OC Marathon 2017

5/5 Friday
On my way home, I swung by the expo at the OC Fair & Event Center hoping to do a quick packet pick-up. It opened at 4 pm and I was there about a quarter after 4. When I got to the Santa Ana Pavilion, there was a very long line that snaked back a forth a few times. They were controlling the influx of the people into the expo. It certainly helped to keep the place from being overcrowded and the volunteers from being overwhelmed. We had to fill out and sign a waiver in order to pick up our bibs. After getting my bib, I got my shirt. It looked okay, but the quality was really cheap. It was good seeing my friend, Dexter, who was there as a volunteer. After that I went to go visit the vendor booths. I remembered first to buy a parking permit for $8. It would be $10 on race morning. There wasn't much to see or purchase so I left after saying hi to my friend, Alberto, who was passing out info cards at the Malibu half marathon booth.

Super long line getting into packet pick-up

Parking at the finish for $8

5/6 Saturday
I would be running this race as a WE ROCK charity runner. If you want to know more about WE ROCK (We Run Orange County’s Kids) and what the non-profit charity is all about, go here. Unfortunately I was unable to secure a shirt, so it would be the standard Marathon Maniacs shirt for race day!

Flat runner

5/7 Sunday
As I was getting ready to go to the race, I heard the sound of light rain. I seriously thought about taking a DNS and not running this race. One last check of the weather forecast showed that the chance of rain would be about 20%. Anyways I got to the race at about 3:30 am. The race instructions had us take the 55 South exiting at Fair Dr. Then the road signs instructed us to turn right at Mesa Dr. Once parked, I got on one of the buses headed to the starting area. It was a bit chilly and windy, so I was glad that I had worn my arm sleeves. From the drop off spot at Fashion Island, I headed straight for the Marriott. I found the restroom with the most number of stalls to take care of my morning bowel movement. After taking care of business I met up with an old church friend. We caught up a bit before I left to go meet up with my fellow Marathon Maniacs for our customary pre-race photo.

Marathon Maniacs

Photobomb!

Start line

No pain, no beer!

The race was dry until we started running. Then it started to sprinkle. Then the sprinkle turned into rain. Then the rain got progressively harder during the next couple of miles where it was a downpour. I would hear later from my friends that it hailed while they were waiting to run the half marathon. Instead of waiting in the corral, everyone went to seek shelter! For the first 10k, I ran pretty well under control. Then by mile 8 as the course went around the Back Bay, I felt the fade setting in. The pace dropped, but I kept plodding along. What really was bothering me was the tendinitis in my left ankle. I felt it during last weekend's run and it flared up earlier this time. Between miles 10 and 11, we ran up a steady incline up Irvine Ave from Santiago Dr. I started noticing that there were many snails all over the road. Most of them were on the right side of the road. I tried my best to not step on them. As I was jogging along, I heard the sound of whistles coming from behind me. They were course marshals on their bicycles warning us that the elite half marathon runners were quickly approaching. We were instructed to give them the left side of the road. I also heard a basketball being dribbled. I knew that that had to be Marathon Mitch. I pulled over to take a picture of him which came out rather blurry since the lens had gotten wet from the rain. He certainly has been running much better lately.

Marathon Mitch

The second half of the race was very slow going. I had anticipated it being difficult, but I still had a hard time dealing with it. I had to walk a good majority of it, because I wanted to make sure that I didn't really mess up my ankle with the Tinker Bell races and Brooklyn Half Marathon coming up.

It's an alien, but it looked like death was looming over me at Area 21!

During the last few miles, my friend caught up to me to take his usual sneak attack photo. His photo captured just what kind of a rough day I was having. As Kevin Spacey's character in Horrible Bosses had said, "you can't win a marathon without putting some band-aids on your nipples!" :) Out of the 186 marathons that I've run, this was the first time that I got bloody nipples from chafing. Originally he was going to run it in with me, but he went on ahead to try and finish under 5 hrs.

"You can't win a marathon without putting some band-aids on your nipples!"

During the final mile or so, a guy with a gimpy stride came up to me and we leapfrogged each other. We ended up encouraging each other to push just for a little farther. However my left ankle was really bothering me, so I was taking a lot of walk breaks. Every bit of me just wanted to walk it in. Once I made it onto the fairgrounds, I convinced myself to run it in.

Finish: 5:15:16
Click here for my Garmin data.

After I crossed the finish line, I slowly made my way over to the volunteers that were handing out the finisher medals. I didn't notice it until I got home, but I liked that the medal had a cool design on the back with a nice description of The OC! I waited a bit for my fellow runner that was struggling with me. I wanted to congratulate and thank him for talking to me and motivating me to move forward. Afterwards I picked up some drinks and post race snacks before limping over to the Santa Ana Pavilion to pick up my Double Dog Dare medal. After my little fiasco at Walt Disney World, I wasn't about to forget about an extra challenge medal. Right before going inside, I bumped into a couple of my faster friends. We shared our race stories for a bit and I gave them my beer ticket before I parted ways with them.

Finisher medal

Back of medal

Post race snacks

Double Dog Dare

For this race, I carried two handhelds both filled with Tailwind. For the most part, it worked well. I didn't have to take salt, gels, or blocks. Still there is no magical replacement for being out of shape. I'm still only in shape for about 10 miles. So it doesn't help to put in high octane fuel when you're driving on flat tires. :)

I made it back to the car and started packing up my stuff. There was a bit of a wind gust and it blew one of my plastic bags away. That was not fun chasing down the bag with my gimpy legs especially since it went underneath a nearby car. After that, I changed into the clean and dry race shirt before heading home.

Later that evening my family and I went out for dinner to celebrate my dad's birthday. Since sushi is my dad's favorite food, we went to our favorite local sushi restaurant, Ninja Sushi. This was the perfect recovery meal for me since it was mostly protein.

Birthday dinner for dad

Star Wars the Dark Side Challenge 2017

4/20 Thursday
After work, I got a ride from my coworker over to the train station. After taking public transportation for a while, it was quite clear that trains were very unreliable. They are usually late until you, yourself are running late, then they'll be sure to leave right on time! I have a story about that that I'll share with you later in this recap. I've become increasingly disappointed with Amtrak, so I took the Metrolink train into Union Station. From there I caught the LAX Flyaway bus over to LAX.

Metrolink Irvine to Union Station: $10
LAX Flyaway: $9.75

My red eye flight with JetBlue was scheduled to leave at about midnight so I had plenty of time to pass at the terminal. There was quite a bit of construction going on in terminal 3. It looked like they'll be putting in a Shake Shack which will be a great addition to any terminal. I didn't want to spend too much money on dinner, so I bought a pre-made sandwich from Angel City Brewery. I didn't realize that they had a bar here. It would've been nice back when I was still drinking. The sandwich tasted pretty good, but the tomatoes made the bread really soggy.

Quick dinner

After finishing the sandwich, I walked around the terminal to check out the rest of the construction progress. I picked up some snacks and water before finding a spot for the long wait. The flight was delayed a bit and eventually I ran into a couple of my friends that were also headed out to Orlando for the Star Wars races.

Snacks and water

4/21 Friday
As soon as we landed and got off of the plane, I started heading for the Disney Magical Express bus. I made a quick pit stop at a restroom before heading down to the first floor of side B. The escalator down was blocked off, so I had to use the elevator. Once I reached the welcome center, they scanned my magic band and directed me to one of the lanes. I actually had to hurry as the motorcoach leaving for Caribbean Beach was about to head out. It made a stop at Art of Animation and Pop Century before arriving at the Caribbean Beach resort.

Custom House

Originally I was planning to head to the expo expecting my room to not be ready. However I received a text with my room information, so I set out to find my building. The layout of the resort was somewhat hard to figure out as there were so many trees. At first I was at the Custom House bus stop which was the wrong place to wait. I had to cross over to the nearby bus stop at Barbados. That bus stop was very crowded and I had just missed the internal resort bus, so I decided to walk it. I had to use Google Maps, but eventually I found the trail around the lake and followed that over to Trinidad South, the southernmost point of the resort. It was a pretty long walk, but at least it was a scenic walk.

Warning signs

Caribbean Cay

My room was in building 38 of Trinidad South. It was one of the pirate-themed rooms. The room decor was awesome, good enough to be a part of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride! I especially liked the bed frame and barrel shaped outer casing for the mini fridge. These rooms would be perfect for any kid! Yo ho yo ho, a pirate's life for me!

Trinidad South

Building 38

Yo ho yo ho... a pirate's life for me!

I took a quick shower and relaxed a bit before heading back out to go to the race expo. There was a nearby bus stop for Trinidad South where I waited for the expo bus which would take me over to ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex. This would also be the bus stop where I would catch the morning bus for the races.

The expo was pretty standard for the Walt Disney World races. First I went into the HP Field House to collect my race bib and shirts before heading over to the J Center (formerly known as Jostens Center) for the expo. I checked out the official merchandise and thankfully didn't find a thing that I'd considered a must purchase item. On the way out I checked out the cantina which was a nice addition that would replace the area that had been used for guest speakers. The prices were pretty steep. Even so I was tempted to buy a pineapple soft serve which came in a Chewbacca Stein.

Wretched hive of scum and villainy!

25 dollars?! We can almost buy our own ship for that! :)

Tie Fighter popcorn container

I hopped on the bus which took me back to Caribbean Beach. I had eaten yet, so I decided to go look for lunch. I thought the bus would stop at the Old Port Royale stop, but it didn't. So I got off at Trinidad North and walked over. None of the food looked too appealing, but I ended up getting the Caribbean salad with chicken at the Montego's Deli. It was an underwhelming salad, but it was good enough to tide me over to my next meal.

Caribbean salad with chicken

Back at my room, I went through the expo haul which consisted of nothing but the essentials. There wasn't even the usual Clif Bar in the bag! The shirts were pretty decent this year. Although the designs were a bit small, I liked them better than last year's designs.

10k shirt

Half marathon shirt

Dark Side Challenge shirt

I watched a bunch of TV and ended up dozing off a bit. I was super tired, but it was getting kind of late, so I had to muster up the will to go out and find dinner. First I laid out my flat runner for tomorrow's race. The weather would be super humid, but I went with a cotton standard black and white storm trooper t-shirt. I can never race well in high humidity, so I might as well look good! :)

10k flat runner

On the way over to the Old Port Royale food court, I took the underpass instead of crossing the street. They had put up a figure pole at each end. It was for pedestrian traffic only, so they could be there possibly to stop carts and bicycles.

For dinner, the only menu that interested me was at the Bridgetown Broiler. They had the standard baked chicken, carved turkey, and grilled salmon that you can find at Disney food courts. However I wanted to try something new, so I had their shrimp curry over ice. I didn't expect much, but it was not bad!

Shrimp curry

4/22 Saturday
Getting up for these east coast races are tough! I forced myself to get up at the sound of the first alarm instead of snoozing and waiting for the backup alarms. I didn't want to run the risk of missing my race! I got ready and made my way over to the bus stop. The bus was pretty full by the time it had picked us up. Some of the folks at the next stop had to stand.

This was the first Walt Disney World race where we were dropped off at the Magic Kingdom parking lot. Everything was well organized. For security check at this race, they didn't consider a race belt a bag, so I had to get into the no-bag line. The lines were pretty long for the photo ops with Star Wars characters, so I bypassed that until after the race. I did try to get in on the Stormtrooper crew photo, but just like last year, I was a tad late. I then headed for the corrals. I used one of the portapotties next to the corrals before going in. I did a quick warm-up before heading to the front to look for familiar faces.

10k start line

I must have been itching to go as I ran the first mile faster than I had wanted. It was a minute faster than I had expected for the perceived effort. I took that as a good sign that my legs were getting much better, but I slowed it down a bit for the next mile. I started developing the headache that I normally get when running in high humidity during mile 3. I had to pull over for a walk break. I would go on to take 8 more walk breaks. I was pouring water over my head every chance that I could.

10k finish line

Finish: 53:53
Click here for my Garmin data.

After collecting my awesome finisher medal and getting my post race drinks and snacks, I made my way over to the photo op lines for the Star Wars characters. I took a picture with Vader, Kylo Ren, BB-8, and Captain Phasma. I skipped the line for Boba Fett and Jabba the Hutt. I didn't realize that they had a board with the approximate waiting times until I was leaving.

10k medal

Post race goodies

Vader!

Does that look like the calcinator to you?!

It's the droid we're looking for!

Captain Phasma

Waiting times

After getting back to my room, I got cleaned up and ate my post race goodies while contemplating about going to one of the parks. Since I was feeling pretty exhausted, I ended up taking another nap instead. I woke up to go eat lunch at Disney Springs. As soon as I got off of the bus, I noticed that there were many runDisney banners up with fun facts. I first checked out Jock Lindsey's Hangar Bar. I saw a pretty interesting video on the story behind the place. Unfortunately it was more for drinking as they had a very limited appetizer section on their menu.

Fun fact banners at Disney Springs

Jock Lindsey's Hangar Bar

I then walked over to my favorite restaurant, Raglan Road Irish Pub. Since I was by myself, I went straight into the bar area and looked for a seat. All of the good seats were taken, but I was able to find a seat. However the view of the live dancing and entertainment was blocked from where I was sitting. I ordered the usual Full Irish Breakfast and an iced tea. The bartender also brought out some Irish Soda Bread for me to snack on while I waited for my food.

Full Irish breakfast

It was then back to my room to relax and watch a bunch of NBA playoff games for several hours. I laid out my flat runner for tomorrow's race before heading back out for dinner. Just as I shut my room door, I remembered that I had forgotten to wear my magic band! I had my wallet with me so I could still pay for dinner. I figured that I would just swing by the custom house after dinner to get another room key.

Half marathon flat runner

For dinner I ate at the Bridgetown Broiler over at the Old Port Royale again. I got their ropa vieja. It was some pretty good stuff! It literally translates to old clothes in Spanish, but it's stewed beef with vegetables. It was loaded with flavor and went well over rice.

Ropa vieja

Over at the custom house, I spoke with one of the cast members at the online check-in counter. After she saw my ID, she gave me another magic band. Apparently she had trouble programming it for my room. After she was done, I made the walk back to my room in the counterclockwise direction just to mix things up.

Aruba, Jamaica... oooh, I wanna take ya!

The magic band wouldn't open my room, so I headed back towards the custom house one more time. This time I went to the bus stop and waited for the internal resort bus. The lady that helped me was extremely apologetic as she saw me walking up to the counter. I believe she got her manager to help out. Once the magic band was properly programmed, she got one of the drivers to drive me over to my building in case it still didn't work. Thankfully it worked this time.

4/23 Sunday
The buses started running 30 minutes earlier than they did yesterday, so I woke up and got ready 30 minutes sooner. Once again I skipped the photo ops with the characters. They had the corral area closed until about an hour before the race start. I waited there with a bunch of other eager runners.

When I got into the corral, I made my way up to the front. I sat down and waited for a while before some of my friends showed up. One of them was running in costume which was a very cool mashup of Russell from Up and Darth Maul!

Darth Russell! @blingwhore

Half marathon start line

I made sure to not run that first mile too fast. However it was still too fast as I felt pretty fatigued during the next mile. The headache from the high humidity was starting earlier than yesterday. Even though it turned out to be a lousy race on my part, I liked the new course. It had many of the portions of the Walt Disney World Marathon course in January. The course hit Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, and Epcot. The left ankle got pretty sore in the final miles, so it was a slow jog to the finish line. It was good to hear a shout out from Rudy, one of my favorite race announcers!

Half marathon finish line

Finish: 2:13:20
Click here for my Garmin data.

The humidity really did a number on me. After picking up my half marathon medal, I made my way through the finisher chute picking up the usual bottle of water and Powerade. I then made my way to the challenge tent where they confirmed my identity before awarding me any challenge medals. I assumed that the volunteers would give me whatever medals I earned. I was given the Kessel Run medal, but not the Dark Side Challenge medal. I was so out of it that I continued to walk through and picked up a banana and snack box. I then got my bag from gear check and made my way over to take a picture with Boba Fett. A runner from Germany was asking me questions about the Kessel Run. She wanted to know where in the movie was it mentioned. She was going to go home and re-watch it. It was during our conversation where all of a sudden I realized that I didn't get my Dark Side Challenge medal. I congratulated her on her races, hopped out of the line, and headed back in an attempt to go get my medal. I went as far as I could before a volunteer stopped me. I pleaded my case. She tried to send me away to the information tent, but I further pleaded my case so she escalated the matter to the volunteer leader where it finally made it to a runDisney employee. I probably looked honest and believable to her, so she grabbed a medal and hung the medal around my neck. I thanked her for taking my word for it and that the humidity really turned my head to mush. She was very understanding.

Half marathon medal

Dark Side Challenge medal

Kessel Run medal

After getting all of my medals, I decided to just skip the photos with the characters and go back to my hotel room. Once again I ate some of the snacks and drank the Powerade. I was feeling pretty lethargic, but I had to hop in the shower and get ready to check out of my room. After I packed up, I caught the internal resort bus over to the custom house to wait for the Magical Express motorcoach for my ride to the airport.

Once I arrived at the airport, I made my way up to the ticket counter floor. I was feeling pretty hungry, so I decided to grab a quick lunch at McDonald's before going through security. I got the usual Big Mac, french fries, and 10 piece chicken McNuggets. I used the app for the fries to be free. The girl that took my order didn't bother to give me any sauce for the McNuggets. It's a good thing that I'm fine with eating them plain.

McDonald's

I almost got in line for the TSA before I realize that I still needed to print out my boarding pass. I've gotten way too accustomed to having my pass on my phone. Also it took me a while to realize that Frontier Airlines was on side A.

It ended up not necessary to hurry with my meal. The flight was eventually delayed for about 3 hrs as the maintenance crew deemed our original plane unsafe, so we had to wait for another plane to come in from another flight. When it came time to board the plane, it was clear that the natives were getting restless. Some of the pre-boarders were getting into a loud verbal argument with the gate attendant.

I quickly found out why Frontier Airlines flights were so cheap even having to pay for carry-on baggage. Everything was so small. The seats were small, as was the space underneath the seat in front of you for your personal item. The tray table was the size of an envelope, definitely not big enough for a laptop. The seats also did not recline, so it was next to impossible to fall asleep. The girl sitting in the middle seat must have a bladder the size of a pea. Every so often, she would tap me on my shoulder to let her out. So even if I managed to start dozing off, I would be awoken by her.

Once I landed in LAX and had gotten off of the plane, I made a quick stop at the restroom before heading out. I went outside and waited at the median to catch the LAX Flyaway bus over to Union Station to catch an Amtrak train. It took forever for the bus to show up as it had encountered heavy traffic enroute. We then ran into heavy traffic as we entered into Downtown LA. The bus driver did the best he could, weaving in and out of traffic as there was most likely a car accident, but we didn't get to the Patsaouras Transit Plaza until about 10:05 pm. The last Amtrak train for the Pacific Surfliner route was scheduled to leave at 10:10 pm. Some of the people on the bus were also trying to catch the same Amtrak train. They had luggage in the cargo hold and was shouting profanities at the driver to open up the doors. The driver wasn't supposed to do that. They actually have another guy at the plaza where it was his job to take care of the luggage. I didn't stick around to see what happened. I got my ticket scanned and headed for the train tunnels. It was just leaving as I got there. A few riders ahead of me were yelling at the train to wait, but it just kept going... right on time. Oh well, on to plan B. I took the Metro Gold Line all the way out to Azusa and was going to grab a Lyft ride home from there. Along the way, I was able to get somebody to come out and pick me up at the station. Public transportation is not 100% reliable since it does not run around the clock.

LAX Flyaway: $9.75
Metro Gold Line: $1.75