy. I timed a second visit to empty the bladder before heading over to the starting corral where I bumped into some familiar faces. I hung out with my pacer friends until it was time to run the race.
Luis
Jim
In hindsight I probably should've moved back a bit in the corral when the pacers were positioning themselves within the corral. I ended up starting at the back of wave 3 with the 3:30 pacers. There was about 90 secs between each wave. That was way too fast for my current level of endurance! When our wave was released, I hung back until it was just me and another guy named, Adam. He was an ultrarunner that was very friendly and quite chatty. He would go on to finish in 3:45:18. He pulled me along into running a 8:41 second mile. That pace was fine for a half marathon, but I would be wrecked pretty early for a full marathon. Thank goodness when the next pace group came through, he went with them. That one mile stretch heading east on Ojai Rd was my least favorite section. I tried to run on the most level section of the road, but the extreme road camber caused discomfort in my right hip. It took a while for that pain to dissipate. I kept backing off on the pace until I was closer to a 10 min/mile pace by mile 8. After reaching the Maricopa Highway 33 and approaching the halfway point, the course hopped onto the Ojai Valley Trail. At this point, I was pretty much dialed into a 10 min/mile pace. I kept that pace until it started getting a bit too warm. I started taking walk breaks after reaching mile 22. In those last 4 miles or so, I was adding about 2 minutes per mile.
Rather scenic views
It was starting to get warm!
Crossing the famous San Antonio Creek Bridge
Around mile 20
Finish up ahead
Finish: 4:23:37
Click here for my Garmin data.
When I crossed that finish line, I was feeling pretty pooped and very glad that that was over. After receiving my finisher medal and a bottle of water, I saw my friend off to the side. She was one of the sweepers for the half marathon. I got a quick selfie with her before continuing on down the finisher chute.
Finisher medal
Maricris
I made my way over to the post race area to find some portapotties as I was still having some GI issues. All of the hand washing stations were out of water, so I had to use the bottled water to wash my hands. The post race food didn't look very appealing so I didn't bother getting in line for that. However, off to the side were boxes of avocados. I believe they weren't ripe yet, so they had been set out for people to take. Some of my fellow runners looked like they had seen gold and were taking about a dozen per person. I only grabbed 3, one for each of my parents and my younger brother as they love avocados. I also got a sample Barebells chocolate dough protein bar.
Post race avocados!
I then headed back to the intersection of Main St and Ventura Ave to cheer on my fellow runners and to wait for my friend to come through. Originally, I was planning to eat lunch at the nearby Indian restaurant called, Himalaya Fresh. Unfortunately, my appetite had not returned, so maybe I'll try again the next time that I'm in Ventura. After my friend came through and finished, I got a quick selfie with him before I headed back to my car.
Pascal coming to the finish
Thank goodness, my car was there in one piece. I thought that there would be a chance where it would've been vandalized while I was out there running a marathon. I did encounter a bit of traffic on the way home. I might have dozed off and drifted a few times into the adjacent lanes. However, it never triggered the lane departure alerts, so I guess it wasn't too bad.
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