kicking off the new year

the first saturday of the year was a long and busy day for me.  it started, of course, with this:

a few hours later, after dropping the bean off with lilcee to spend some quality time with her BFF mini cee, i was at the biltmore hotel in downtown l.a. for this.

i'm pretty excited to have been chosen to represent superhero events as a race ambassador again.  my running kind of fell to the wayside during the second half of 2014, and i'm hoping this will be the kick in the ass to get it going again.  and one of the things i get to do as part of team superhero is to help out at the booths they set up at various races throughout the year.

the funny thing is, when i volunteered for a shift at the new year's race expo, i hadn't really been prepared to run the race.  i've participated in the 5K since it started - dragging the teen in 2013 and the hub in 2014, which makes me a legacy runner.  so i decided that since i was going to be there anyway, i might as well run.  the expo was scheduled to end at 4, with the race starting at 6.  i hunted around for a coupon code to see if i could get a good deal on the entry fee, and when i searched in my email i found this:

haha!  and look at the date on that email - i must've gotten a screaming deal on it.  yay for me!

the expo was fun as always.  runners are really interesting to interact with, especially when they're getting ready to race in a couple of hours.  we registered a lot of people for the upcoming hollywood half weekend, luring them in with a $20 off special.  and i got to walk around a little to check out the other vendors and their wares.

the booth just across from us was doing brisk business, selling rubber straps that turn any water bottle into an easy-grip container.  you slip it on the bottle, stick your hand through, and then you can carry it easily during a run or even turn it into a weight to use during a workout.  it was pretty nifty.  and with a little help from my friend google, i found out that the guy manning the booth was rufus dorsey, a character actor who's been in various shows and movies over the last decade or so.

when the expo was over, runners were congregating everywhere in the hotel, warming up and hanging out and just killing time till it was game time.

after i headed to the car to put on the rest of my running gear, i walked the few blocks to the start line.

my friend mark was doing his thing as the official race announcer.  he was working hard, getting people pumped up, keeping them entertained, making them laugh and dance.

i was assigned to corral 4, which isn't too bad considering there were 10 or 11 of them.

my friend interview was there too, and it was nice to have him to chat with as we waited for the gun to go off.

when it was finally time to start, i lost him as we weaved through the crowd to reach our pace.  the course was different from last year's, which i liked.  the first mile marker was inside this tunnel.

and there was a row of protestors near city hall, blocked from the course by a row of police officers.

pretty soon i was at the finish line.  not my best time, but i suppose it wasn't too bad after months of not training.

and although i wanted to take an armload of these choco pies, i was good and took only one.

at this table, i snagged my special legacy medal.

and at this booth, i took a goofy ass picture.

on my way back to the car, i passed something i've always wanted to take the girls to:  angels flight, an old downtown l.a. fixture that was known as the shortest railway in the world.  it's less than 300 feet, but takes you up a pretty steep hill that sucks to walk.

and on my way to pick up the bean, i was stopped for a good chunk of time as a plethora of rose parade floats crossed the street.  i'm guessing they were on their way back to the warehouses where they were assembled, to be taken apart and stored.

only in california, eh?

choco pies all around

with the teen under weather and out of commission for the new year's 5K we'd signed up for months ago, the hub stepped in to make it his first race of 2014.  we left the girls happily giggling and watching a disney movie at home and headed out to the metro station in pasadena.  

legacy runner.  holla!

we arrived with just enough time to park, buy train fare, and hotfoot it across the bridge to get on the train that had just arrived.  we'd just taken a seat and gotten settled when the driver (conductor?  i don't know what to call the dude who runs the train) came through with his personal bag in hand and telling everyone that the train wasn't running anymore due to some sort of accident at union station.  that was where we were supposed to switch to another train that would stop right near the start line of the run.

well, crap.  i was annoyed that we'd just spent the cash for the tickets and would end up having to navigate street closures to find parking that would likely cost an arm and a freaking leg.  the hub didn't seem too upset, though, and because we'd allowed a good chunk of time for the train ride, we ended up in downtown l.a. a good hour before the start time.  parking wasn't as difficult to find as i'd anticipated, and we found ourselves standing near our corral with plenty of time to kill.

this speaker was really annoying.  it was turned up to full volume, but was clearly blown out.  there was a staffer who kept fiddling with it and trying to fix it, and it alternated between crazy loud static and silence.  i wanted to tell him to just ditch that shit and save our ears, but he seemed determined to get it up and going.

(he never did, by the way)

along with our bibs and t-shirts, we'd been given fun blinky bracelets.  the hub just gave me a look when i offered him the blue one, so i slapped my pink one on and was a happy camper.

the pre-race selfie.

the hub's bib placed him in corral 6.  mine was in 3, which would have been kinda cool, but i didn't want to start the race solo when we were there together.  and when it was time to start, the gap between start times for the corrals wasn't too bad anyway.  we were at the start line in no time.

from here on out, my pictures are horribly blurry.  i'd like to say that it was because i was just moving that fast, but we all know the truth.

we stayed together for the first half of the run.

the course seemed slightly different this year, with a bit of an uphill near the halfway mark.  after that, it was all on a downhill, which was fabulous.  i somehow managed to get through the whole 5K without stopping for a single walk break.  yay for me!

i didn't get anywhere near a PR this time, but i was still happy to average at about a 10:30 mile.

the hub crossed the finish not long after i did.

i couldn't help but laugh at this table of post-race snacks.

there was quite a line-up of food trucks, too.

i offered my free beer ticket to the hub, but he wasn't feeling it.

because i couldn't get a decent shot while running, this was the view approaching the finish.

since we were all sweaty and grungy, we grabbed some food at the krave kobe burger grill not too far from home.  my steak sandwich was really tasty.

and the first thing we saw when we got back home was the awesome living room fort the girls had worked on.

everyone slept well that night.  heh.

looking for love in all the wrong places

i'm pretty excited to share that i was selected to join team superhero again for 2014. it's been a blast getting to know a diverse group of runners, supporting each other through various runs and representing superhero events all over the country. i'll get to rock my singlet and hopefully recruit lots of people to join us at the hollywood half and the awesome 80s runs. yay!

as part of my duties, i get to help out at the local race expos where superhero events has a booth. this last weekend was the first race of the year - the second annual new year's 5K and half marathon. bib pickup and fitness expo were held at the fabulous, historic biltmore hotel in downtown l.a.

i arrived for the first shift about 20 minutes early. the hotel lobby was still decorated for christmas. 

as i made my way through the hotel, i came across a rather large display of official merchandise for some upcoming game at the rose bowl. 

i've not really spent a whole lot of time here, but i think this hotel is beautiful.

i had a good idea of where i needed to go, since i'd come here last year to pick up bibs for me and the teen. 

i was the first one on our team to arrive, so i checked in and picked up my exhibitor's badge. 

it was a fairly small expo, but there was a handful of fun vendors present with their wares. 

the new year's race and the hollywood half teamed up this year to offer the "best of l.a." challenge. if you ran both half marathons, you'd also take home this gigantic medal:

with my hand in that picture for reference, you can see just how large and in charge that thing is. it's super heavy and i'm thinking you could eat breakfast off of it. most people who walked by and caught a glimpse of it did a double take and made a face sort of like this:

along with my fellow teammates, we sold one registration after another during our shift. 

we got our fair share of oddball characters, too. one guy came by, introduced himself to each of us with a handshake, and then scurried away. and then there was this dude, who tried to joke around by saying that he was still learning to walk. we just kind of gave him the bullshit courtesy laugh, which only seemed to give him the impression that we wanted to continue chatting with him. he gave us big smiles as he proceeded to tell us that he's a writer, is looking for a "beautiful rabbit," and threw in "oh, and i'm divorced."

you don't say.

when more legit people stopped at our booth to see the medal and get more information, he finally got the message and backed off. but not without whipping this out for us to peruse:

probably it isn't very nice of me to put him on blast like this, but hey! maybe a beautiful rabbit, AKA his soulmate, will just so happen to read this. i mean, i'm just offering a public service here. and it's not like he didn't actually have that published in some newspaper somewhere. 

go get him, someone. he's waiting for you.