Phoenix half-marathon with a quick detour to San Deigo, CA

It's time to blog about my latest adventure to Phoenix, AZ with a side tour of San Diego. This would be my sixth visit to Phoenix and my fifth time running in the PF Chang half-marathon. I left Ottawa on Friday morning with my checked luggage and Macbook. The Christmas day travel nightmare prevented me from having any carry on luggage. It was a quick flight to Newark, NJ where I spent much day before my late afternoon flight over to Phoenix. Newark airport has wall plug in various locations throughout the termnal so one you can surf the web (work) and charge up your laptop at the same time. JB and Ashley met me at the airport and our first stop was PF Chang for our traditional pre-race dinner. When I incorporate the two hour time change I headed to bed early on Saturday morning.
I started off my weekend with a filling breakfast at the Hampton Inn. Our first stop was the race expo held in the new Phoenix Convention Center. The race expo was twice as large as last year and I was able to get my race packet and t-shirt quickly. Once again I was starting in the first race corral which brought a smile to my face. We headed to over to REI as I wanted to check out a travel mug that Jason had got for Christmas. Over the weekend I used it multiple times and it kept my tea hot for three to four hours. We next headed over to JB's place and I was able to pick some tangelosfrom a tree in their backyard. They are really juicy. JB, Ashley and I headed over to Qboda for burritos. We spent most of the afternoon walking the various trails at the Phoenix/Desert Botanical garden. I had my pre-race pasta dinner at an Italian restaurant that serves enormous meat balls with their spaghetti.
On Sunday morning, I was up at 5:00 am and headed to the hotel lobby to fill up my travel mug with hot tea. This year I decided to eat my breakfast later in the morning rather than at the hotel. At 6:00 am I caught the hotel shuttle for a 40 minute ride to the start. Your arrive in the dark and there is a buzz to the air with 25,000 people getting psyched for their marathon or half-marathon. I decided to take refuge near the Arizona Senate building to eat my breakfast until the marathoners had started their race. With a little over 40 minutes to the start, I joined that long line of people waiting to use a port-a-potty. It look me about 15 minutes before I could relieve myself. It was then a quick dash over to the UPS trucks to drop off my gear bag. I did an easy warmup as I ran towards the first corral and stretched will waiting for the race to start. The official starter was Senator John McCain and it was great to see him. At 8:30 am on the dot, the gun went off and we started our 13.1 mile journey south towards Tempe, AZ. I decided to run the race at a constant pace and to treat the race as long Sunday run as I knew that setting a course PR was out of the question. As I drew closer and closer to Tempe the crowds began to build. With a mile to go I picked up the pace and sprinted to the finish. It felt good to get my finisher's medal. I picked some food and headed out to meet JB. We attempted to head back to the hotel but got bogged down with road closures so I walked about half-a-mile which gave my legs a chance to recover. Within 45 minutes of finishing the race I had showered and checked out of the hotel which was a record for me. The goal was to see if we could catch a San Diego/Pacific Ocean sunset. It was an ambitious goal. As we headed west the Saguaro cacti and desert transformed into large boulder mountains. Along the way we were gaining elevation and peaked at 4,141 feet. On the other side of the mountain, we found miles and miles of sand dunes which eventually transformed in lush fields of lettuce and cabbages. Once we acrossed the state line the traffic started to buildup and become more congested. We arrived at the San Diego beach within 30 minutes of sunset. It was an awesome sight watching the colors develop and very gradually fade into darkness.
On Monday morning, I awoke to find my legs a little stiff but not sore from the race. This was a good thing. I looked at the heart rate data gathered during the race and it showed I had a hard race but not a stressing one. After breakfast, we checked out of the hotel and headed down to the marina. It was a dark and overcast day, not what I would have expected for California. I was expecting warm conditions, perpetual sun, palm tree along the road and miles of beautiful people. I had to settle for the palm trees. As we walked along the marina there were fishing boats with their lobster and crab pots drying out and most boat were birthed for the day. There was a warning that severe weather was coming. One of our goals of the day was to take a boat cruise of the north and south harbor. As we were waiting in line to boat, JB couldn't stop singing the theme song from "Gilligan's Island." We would be out for a two hour tour not a fateful three hour tour. As the boat was backing out of the harbor I could hear a grinding sound. It sounded like gears grinding against each other. It was under a strong wind and light rain that we started our journey. JB opted to have a Bloody Mary to calm his nerves as the boat started to rock in the waves. As the captain shift to full throttle to combat the waves the boat started to shudder and then stopped. One of the engines was dead. We very slowly crept back to shore with one engine and got a refund. Once on shore it started to rain and the clouds looked dark. JB decided I should take a picture of him writing "I love Ash" in the sand. We headed over to the beach and as we stepped of of the car I could feel the rain soaking through my jacket. I grabbed a couple of dog poo bag to protect my camera and phone from the rain. I offered JB one but he declined. I was happy to be on the road taking pictures while we scribed in the sand. He had nearly finished writing in the said when I head a strong expletive like "Oh, F***." His new Android phone had fallen in the ocean was starting to float away. Once back at the car he took out the battery and laid the disassembled phone on a towel. We were sort of screwed as we were Google maps on the Android phone to navigate in San Diego. I pulled to my GPS which only has base map for California and got using going in a easterly direction. Somehow we reached a dead end which lead onto a military base. A very attractive private gave us directions to the freeway. By this time we were experiencing torrential rain and the roads became minature lakes. This was the first time I had seen a storm surge. Most of the road don't have storm drains. We headed east as quickly as we could with thoughts that we could outrun the storm. As we climbed through the mountains the rain abated but was replaced by thick fog. As we descended down the other side of the mountains we found that we were driving in good conditions, a clear sky and a dry road. The drive back to Phoenix from this point onwards was uneventful. As we were driving towards JB's place we checked the phone and it started to work again. I credit this to good design on Google's part. On Tuesday morning I headed home to Ottawa.