Patty Morrison's Epic Catalina Island Marathon Adventure...

RECAP: Planes, Buses and Boats: The Catalina Island Marathon Adventure
Hello! I'm FINALLY back! OK, get ready for the quick 'down and dirty' cliff notes on my weekend adventure to Catalina Island!

Thursday morning: Life of leisure, get to airport with no problem. Greet Carla, Yipee! We're free and easy and ready to go!

No lines to check our baggage, woo hoo, life is good........oopps, computer just went down. Not a problem, we're free, easy and happy to go-with-the-flow. Besides, we're there in plenty of time and not in danger of missing our flight. All is good!

On the plane - giving high-fives, ready for our adventure....oopps, mechanical difficulties, please wait for a few minutes while they're fixed, no need for alarm....again, we're free, easy and still not razzled! All is good!!.....

Fast forward to 3 hours and several magazines later...sitting in the terminal, waiting....not dampening our spirits, though....thanks to Carla, we have plenty of time between our flight and our boat departure to Catalina....now we won't have to wander around in LA trying to find something to do....all is good!

Touch down in LA, sunny weather, yippeee!!! There's our shuttle we booked in advance, ready and set to take us to the boat terminal in San Pedro!! The shuttle rounds the airport looking for more fares for the second time and now I'm starting to worry..."excuse me, but we do have a boat to catch?" No problem, lady, we're on our way now....

Fast foward to San Pedro terminal....ghost town...boat left 15 minutes ago....No, there's not another boat until the morning. OK, we're still free and easy and thank goodness we decided to pad an extra day in our travels before the race!!! We'll catch a cab and head for a hotel for the night - all is kind of good still...

Hotel is nice...a little pricey, but at least we have somewhere to plant our travel-weary butts. Oh, are we sure the boat tomorrow is leaving out of San Pedro? There's is a terminal in Long Beach and maybe we should check? Yes, it's leaving out of Long Beach (we silently celebrate since this terminal is much closer). Maybe we could walk there? No, but there are free buses within the area and we can just catch one across the street. Did I mention how many flippin' boat terminals there are within a 15 minute radius??? Yep, we got on the wrong bus....but quickly caught our mistake (did I mention were shlupping all of our luggage thru all of this?). After pissing off everyone on the bus we just squeezed onto, by sqeezing ba ck off after only 5 blocks, we are still laughing...really...this is pretty comical. We shlupp back up the hill and stand and the correct stop and wait (now we are, of course, in danger of missing our boat once again....) Alas, here comes the bus, nice people on board, we are going to make it!!! Lovely seating inside the upper cabin of the Catalina Flyer (did I mention I forgot about the fact that I get seasick when I'm inside any water floating vessel?) Met a wonderfully funny and sweet runner next to us, but I couldn't continue my conversation as I had to make a quick exit to the lower deck and freeze my ass off while watching the horizon on our 1 hour boat ride (gale force winds that day).

There's Catalina Island!!!! OK, I really need to calm my stomach. (Note: I never did loose my cookies, although that ride was the talk of the weekend on Catalina as many people did get sick). Check in at our hotel....find some grub...nice and sunny...beautiful island. We are so very thankful and happy to just finally be there!!

Next morning, 4am...alarm goes off, we have to catch a boat at 5am that will take us to the other side of the island for the start of the race. Again, gale force winds, this time I'm smart and sit outside. I have no problems with the rocking boat, but Carla and I listen while several others loose their breakfast....what a way to start the race!!!

Miles 1 thru 3, straight uphilll. This is a beautiful, trail marathon. Extremely hilly, also extremely stunning! Not a problem, we are enjoying the scenery and having fun. Runners start 1/2 hour after us walkers and blow by us about mile 3.5. I am noticing that Carla is having some troubles and it is increasingly hard for me to keep her going. We really think she has asthma of some sort and she feels never able to fully get a good breath. We laugh, cry and climb our way up the mountain until mile 13...Carla is done and has decided to catch a ride to the other side at this rest stop. We hug, I apologize for wanting to continue on....then I start to run....(did I mention I have not been running a lot and this was suppose to be a nice walk in park?). It took us 4.5 hours to make it to mile 13. We really haven't seen anyone in a whi le and I'm now shifted into competition mode....gotta catch up, gotta catch up...gotta finish in under 7...bla bla bla....what the ***** does that to my brain??? There they are....people - I quickly gain momentum and run my heart out. There they are....more HILLS...oh my gosh, this is like hiking Mount Peak...seriously!! I walk these very steep parts....(did I mention the gale force winds are now back and my eyes are so full of sand and dirt that it's hard to see...) Still making good time...feeling really good - hey, there's Carla!! Nice people have brought her up the mountian to mile 18...yipeee, go, run, see you at the finish!! More hills, more sand, last 3 miles are down hill and I finish in just under 7 hours. What a course...I'm so doing this again next year....hee hee

Wow, we find out the wind is really whippin' and they've cancelled boats leaving the island for the afternoon....are you thinking what I'm thinking????.....

Up at 6am - gotta catch our boat which leaves at 8am. Boats cancelled, nothing coming or going...check back at 10am. Seriously, now we truly are laughing so hard we're crying. Plus, we're still thankful, because now we can go sit and have breakfast!

Yey - boats are running again and we leave at 11:45am. By this time though, we have already missed our flight to Seattle which left at 11:26. Not a problem, I know there are tons more flights leaving LA to SEA today. We check in and tell our sorry story, the lady is nice and tells us to try standby and we head off to security....yep, we've been flagged and get the total security search. I wanted to laugh so hard...but thought that would probably get me arrested!!! The last flight leaves at 9:15pm.....that's the one we catch, after sitting at LAX, trying to fly out on oversold flights the entire afternoon.

Arrive home at 1:45am. Carla and I figure we could have traveled to Italy and back by now. There were lots of wonderful people we met on the way, we really did have lots of fun!!! Here's to next year!