Dammit. I had decided not to register for the LA Big 5k official warmup run out at Dodger Stadium on Saturday, February 13, 2016. But as I picked up my LA Marathon packet at the convention center today, the sign up was right there. I’m pretty sure there isn’t a law about predatory racer sign ups and there’s probably not a civil code banning sign ups within 100 feet of pickup locations. But there should be! It should be like election campaigning restrictions outside voting locations.
But here it is — I’m signed up and have now paid more than I originally had rejected as too pricey an entry fee because of ridiculous online processing fees (my hatred of such things I’ll go into at length in a separate post because it fills me with the heat of a thousand suns). By paying cash today I avoided those fees… But I paid more. I cut off my nose to spite my face.
Which wouldn’t be the first screw-up of the day, nor would it be the last. But more on that later.
As I’m wont to do after exiting the subway station, I walked the entirely wrong direction to the LA Convention Center. But I eventually made it.
The expo itself was a sprawl, befitting the urban expanses that define Los Angeles. I stopped at any booth with free food, free photos, or a wheel to spin for some free knick knack. Some of the haul that wasn’t consumed or trashed as I wandered the labyrinthine cubicle stalls appear below:
And here are my free photo booth hauls:
Intriguingly, I met Karen Hoch of Marathon Tours and discussed some last minute Antarctica details. She thought we’d have good weather for the run. Fingers crossed… But mainly to keep them warm and stave off frostbite.
Having not so successfully picked up my bib and race shirt (more on that failure in a moment… the suspense I’m building isn’t worthy of the payoff… just be warned), I’m currently tapping this out on my phone as I ride the metro back from the convention center. As everywhere in the world, the area is under construction and I was met with this entirely unhelpful sign… Unhelpful as I already was halfway up the block when they told me I needed to turn around.
Further evidence though of the gentrification of downtown LA is the restaurant strip mine of Hollywood Mexican icon El Compadre. Guns n Roses back on the day used to stumble out of the area recording studio and partake of El Compadre’s famed flaming margaritas. It’s hard to imagine them doing that at this suburban scrubbed styled facsimile.
Is this a post then about a bid for authenticity? For rationality? A song for foolishness as personified by the Behind The Music mucky muck that plagued and continues to plague GnR paralleled with my own foolishness at blowing another $50 on a race entry fee? All of the above? None of it? I don’t know.
But the three things I do know are:
1. the Metro conductor’s Peanuts adult voice wah-wahs over the subway PA system incomprehensibly. I aimed not to miss my stop by squinting through the dirty subway car windows and spying the metro stop placards. I found the right one and got off at the right one… but sadly still walked the wrong way trying to get up to the surface.
2. Having returned home, I opened my running shirts. This is the big reveal of what else proved my foolishness. I should’ve checked the shirts when they handed them to me but alas they gave me the wrong size. Despite being handed to me under the big placard that proclaimed the stall was handing out “MEN’S MEDIUM” shirts, the marathon shirt is sadly a MEN’S LARGE and perhaps should have been labeled “MEN’S CIRCUS TENT.” Sadly, I lack the strength and fortitude to brave the expo a second time and try and get it exchanged; there’s a chance I could do it tomorrow after the 5K but that’s just about when the Olympic Trials are going to be run RIGHT OUTSIDE THE EXPO. If a fool and his money have already been parted for the 5K, and the best way to describe going back to the expo is a fool’s errand, then one has to wonder who is more foolish? The fool or the fool who follows him? Perhaps it’s time to cut my losses.
And finally 3. This weekend now holds a 5k on Saturday and then a Marathon on Sunday. Nobody walks in LA, but I sure do a lot of running here.