Long Beach Marathon 2014

10/11 Saturday
On Saturday morning, I drove out to Long Beach to pick up my race packet at the Long Beach Convention Center. I parked at the parking structure on E 3rd Street between Pine Ave and Long Beach Blvd. I always park here when I go to the expo because the first 2 hours are free. The layout of the expo was the same as it was in the past couple of years.

As I was wandering through the expo after picking up my bib and shirt, I realized that this was my 3rd consecutive year of running this marathon which meant that I now belong to the Beach Bum Club. I had also run it in 2005, 2008, and 2009. They gave me a choice of either a blue or red cotton shirt and a Beach Bum pin. I went with the red one since I have so many blue shirts. The more years you've run it consecutively the more that you're rewarded. According to their website: after 6 consecutive years you will receive a Beach Bum sweatshirt and after 10 consecutive years, your name will be enshrined on a bench on the Long Beach Run of Fame Bench in Lighthouse Park. I guess I will have to run this race 7 more years in a row! :)

Beach Bum Club

Extra shirt and pin

After leaving the expo, I drove north a bit to meet up with a good buddy of mine for lunch at Jongewaard's Bake N Broil with him and his son. It was a pretty long wait to be seated, but it gave us a good chance to get caught up and talk about tomorrow's race. When we finally got seated, I ordered their Bake n Broil burger with Jack cheese and a lemonade.

Bake n Broil burger with Jack cheese

I laid out out my race gear before going to bed. I realized that I'm out of GU, so I had to scrounge through my pile of race goodies to assemble enough nutrition for tomorrow's race.

Race gear

10/12 Sunday
I had prepaid to park in the same parking structure for $8. It's several blocks away, but it has worked out fine in the past few years, so I exited the 710 freeway at Anaheim Street and drove down to the parking structure. I never bother exiting at 6th or Broadway because it's usually a pain in the butt. After getting my stuff ready, I walked down to wait at the Hyatt Regency. I bumped into a couple of my running friends there.

As the start of the race approached, I headed towards to the starting line and met up with my buddy and his friend. We talked shop a little bit before we hopped into the corrals. My friend had been dealing with some leg issues so he traded in his full marathon bib for a half marathon at the expo yesterday.

Starting line

I positioned myself somewhere near the front of the corral. Later the 3:15 pace group leader would position himself near me. I could run that pace for a 10k, but I was definitely not going to stay with him. For the first couple of miles it was pretty congested so I was able to stick around his group. Once the course opened up a bit, I would fall back gradually. It was good to see a bunch of my friends throughout the course. One was passing out donut holes just as we got off of the dreaded cement bike path. I like that the course goes through Cal State Long Beach, but it also has a nice climb that usually causes my legs to cramp up. This year was the same. I kept eating and drinking and eventually they would subside once we hit the big downhill leaving the campus. I would take a minute or two walk breaks as I hit each mile marker, but I started having leg cramping issues again from mile 21 through 24 where I was finally passed by a guy dressed up as Toucan Sam carrying a box of Froot Loops. The good thing was that after mile 24, there was no more climbs. Everything was flat to the finish line. The only annoying thing is that you'll have to dodge the half marathoners since the two courses merged at mile 24. Fortunately the cramps held off enough for me to pick up the pace a bit and get the race wrapped up.

Photo from Dexter Emoto

1-2: 15:22 (7:41)
3: 8:02
4: 8:17
5: 8:22
6: 8:33
7: 8:33
8: 8:48
9: 8:52
10: 9:36
11: 9:28
12: 9:13
13: 9:19
14: 10:05
15: 10:40
16: 10:37
17: 12:46
18: 12:04
19: 11:40
20: 11:40
21: 12:05
22: 13:20
23: 12:45
24: 12:45
25: 11:30
26.2: 12:42
Finish: 4:27:03

After getting my medal, some drinks, and a bag of goodies, I made my way through the finisher chute. Getting out was a pain in the butt. Family and friends of runners were crowding the exit point so it made it quite difficult for runners to get out. I skipped the usual post race beer tent. I kind of wanted to rush home to relax. I have been feeling quite fatigued by my recent trip to Portugal.

I liked the design of the medal for the 30th anniversary of the race. Nice and simple. It turned out that this was my fastest time for the Long Beach Marathon. I'm just glad that I was able to bounce back a bit from last weekend's slow run where I was 30 minutes slower and continue to improve. I'm hoping to run much better next year for Long Beach as I attempt to back off... again... on the excessive racing.

Rock n Roll Lisbon Marathon 2014

Thursday 10/2
I took a morning flight out of LAX with US Airways with a layover in Philadelphia for a few hours. Before catching my evening connecting flight to Libson, I stopped by a Chickie’s and Pete’s to eat dinner. I ordered a Victory Hop Devil and their cheese steak. That was pretty good cheese steak! Wasn't expecting it to be decent at an airport.

For the Love of Beer!

Cheese steak and Victory Hop Devil

Food was served on the overseas flight. I tried my best to get as much sleep as I could, but those airplane seats are so dang uncomfortable!

Friday 10/3
Once I made it through immigration, I located the Metro rail station. Before heading to the station, I changed a bunch of my cash for Euros. I learned from my previous trips to Europe that I could not depend on using my US credit card which is usually not accepted because it does not have a security chip.

I tried to buy a Metro 1 day pass from a vending machine, but all it did was return my money in coins. So I took the coins and got in line to buy a pass from an attendant. The cost of the Viva Viagem card was .50 Euros and the 1 day pass was 6.00 Euros. With that taken care of, I took the Vermelha line and got off at the Oriente Station. I then walked over to the expo located at the Parque das Nações per the final instructions provided to us. The entrance to the expo was in the back near the water. The weather was nice and it was a pretty beautiful day for a walk although it did get a bit warm since I was carrying all of my stuff.

Expo

At the expo, they had a separate line for foreign runners to pick up their race packet. It wasn't a huge expo, but it was a decent size. I asked about the free train ride to the starting area in Cascais. It turned out that they can only add the train fare to a Viva Viagem card if it has no other fare loaded on it. I had my 1 day pass on it, so I paid another .50 Euros to get a new card with the train fare loaded on it.

After the expo, I walked to the Vasco da Gama Center to eat lunch at the food court. I ate at a pasta place called Capri where it was cooked to order with the ingredients (fusilli, bacon palitos, camarão, tomate cherrie, rucula, molho bolognese) of your choice. It tasted really good, but I was also tired and hungry. After gobbling down my food, it was time to head over to my hotel.

Capri

I hopped back on the Metro at the Oriente station and took it over to Saldanha, where I switched over to the Amarela line and got off at Campo Pequeno. From there it was a short walk over to the hotel, VIP Grand Lisboa Hotel and Spa. All of the people working at the front desk spoke several different languages. They were fine speaking English with me. I got there a bit early and my room wasn't ready, so I waited a bit in the lobby charging my phone. When it was time to check in, the only rooms ready were on smoking floors, so they told me to wait about 30 minutes for a non-smoking floor. So back to more waiting. As promised the room was ready and I finally was able to go up to my room to take a nap. I was so tired from the flight.

Pretty nice corridor

Very European bathroom

City view

The bed was clean and comfortable. The room was also pretty sound proof. I practically couldn't hear any of my neighbors for my entire trip. Their complimentary wifi was adequate to supplement my weak international cellphone signal. The interesting part of the room was the bathroom. If you're from the US, you might not be used to a couple of things with their bathroom:

1. They have a separate bidet if you wish to clean your bottom that way. 
2. The shower/tub does not have a shower curtain. 
3. The tub reminded me of an aquarium. 
4. You can raise the shower shade so that your spouse or partner can watch you shower from the room. How very European! :)

After taking a nap, I decided that I should make use of my day pass and take a scouting trip to the train station at Cais do Sodré. There was a convenience store called Pingo Doce there so I picked up a few items (cashews, pistachios, bananas, and water) to take back to my room. I had a bout of diarrhea. I'm guessing it was from the airplane food. So I bought a few basic foods to keep from further upsetting my GI system.

After getting back to my hotel room, I went through the expo haul. I then relaxed while watching some movies on TV while eating some snacks.

Eating safe snacks

Expo haul

Saturday 10/4
I didn't leave my room until it was time for lunch. I walked down to the Praça Duque Saldanha and ate at the food court at the bottom floor of the Dolce Vita Monumental shopping mall. At first I thought about eating a burger, but it looked like somewhat of a gamble. So I ended up eating at Assador where I got some roasted chicken, potatoes, and couscous with water. Everything was seasoned very well. It was nice and tasty. More importantly it was a pretty safe meal for my marathon tomorrow especially with my GI system not feeling too well.

Eating safe lunch

When I got back to my room, I relaxed some more while watching the TV. I got my race gear ready. I totally passed out watching TV, so I was kind of late going out to find dinner. I first stopped at the corner store, Supermercado Rocha to buy some more water. I ended up picking up dinner at the nearby McDonald's. Might as well since that's what I normally eat before a marathon. I got a Happy Meal with fish sticks, small fries, and water. I also ordered a Royal Deluxe Burger to go with it.

Race gear

The usual pre-race dinner from McDonald's

Sunday 10/5
At about 5 am I took the 736 bus down to Cais do Sodré to catch the train to Cascais. Let me tell you that drunk people are stupid and obnoxious in any country. Apparently it was a bad idea to be walking around in running shorts and being the only Asian in town. I was getting harassed by drunk people on my way to the train platform. I just pretended that I didn't hear a thing and kept walking forward. The train ride was about 40 minutes. From the Cascais station I walked to the starting area at the Hipódromo Manuel Possolo with a guy from Spain and Italy. Español was our common language in this group and I was the only one with Google Maps on my smartphone. I ended up giving out the directions in Spanish. We were there a bit early and nobody was there, so we walked back to the train station to wait as the train station cafe was just about to open for business. As we waited at the station, more and more runners started to show up. I found it funny that they still had cigarette vending machines. The last time I saw one of these machines was in the late 80's. Smoking definitely starting going out of style in the 90's.

Cigarette vending machine

As the start of the race got closer we headed back out to the starting area. We stopped to take some nice shots of the beautiful sunrise.

Nice view before the race

The Spaniard and I got separated from our Italian friend on our way to the starting area. As soon as we got there, we got in line for the portapotties. I found it quite interesting the amount of Spanish vocabulary that I had learned way back in high school had returned to me. He was able to understand what I was trying to say. After I was done, I went over to the gear check trucks to drop off my bag. I found a place to sit down before entering the corrals.

Portapotties and gear check

Starting corral

Starting line

As it grew closer and closer to the start, the corral got packed tighter and tighter. This was my third European marathon and one thing that I like is that the runners are good at self seeding. There was pretty much no need to dodge walkers in the opening mile or two. The temperature at the start was in the low 70's, but it felt warmer to me. I felt sluggish from the very first mile. It could've been a multiple of reasons... running too much last weekend, going to too many Dodger games, traveling, diarrhea. I had sort of let myself go after the two Disneyland races for my birthday. Take your pick. At the very least, it was a very scenic point to point course from Cascais back to Lisbon. There was some rolling hills here and there. I was definitely struggling. On one stretch, a Chinese runner came up alongside me and asked if I was Chinese. I said yes, but I'm from the United States. So he switched to speaking nearly flawless English. I asked if he was from the mainland or Taiwan. He was from China and he knew that I was Taiwanese just by asking that question. So he went on about how he loves Taiwan and that one time he had cycled a loop of the entire island. I told him that his English was very good and that I was impressed. He said that he would have to thank his teacher back home. After that I wished him a great race as I was struggling to keep up with him. I just kept plugging away as fast as I can. Eventually I reached Praça do Comércio. The course ran us into town a bit away from the water where the roads were a bit hard to run on as they were mostly made of cobblestones. We also had to dodge a bunch of tourists. Then it was about another 9k up to the finish line between the Vasco da Gama Center and Parque das Nações. Even the final stretch to the finish line was tough on the ankles and feet since it was also made of cobblestones.
5k: 27:03
10k: 56:17 (29:15)
15k: 1:28:26 (32:09)
20k: 2:03:13 (34:47)
25k: 2:40:03 (36:50)
30k: 3:18:51 (38:48)
35k: 3:56:55 (38:04)
40k: 4:39:48 (42:52)
42.2k: 4:57:06

Finish

After getting my medal, I got a bunch of drinks and goodies in another drawstring bag. That's a rather nice touch making it much easier to carry all of the stuff after a race. Then I went looking for the gear bag pick up area. I had to ask some random English speaking runner that had their bag for directions. After that I just wanted to get back to my hotel room and sleep. So after I gathered up my stuff and put on my jacket, I walked over to the Oriente Metro station and rode the rail back to my hotel.

Post race goodies

After getting cleaned up, I just stayed in my room and watched a bunch of movies on TV. For dinner, I wasn't going to go back outside and search for food, so I ate at the hotel restaurant called Cenário. The food was on the pricey side, but well worth it in my opinion for the convenience. They even had a buffet option for about 20 Euros if you're very hungry. I decided to go light. I ordered a chef salad and their Bacalhau (Portuguese for codfish). The fish was very flavorful. I'm glad that my friend recommended it to me on good 'ol Facebook.

Salada do Chefe

Bacalhau aka Codfish

During my trip, I watched a bunch of movies on TV from my room. Here was what I could remember watching...
X Men Days of Future Past
Shooter with Mark Wahlberg and Danny Glover
True Lies
Ghost Rider
Deception with Ewan McGregor, Hugh Jackman, Michelle Williams
Knowing with Nicolas Cage
Flash of Genius with Greg Kinnear

Monday 10/6
I had a morning flight home, so I got ready, checked out of the hotel, and headed to the airport via the Metro. After printing out my boarding pass at the ticket counter I stopped by a soccer store to buy my friend a soccer scarf. Then I had to get my passport stamped for leaving the country and there was a super long line. It was a good thing that I got there super early. I got to the boarding area just as we were supposed to have started boarding, but there was a delay. Even so, I do not like being rushed or stressed out about catching a plane. I found a spot to sit down. I used a bunch of my Euros to buy a drink from a vending machine since I was pretty thirsty.

Thirsty

Bye bye Portugal

I landed in Philadelphia and went through immigration. I bumped into Tracy Sundlun, one of the co-founders of Elite Racing just after getting through TSA airport security. We talked a little bit about my experience with the Rock n' Roll series. I told him that the Global Tour Pass was the only reason why I traveled to Europe to run marathons. He found that interesting. I also told him that I had purchased the Tour Pass several years in a row and have been earning the Rock Legend or Rock Idol heavy medal each time. He thanked me for keeping them employed. :) He wanted to know which one of the European marathons was my favorite. I told him out of the three, it was Liverpool because they spoke English, I loved the town, I loved the weather, and the course was very green and beautiful. To pass time before my flight, I stopped by a restaurant and had a couple of Yards Pale Ales.

Layover in Philly

I was pretty hungry when I landed back home in LAX, so on my way home I stopped by a nearby In-n-Out drive-thru to pick up a late dinner. I was craving burgers pretty badly so I got two Double Doubles, one for each hand. I inhaled them before going to bed. :)

Home sweet home!

Saddleback Mountain Goat Marathon and Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure 5k 2014

Saturday 9/27 - Saddleback Mountain Goat Marathon
For some reason or another, I ended up signing up for this race after seeing some of my friends registering for it. I figured that I would take it easy and save the legs for my upcoming trip to Lisbon, Portugal. There was no way that I would jeopardize getting injured before my trip to Europe where I'll be running a marathon. Also the left Achilles had been sore in the last couple of races so I definitely wasn't going to run hard.

Getting to this race was sort of a pain in the butt. First of all, just as the race director had warned us, people drive crazy fast on the 74 Ortega Highway. On the first pass, I missed the road that I had to turn in to head to the Blue Jay Campground. I had to drive a little ways down to make an u-turn at a turn off area. Even on the second pass, it wasn't easy as there were crazy drivers riding up the rear of my car as I was slowing down to make the turn. Second, it was not fun driving to the starting area in a Mini Cooper on bumpy roads full of craters. Made me miss my raised pickup truck. Once I made it to the final road leading up to the starting area, I parked along the side of the road behind a row of cars.

I jogged up to the starting area to pick up my bib and shirt. I like that you can pick up your stuff on race day with trail races. There's no race expo to deal with the day before. I jogged back to my car to grab my gear and to get ready. Both of my ankles were still a bit sore during the jog. Another thing I like about trail races is that the field is much smaller than a road race. There's no need to get in line super early before the start of race just to use the portapotty. For this race there was only one short line for the restroom/outhouse. They even had wet wipes for you to use after you're done taking care of business.

After some last minute instructions from the race director, it was off we go. After a short section on asphalt, we were running up fire roads and some gnarly steep single track trails. While I'm a road runner and love running road races, you just cannot beat the views that you get to take in while running a trail race. Photos do no justice to just how beautiful it was on these trails!

After about 4 hours of running and getting down into Holy Jim Canyon, I had to shut it down. It wasn't entirely by choice. My calves were sore, both Achilles were tight, and I was just plain tired. The long climb up Trabuco was really tough. Even though I was taking it "easy", I was still having to deal with leg cramps. A veteran runner (Jim) was nice enough to stick with me until we finally got to the top. It was quite the hike. Once we got to the aid station, he went on ahead while I ate and drank enough before heading back out.

I actually didn't start running again until I got back on the asphalt section. The uneven fire road was just giving my ankles all sorts of trouble even though it was mostly downhill. Goes to show that in the end I'm truly a road runner. I almost caught up to Jim at the finish line. After receiving my medal, I thanked Jim for his help. A couple of my friends that finished ahead of me cracked open a few cold ones and shared a Ballast Point Even Keel with me. There's really nothing more refreshing after a tough run than a good beer.
Finish: 7:20:56

Sunday 9/28 - Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure 5k
What better way to recover from a grueling trail marathon than to run a 5k the next day. Stupid idea, I know, but hey anything for charity! Logistically, this race was somewhat hard to manage since I got there a little later than I had originally planned. Also the event was extremely popular so there were a ton of cars converging at Fashion Island. I opted to pick up my bib and shirt on race day and I had to rush just to get to the starting line on time. First I parked at the Corporate Park Dr parking lot just off of Newport Center Dr and PCH. I then walked up to the expo at the Pacific Life Insurance building. After picking up my packet, I had to hurry back to my car to change. Out of sheer coincidence I bumped into one of my coworkers. I then jogged back up to the starting line to get into the starting corral with a few minutes to spare.

Always good to see Rudy the announcer!

The race started promptly at 7:15am with my favorite race announcer sending us off. I started the race at a sub 8 min per mile pace. There were some foolhardy folks that bolted ahead of me as if it were a 100 meter dash. They definitely didn't look the type that would be running a sub 6 min mile for a 5k. A lot of them would fade drastically as we hit some significant inclines. I was pretty surprised that I was able to get my legs to move at a decent pace. During the last mile or so I came across protesters that were lined along the sidewalks with signs saying how Susan G Komen is not interested in finding a cure and is just out to make a profit. It would seem that people will protest just about anything these days. I did like that some signs were more informative; pointing out that there are natural remedies for dealing with cancer. All in all, I didn't think that this was the time or place for protests. The event was more for celebrating the survivors and honoring those that had lost their battle with breast cancer. There were no medals given out for participating in this race.
24:49 (8 min/mile pace)

Shirt and bib