As with most weekends, it was time for some English Premier League football matches starting dark and very early!
- 4:30 am Brentford v. Fulham (0-0)
- 7:00 am Leeds v. Wolves (3-0); Newcastle v. Bournemouth (1-2)
- 9:30 am Tottenham v. Brighton (2-2)
I did not leave the house until I saw the Spurs give up a late equalizer to Brighton. For now, we will stay in the 3rd and final spot in the regelation zone! Oh, the agony of watching this match as a supporter! I felt bad for Xavi Simons having to fight through leg cramps as all of their substitutions had already been used. - 12:00 pm Chelsea v. Man Utd (0-1)
Starbucks
Grande salted caramel cream cold brew
With coffee in hand, I started my walk over to the beach park for the race expo. I would much rather drink an expensive Starbucks coffee and walk over than to pay for parking. Since I was used to my daily 5 mile walks, the 3 block walk was pretty much nothing. Once I reached the bib pick-up tents, I saw that there was one huge line. I asked the people in front of me if everyone needed to be in that line. No one really knew, so we all just stayed in that line. Eventually, someone came by and told us to get in the appropriate line according to the bib number range. That didn't really help me as I was already in that line.
Race expo at San Buenaventura State Beach park
AT-AT bounce house
Queue for bib pick-up
City fan
After getting my bib, I stopped at the race participants name banner to locate mine. I then headed over to the tents to get my race shirt. With that, I was done with the race expo and started my walk back to my car.
Participants name wall
Found my name
Shirt pick-up
Race shirt
Before driving off, I went inside Vons to buy some snacks. I normally buy bags of chips as my salty snack before a marathon, but this time I bought a 1 lb bag of pistachios for $10.99. For some reason, I was craving some ice cream. I was planning to buy a pint, but I saw that Baskin Robbins had a 2 for $6 deal. I went with my favorite Rocky Road and Pralines n' Cream. I used one of the self check-out kiosks to pay for my items.
Rocky Road and Pralines n' Cream
From there, I drove over to the Days Inn Camarillo - Ventura to check into my room. I decided to stay here again as I didn't have too bad of an experience while staying here for the Ventura Marathon earlier this year. The main reason was that it was cheap and part of the Wyndham hotel chain. It took a while for the guy to get me checked in, but eventually he put me in an upstairs room #224 which was across the way from the hotel lobby. It seemed to be where the long term residents stayed. I had no problems with that just as long as the room was clean. When I saw that my room had 2 beds, I knew why it took the guy such a long time as I had reserved a room with 1 king bed. I relaxed a bit in my room, catching the first hour of WrestleMania on ESPN2 while eating the Rocky Road ice cream. While I love watching premium live events with my younger brother, I'm still refusing to pay for ESPN Unlimited just to be able to watch it.
Days Inn Camarillo - Ventura
At just before 5 pm, I walked over to Marie Callender's to get an early dinner. I am very much a creature of habit. Pretty much the only reason that I came back here was because they were participating in the AAdvantage Dining program. Not much on the menu looked good. This time I went with "The Works" Frisco with fruit. My other choices were fries, crispy tots, honey mustard almond coleslaw, or onion rings for $1.99 extra. The waitress brought out cornbread for me while I waited for the food. While it wasn't bad, it wasn't anything that would bring me back here for a 3rd visit.
Corn bread
"The Works" Frisco with fruit
After finishing my food and paying my bill, I headed back to my room. I laid out my flat runner for tomorrow's marathon. I took a shower and caught the remainder of the Dodgers vs. Rockies game where the Dodgers ended up losing a close one.
Flat runner
Dodgers lost a close one to the Rockies
Sunday 4/19
I woke up pretty early to get ready as I wanted to charge the car a bit during off peak hours to get a better rate. I checked out of my room at just after 2:45 am. I arrived at the Tesla Supercharger station on Thompson Blvd at about 3 am. As to be expected, the place was empty. I parked at the second to the last charging stall and plugged the car in for a charge. Then rolls in a Cybertruck where the driver decides to park in the last stall right next to me. Normally, people will leave the adjacent stall vacant as the stalls are arranged in pairs. If both stalls are occupied, the charging rate wouldn't be optimal. The driver had 6 other stalls from which to choose and that was the stall that was chosen. He must be that urinal guy! :D
Quick charge
Whatever the deal was with that driver, he left after a very brief charging session. When my vehicle had enough charge to get home, I unplugged and drove over to the Downtown Ventura Parking Structure to park the car. I found a nice spot on the ground floor. We were reminded that the 4 hour time limit started at 8 am, so we needed to move our vehicles by 12 pm. If you needed more time, the upper floors were for all-day parking. Unlike the Ventura Marathon, the bus pick-up location was conveniently on the same street over at Plaza Park. I got in the rather long queue for the 4 am bus. We arrived at a dark and quiet Downtown Ojai at about 4:30 am.
Bus queue
I used one of the portapotties before the crowds showed up and got super busy. After I was done, I quickly noticed that everyone was waiting inside the warm Post Office. It was nice chatting with a few of my fellow runners as we passed the time. I was one of the last ones to be using a portapotty near the start of the race. I didn't care as I wasn't starting in the 1st corral. The lines had cleared out when I was I was done. In hindsight, it was not wise for me to eat 2 pints of ice cream the night before a marathon!
Portapotties in Ojai
Post office
Bench
Starting in corral 3
Course map
I pretty much came out of the portapotty, entered the corral for the wave 3 start, hitting the ground while running. Similar to the Ventura Marathon, we ran some miles in Ojai before heading down to Ventura. The start was at Libbey Park, heading east on Ojai Ave. It was a steady climb out to Carne Rd, making a left turn, heading north. At that point, my pace was just under 9:20 min/mile. The course continued to climb with a right turn onto Grand Ave. The climb would peak just before the right turn onto McNell Rd for a very short out and back. From here, it would be mostly downhill to the finish line. I continued west on Grand Ave until veering left onto Gorham Rd. At about mile 5, I turned right onto Ojai Ave, heading west. Unlike the Ventura Marathon, where we had to run in the heavily cambered gutter of the road, I liked that we were able to use the entire road. One super annoying runner was wearing a black & white Spider-man shirt. He was wearing carbon-plated super shoes where his footsteps were so loud! I continued along Ojai Ave until making a right turn onto Maricopa Hwy 33. That was followed by a left turn onto El Roblar Dr. At about mile 9, I turned left onto Rice Rd heading south. Nearing mile 11, I turned right onto Baldwin Rd. That was followed by a left turn onto Burnham Rd. I went through the halfway point feeling quite good.
1: 9:11
2: 9:13
3: 9:17
4: 8:52
5: 8:37
6: 8:56
7: 9:17
8: 9:01
9: 9:14
10: 8:55
11: 8:59
12: 8:57
13: 8:55
1st Half: 1:58:39
Race start
Early in the race
Shortly after reaching the halfway point, I made a left turn onto Santa Ana Rd. There were a few rollers here and there, but I maintained the same effort for the next few miles. After reaching mile 16, I was starting to think that maybe, I would finish in under 4 hours. Oh how quickly things changed within the next 2 miles! I started to labor and began to slow down. I took my first walk break after reaching mile 18. I would continue to take a walk break after reaching each mile marker. Shortly after reaching mile 20, I made a right turn on Shell Rd and an immediate left turn onto the Ventura River trail. For a good portion of that last 10k, I leapfrogged with Tracy (#1714). She had a couple of her friends running alongside her, providing encouragement. Eventually, we learned each others' names and encouraged each other whenever we passed each other. Misery truly loves company. As I approached mile 24, I caught my fellow Disneyland Half Marathon legacy runner, Michael. He was definitely struggling. We commiserated a bit and grabbed a selfie before I continued on with my race. As I was coming down a nice downhill, my left hamstring cramped up just as I was reaching the aid station at mile 25. I walked through that aid station and started taking deeper breaths to try and get that left leg working again. Thankfully, I was able to work out the leg cramp and power through the remaining distance to the finish line.
14: 9:12
15: 9:24
16: 9:17
17: 9:23
18: 9:44
19: 10:37
20: 10:44
21: 10:54
22: 10:30
23: 10:04
24: 11:06
25: 11:06
26: 11:16
26.2: 2:41
2nd Half: 2:14:40
My fellow Disneyland Legacy runner!
Approaching the finish line
Finish: 4:13:19
Click here for my Garmin data.
This was my first time running in this race. Overall, this was a much better course than the Ventura Marathon. Before today, I had thought that the majority of the course was almost identical. However with this race, most of the course was on coned-off roads versus running primarily on trails closed to vehicular traffic. If I had to pick between the 2 races, I would pick this one hands down.
I was a bit disappointed in how I crumbled in the later miles. I felt somewhat happier when I checked and saw that the Gooners had lost again to City. They were still up 3pts, but with City having a game in hand and Burnley as their next opponent, it was practically a tie with their goal differential being about the same!
Shortly after crossing the finish line, I received a finisher medal, a brown paper bag of post race snacks, and 2 cans of caffeinated drinks from the volunteers. Before I headed to the bus pick-up spot for a ride back to my car, I got a print out of my results and used one of the portapotties.
Finisher medal
Post race goodies
Contents on the brown paper sack
As I got off of the bus, I noticed that the guy ahead of me was wearing a 100 marathon club shirt. I started a conversation with him. His name was Robin and his club was for Sweden. I believe he mentioned that he started the club. It would turn out that we had some mutual friends on social media. The second I reached my car, there was a car waiting for my spot. I had to hurry a bit to change out of my dirty clothes so they could take my spot.
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