01/24/2023:

o, I decided to try to kill 2 birds with one stone. Perhaps even more than 2. The boy and his GF moved to San Diego and we haven't seen them in a while. Trip to California is expensive and long and Hm... There is a marathon on a 3 day weekend. Hm... And wife is interested in going. So let's see... We get a small VaCa. We get to see them and their new place. I get to knock California off the list. I, hopefully, get to run in shorts and singlet during a cold NY winter month. I mean, so many birds here.

The downside to it all is that their is a little stress to go with it. Wife is taking Friday off, but to help with the travel, we are leaving Thursday night after she gets home from work. That is super stressful for me. Also, in order to park here on campus in San Diego, we need the licence plate of the car but we won't have it until we rent the car but it's dark at that point and the campus office that gives temporary parking permits will be already closed. Oy.

And lastly, to save money and to make our schedule work, I booked flights on Alaskan Air which apparently is known for cancellations and delays. Wonderful.

Wife said she will pack on the weekend. I made fun of her a little about it. And she ended up not packing at all. Nor did she pack during the week. She said she would leave early on Thursday but only left 8 minutes early. OY!

Daughter and I walked the dogs while she got home and packed. We Ubered to JFK and thankfully, got there without issues. Security and TSA went easily enough too and onto the gate. Everything ok until a) my phone started with bad weather alerts b) daughter mentioned lightning/thunder and terrified pooch and to complete the (stress) list c) all flights out of JFK are now grounded due to lightning at the ramp. Awesome.

Still, we only left 30 minutes late and landed 10 minutes early. Nice. Easy Uber and we are here. It's late here when we went to bed (approx 11pm) and even later for us (approx 2am). Still, done and done. We are here and that's ok.

Friday we went to pick up the car. Please never rent from "NU Car" rental. People there waiting forever. Guy before me was upset. He had unlimited miles which really meant limited miles. He wanted an off road jeep. He paid for off road jeep. They didn't have it but offered him to upgrade for $50 a day which is ridiculous. It's on them to give a free upgrade if they don't have it. He finally left all pissed. They offered for $10 a day to upgrade to me. I said no. They didn't have our cheap garbage car either so they gave us the upgrade for free anyway which was good but this whole thing took wayyyyyy too long. Oh, and we need to pay extra to return the car during off hours. Never again with these guys. Still, while we were there, I did talk to this woman who was clearly a runner. She came to CA from Utah to do a 35K race. She's a racewalker who does a 8.35 walk mile. WOW!!!

Anyway, finally got the car, picked up the GF and went to eat and from there, to the San Diego Zoo which is supposed to be awesome. Didn't have the whole day like I wanted because they are anticipating heavy rains on Saturday and some for race day Sunday, but still enjoyed the zoo.

Today, Saturday, we will do the expo and the Aquarium and then I will check into a hotel for the night before the race.

I must mention that I did enjoy the zoo, I like that kind of stuff, and I did enjoy walking around in shorts in January. ;) Still, the zoo isn't flat and perhaps it's not a good idea to walk a ton of ups and down right before a very hilly race.

The expo was small but I took the opportunity to also drive to the start/finish. I kinda wanted to get the layout of the land and to see what parking would be like. Made me feel better. From there we went to the aquarium and don't you know, the first 1.5ish miles of the drive was the race course and it was a bad uphill. Wonderful.

The aquarium was small but still nice. We had great views of the ocean and we could see people surfing. The rain came in. It wasn't too too bad. Back to the apartment and I re-packed my stuff.

Got back into the car and drove to the hotel in the (now) pouring bad rain. Bad accident on the highway. Two people collided and the front guy managed to spin and face the wrong way. Yikes.

The hotel was nice and had underground parking. Awesome. Went to sleep early. Early wake up.

It still rained a little when I woke up but allegdly it was coming to an end. Since the rain came in late on Saturday, I was very worried about race day. It was supposed to be heavy rains on Saturday early and small chance on Sunday. Now things changed. Still, gotta do my thing. Drove to race start and it was drizzling. I can do that.

When I was at the hotel in the morning, I didn't concentrate on my stomach that much even though it was not in a good place. Big mistake. I left a little later than I wanted because now stomach in a very bad place.

I was extremly happy, that I had driven there the day before. Waze took me there from the "other" direction and I was driving right past the start gate and I found myself in no-mans land and couldn't get out. Started freaking out a little before I remembered that I am a NYer. Got out, moved a cone and that was that. Parked and sought out the port-a-potty. Did my biz which was good because my stomach still wasn't A-Ok. Took my little blue pill and hoped for the best. And then went again which was very surprising in the sense that the little blue pill usually immediatly shuts the gates of hell but then again stomach was off so maybe I should have expected that. Race start is 6:15 and I'm walking around getting the jitters out.

Peed next to a tree a few times and still wasn't feeling right. It's 6:03 and I'm running toward the port-a-potties for a just for giggles. No lines and glad I did it. Lost more weight. Phew... Rather do it here and now. Walked to the start. Almost there and I hear, start is in 30 seconds. What?!? Walked faster. Got to the area and the gun goes off. Jumped over a bush. Took a minute to breathe and I was off.

Course description as best I can: Go straight and make a left on Jefferson into a really bad hill. Run around until mile 3ish. From there you do 6 miles with the water on your right. Turn around and run 6 miles back. Turn around again and run 4ish miles. Turn once more and run the 4ish and then the remaining miles of about 3 miles. It's all on the "ish" so don't hold me to the actual numbers. There were 4 cutoffs we HAD to make. The first and second weren't too much of anything I thought. The 3rd was mile 18ish in 4:10. I shouldn't have a problem here but it was very hilly and windy next to the water so who knows. Lastly there was a 6 hour cutoff.

I don't remember when I realized that JC was doing the race but I reached out and he confirmed it. I asked him if he was pacing again and he said yes. I asked him what pace time and his responce was "sexy pace". OY! Not helpful!

Lastly about the course... I was telling friends about it and it hit me that the elevation map looked like an EKG. You're either going up or you're going down. No hill was a mountain but you were definitly using different muscles.

Anyway, I almost immediatly hooked up with Kaitlyn who works as a nurse at the hospital that the GF is going to med school in. What a small world. Her sister was there too and I talked mostly to Kaitlyn as her sister had headphones on. Unfortunatly, Kaitlyn had to stop around mile 9. She had major pain in her legs. She was gonna walk more. Later I ran into her on my way back. She DNFed. Sucks. I ran and hooked up with other people. I saw a guy who jumped over an orange pole marker. I was shocked. Later, I caught up with him and a girl and I asked if he was the one who jumped. I told him that "I figured either he had a buge set of balls or a stick up his a$$" and they both laughed. We seperated. First turn around complete and I joined the 4 hour group for a little while. I eventually had to let them go. Finally got to the turn around and again into the wind.

By the way, the elevation map was on point and off point. Yes - constant up and down. Constant... No - they made it seem like only 80 feet up and 80 feet down. I disagree and I think the percent elevation climbs were higher too.

I talked to Ethan who was a Mechanical Enginering student and we ran together a little until he just couldn't. Oh well. Left him. Turned around again. YAY!

Hooked up with Daniel who was dying. Felt like he was going to throw up and legs hurting. I pulled him. I could have stuck eith the 4:30 group or faster but I pulled him until we had about 2.5 miles left. He couldn't continue. I told him to get his stuff together and we are almost there and to let me know how it went and I left.

I thought they said that the last 5K, you will be coasting down. Nahhhhh. No Coasting. Finally we hit a nice down hill and I thought here we go. Now we coast but I spied what looked like a hill once we turned to the right. Yes - another climb. I said outloud how we were supposed to coast downhill and some dude said that this is the last climb. Hm.... We finished the hill and then got to another hill. Surprise. Down that hill and into another hill. Again, I said outloud I thought we were down with the hills and someone said that's the last hill and I said, someone said that 2 hills ago. No matter. We continuued and went up another hill. Finally down Jeferson and a right turn toward the finish. A left turn and we were done. My name was pronounced correctly. That usually doesn't happen...

Back to the car and bad rain to the apartment. No chafe. Felt good. Showered and off to (first time) Japanese BBQ. IT WAS GOOD! From there we went to the cove. Saw some Seals and Sea Lions and pelicans and got Gelato. By the way, during the race, I saw pelicans flying in the wind. That was cool.

By the way, by the time I got to the apartment, I had a message from Daniel. He managed to get his legs together and managed a last "I'M OUT OF HERE" sprint to the finish.

That's it. California is crossed off the list. Next race in california will probably be a swim.