I can only guess as to the reason, but it would appear that they were no longer giving out discount codes for parking at the LAX Economy Parking structure. I used to get regular emails with discount codes. I was able to book a more affordable parking over at the Joe's Airport Parking via SpotHero. The cost was about half but I had to park up on the rooftop level.
I left the house at about 9 pm for the drive out to LAX. I arrived at the parking structure at right about 10 pm. Per the instructions, I scanned the QR code and drove up to the rooftop level where I found plenty of spaces. I found a nice spot near the EV chargers and the elevator. Since there wasn't a shuttle there, I decided not to wait for one and just walked over as I was doing pretty good on time.
Joe's Parking Garage
LAX
Even though my flight was a domestic flight, it was assigned a gate at the Tom Bradley International Terminal aka Terminal B. As they were still working on never-ending renovations over at terminal 4, I definitely preferred flying out of here instead!
Saturday 5/2
The first leg of my flight took off after midnight out to DFW for a long layover of a few hours. I tend to pick flights with long layovers as I really hate it when I miss my connection and have to rebook. During the flight I ended up catching parts of John Wick: Chapter 4. It was my favorite out of the series.
The plane landed a bit early and we were let off at a gate in Terminal A. For once I didn't need to rush to my next gate. I took the Skylink over to Terminal D. After locating my gate, I used one of the nearby restrooms. It was one of the fancier ones that I had ever used at an American airport.
Gate D4
After taking care of that, I walked over to the Starbucks to get some breakfast. On the mobile app, I ordered my usual tall flat white. I also added a double-smoked bacon, cheddar & egg sandwich to complete the weekly challenge and earn 20 bonus stars.
Tall flat white
Double-smoked bacon, cheddar & egg sandwich
After I was done with my food and was ready to head back to my gate, I came across a guy that for sure was Gunther. He's one of the bigger talents right now in WWE. Still they had to travel with regular people. I think I was the only one that recognized him. However, he was headed in the other direction seemly in a hurry, so I didn't follow him to get a selfie.
During the flight over to Cincinnati, I was able to catch the Brentford v. West Ham match. It was good to see that the Bees went on to win 3 nil which would give my Spurs a better chance of avoiding relegation!
Bottom of the table
West Ham
Brentford v. West Ham
The plane landed at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky CVG Airport at about 11:30 am. This was my first time through this airport. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was a very modern and spacious airport. As I made my way over to the car rental area, it was cool to see that they had decorated the airport for the upcoming Flying Pig Marathon!
Flying Pig Marathon airport decorations
My car was reserved with Budget Car Rental. As a Fastbreak member, I was able to skip the regular car rental counter and go straight to the parking garage for my car. I was a bit early for my reservation, but the guy told me that they could start the clock now if I wanted to leave now. Cool. I had some places that told me to come back at the reserved time.
Car rental
Another Toyota Camry Hybrid
Once I got the car all configured to my settings, I started heading out for the race expo over at the First Financial Center, formerly Duke Energy Convention Center. Per the emails leading up to the race, I booked a parking spot in the 605 Plum St Garage via SpotHero for $5 plus a 99 cent service fee. I had entered the license plate info for my rental car into the app, so once I arrived, the gate automatically opened for me.
605 Plum St Garage
The race expo was pretty big, but it was very well streamlined. After picking up my race bib, I then headed over to pick up my race shirt, premium towel, and a poster. Next, I moved onto the vendor booths. I stopped by the Chiquita area, to get a free banana, photo, and a couple of sturdy tote bags. Once I was done with that I moved on to the Kroger line for some free samples. At the end of that line, I got to take a photo with the Charmin bear. Before heading out, I stopped at the pink Toyota SUV to looks for my name. I wasn't sure how they were organizing the names, but it was not in alphabetical order! Fortunately, I was able to spot my name rather quickly.
Race expo over at First Financial Center
Bib pick-up
Race packet
Shirt pick-up
Race shirt
Back of race shirt
Premium towel
Poster
Chiquita
Charmin bear
Participants name on pink car
Found my name
Expo haul
605 Plum St Garage
After getting back to my car, I started my drive out to the Applebee's located just South of where I was staying in Fort Mitchell. Along the way, I pulled into a Kroger supermarket to buy the usual salty snacks and a gallon of water as my regular routine for a marathon. I ended up buying 2 bags of Boulder Canyon tortilla chips for $6.99/bag and a gallon of Kroger Spring water for $1.49. I could've saved $3 per bag, but I needed to sign up for a free membership. I was too tired and lazy to do that on the spot, but I'll have to remember to set one up for the future.
Boulder Canyon chips x2 and gallon of water
Stitch
With that out of the way, it was time to get some food. So I ended up eating not-so-good in the neighborhood. I must say that the money spent on their commercials were well spent as they got me to come check them out. The bigger reason was because they were part of the AAdvantage Dining program when I checked before my flight out here. However, unfortunately, it would turn out that they had left the program within those few days. Since I was dining solo, I sat at the bar. I was here for a late lunch, so the place was understandably pretty empty. While checking out their menu, I had my eye on their new O-M-Cheese Burger. However, I ultimately ordered their 8 oz top sirloin steak as it was only a few dollars more. The steak came with broccoli and mashed potatoes. I had coffee with my meal. Honestly, the food looked pretty pathetic when it was brought out as I would expect a restaurant to do much better than someone like me with limited culinary skills. At least the service was good.
Eating not-so-good in the neighborhood
Menu
Coffee
8 oz top sirloin
Back on 3/11, I was notified that the Days Inn out in Fort Wright was shutting down operations. So I went online and hastily booked a replacement hotel at another Days Inn out in Eastern Cincinnati. On 4/28, as I was starting to get ready for my trip, I realized that it wasn't a very good hotel. It was also pretty far from the race and everywhere that I needed to go. Most importantly I saw that I had booked a smoking room! Yuck! Thankfully, I found a Super 8 in Fort Mitchell that still had vacancy for me to make the swap!
I rolled up to the hotel at just before 3 pm to check into my room. Google Maps wanted me to reach the motel via Royal Dr off of Buttermilk Pike, but the road was closed due to construction. I had to continue north and turn on Grandview Dr to reach the motel from the other side. I was checked into room #109. It was your standard no-frills Super 8 motel room. I was glad to find everything to be clean and in good working condition. I got settled into my room and went through my race packet and expo haul.
Super 8 Fort Mitchell
For dinner, I decided to just get something quick from the nearby McDonald's. I placed my order on the mobile app before driving over to pick up my food. I cashed in 6000 reward points for a free Quarter Pounder with Cheese and added a McDouble. These days, eating at McDonald's was not cheap as deals had become very scarce. Both burgers tasted as they should, but boy, that McDouble was pretty sad looking. It looked to have been slapped together in extreme haste!
McDonald's
McDouble
QPC
After finishing my 2 burgers, I laid out my flat runner for tomorrow's marathon and started winding down for the evening. As I started approaching my 300th marathon, I had been feeling much more inclined to wearing my 100 Marathon Club singlet for my marathons. I took a shower before calling it a night.
Flat runner
Sunday 5/3
I wasn't sure how chaotic it would be to park at the Central Riverfront Garage, so I got ready and left my room at about 4:15 am. It was only about a 10 minute drive. I was one of the first few cars to arrive at the Race St entrance. There was a lady collecting a flat fee of $5 for parking. I hung out in my car for a bit as the nearby Starbucks over at Walnut St and 6th St wasn't scheduled to open until 5 am. I timed my walk over to get there right when they opened. It would seem that a bunch of others had the same idea. I got my usual grande flat white. I enjoyed it with my usual pre-race CLIF Bar and used their restroom before heading back to my car.
Starbucks
Grande flat white to go with my CLIF bar
Finally it came time to head to the start. I used a portapotty before heading into my corral. It was quite congested getting to my corral where I positioned myself next to the 4 hour pacers. I noticed that most of the runners in the corral were running the half marathon. The race was scheduled to start at 6:30 am. Each corral or pig pen was released alphabetically. Corral C was released right at 6:40 am.
Portapotties
Starting corral/pen C
The weather was perfect with a little bit of chill in the air. Coming into this race, I knew that the course would be full of rollers with some decent climbs thrown in starting at about 10k into the race. I stuck to running the race in 8 mile sections. The first 8 miles felt nice and easy. I ran by effort, mostly around the 4 hour pace group. For the next 8 miles, I focused on running comfortably. I reached the halfway point in 2:00:25. After reaching mile 16, I had reached Mariemont and started heading west back towards Cincinnati. It was pretty fun to see the bacon station, but I did not partake. I definitely did not feel fresh by this point, but I kept plugging along. Eventually, the left hamstring cramped up just as I reached the mile 23 marker. I took the time to use the portapotty there to empty the bladder. I was very thankful that one of the aid stations was passing out shots of pickle juice. I took 2. That definitely got my legs good enough to make it through the last couple of miles and reach the finish line feeling pretty good.
1: 9:05
2: 8:46
3: 9:00
4: 8:50
5: 8:45
6: 8:59
7: 9:50
8 :9:23
9: 9:15
10: 8:55
11: 8:56
12: 9:35
13: 8:59
14: 9:14
15: 9:28
16: 9:34
17: 10:23
18: 10:30
19: 11:13
20: 11:06
21: 11:47
22: 10:53
23: 11:57
24: 12:34
25: 11:22
26: 10:48
26.2: 4:02
Finish: 4:23:08
Click here for my Garmin data.
After crossing the finish line, I received a rather beautiful 2 sided finisher medal. I also received a bottle of water and some post race goodies. Then before exiting the finisher area, I got a slice of La Rosa's cheese pizza. It was quite congested, so I had to wait until I got to a table with a vacant spot before I could enjoy my pizza. I spotted David as he was walking by. We chatted a bit before we went our separate ways. I used a portapotty along the way back to my car.
Finished
Finisher medal
Close up of medal
Finisher medal side 2
Close up of medal side 2
Post race goodies
La Rosa's cheese pizza
David
Paycor Stadium
Central Riverfront Garage
I got back to my room at just before noon. I saw that housekeeping had just fixed up my room. I was pretty pooped, so after I got cleaned up, I never went back out until it was time to check out the next morning. As for dinner, I just ate whatever I had in my room.
Monday 5/4
I woke up pretty early to get things started. I took a shower and got everything packed up before I put in some work so that I wasn't eating too much into my leave time. I checked out of my room at 10:30 am, just ahead of the 11 am checkout time. Since housekeeping had fixed up my room, I left them a few bucks.
Doing some work
I loaded the car, dropped off the keys, and drove out to the Cracker Barrel in Florence to get an early lunch. Per the usual, after I was seated, I started things off with some black coffee. I ordered my usual country boy breakfast with steak tips, eggs sunny side up, biscuits & gravy with hash brown casserole and grits as my sides.
Menu
Coffee
Country Boy Breakfast
My scheduled time to return the rental car was 3:30 pm. Although, I had allotted time to visit the Cincinnati Union Terminal aka The Hall of Justice, I was feeling pretty wiped out from yesterday's marathon. The bigger reason was that I wanted to save some money. So I drove over to the BP gas station to fill up the gas tank before heading over to the airport.
BP
My original flight out was a 5:27 pm flight out to PHX, but it got delayed to the point where I would miss my connection at 8:34 pm. There were no later flights from PHX to LAX. They auto-rebooked me to another flight on the mobile app. It was for a flight out to CLT. I didn't like the idea of flying east to head west, so I changed it to a connection over at ORD which would turn out to be a really bad decision!
Mr Redlegs
Approaching Chicago O'Hare
The plane landed at O'Hare at just after 5 pm. I ended up getting some food at the Starbucks near gate L2 before I hunkered down to wait for my connection out to PHX. On the mobile app, I ordered a tall flat white and a ham & Swiss on baguette to work on earning some bonus stars. As to be expected for an airport location, the prices were ridiculously higher.
Starbucks
Tall flat white
A weather cell went through the area for about 45 mins which delayed everything! My flight out to PHX was delayed by an hour, so I changed it to the next flight after it which was still showing an on-time departure. However the longer I waited, the more every flight was being delayed.
Holy weather delays!
When I saw that I was going miss the connection in PHX, I got in line to talk to the gate agent to see if I could get rebooked on a different route to LAX. However, the guy did not understand English well enough when I told him my situation. Instead of being remotely helpful, he started to get upset at me. All he ended up doing was print out my boarding passes which I already had on my phone. Thanks bro. It's no wonder travelers hate dealing with people like you.
The line for customer service was about 200 people deep. I didn't bother joining that line as they had employees telling people to instead call their customer service number for rebooking. Eventually, my flight was cancelled and auto-rebooked for a direct flight out to LAX at 6 am tomorrow morning. Had I stayed on the original flight, I would've been on the last flight that made it out for that evening!
Customer service
Tuesday 5/5
Eventually I wandered over to the food court near the H/K gates where I saw that there was a long line for Dunkin'. I skipped that line and placed my order on their mobile app. My order was for a bacon, egg & cheese bagel sandwich, 6 pc hash browns, and OG coffee. I must say that while they do have good coffee, their food was terrible! I would learn later on that those people had food vouchers. Good for them. I wasn't going to wait in lines just for "free" food.
Bacon, egg & cheese bagel sandwich, 6 pc hash browns, and OG coffee
I started walking up and down the terminal to see what my options were to ride out the evening. I was definitely not the only one that was stranded at this airport! Once I found a suitable spot, instead of trying to sleep, I opted to catch up on episodes of Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord.
First time seeing this!
Boarding time couldn't come soon enough. One good thing about all of this was that it was a direct flight without that stop in PHX. All's well that ends well. On the flight over to LAX, I tried to get as much rest as possible. The plane landed at LAX at about 8:30 am.
Finally going home
DTLA
After getting off of the plane, I made my way out to the curb to catch a shuttle ride back to my car. Thankfully, a Joe's Parking shuttle arrived to drop off someone just as I got there. As I took the elevator up to the roof and was about to open the trunk, I finally realized that I did not have my duffel bag! I took the elevator back down to see if the shuttle was still here. Thankfully, the driver noticed and waited by the garage exit to make sure I got it. Because I had overstayed my reserved timeframe, I had to pay an additional $28.55 to exit the parking garage.
Before heading down to work, I thought that I'd better make a stop at the nearby Starbucks to get some coffee as I was running on fumes. On the mobile app, I placed an order for my usual grande blonde vanilla latte.
Grande blonde vanilla latte
