A Running Girl's Blog

“What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” can’t apply to my experience in the Las Vegas Rock n’ Roll Marathon and Half Marathon.  This Vegas extravaganza was just too fun not to share.  I won’t bore you with the details of my ups and downs with the roulette wheel but here’s my race report for Vegas.

Mark and I arrived in Vegas late Friday night to very chilly temps.  I had touched based with weather.com and expected it to be cold – but damn, it was cold!  For some reason Vegas cold just felt colder than Colorado cold – although some of the lesser dressed ladies roaming the strip seemed to be immune .  We checked in at the New York, New York and turned in since it was after midnight already.  Saturday we spent a good deal of time at the Expo.  It was a big Expo with lots of goodies – my favorite.  A quick shout out to the folks at the Mix 1 booth for hooking me and Mark up with a full serving of the blueberry vanilla drink … being vegetarian in Vegas is a challenge and the unexpected, familiar Mix 1 for breakfast was awesome.

We were fortunate enough to meet up with some friends from LA who also ran the race and we all had a nice vegan lunch at a nearby Whole Foods.  Afterwards, Mark and I relaxed for a bit, got our gear ready for the next day and later we went out to dinner at a fabulous Italian restaurant called Ferraros.  I can’t thank Julie enough for setting this up – I enjoyed the best homemade pasta and a lovely glass of wine.  It was a perfect pre-race night.

We arranged for room service coffee for 4:30 a.m. the next morning…the coffee arrived right as we were waking up – ahhh.  We had purchased some more Mix 1 shakes, bagels and coconut water from Whole Foods and we fueled up and headed out the door for the short walk to the start area at Mandalay Bay.  It was quite a sight, hundreds of runners heading out into the dark, cold.  Over 27,000 runners from all 50 states and 39 countries participated in this race! The strip was shut down in both directions.  And of course Vegas style - tigers, showgirls, fireworks … the atmosphere was unlike any other race.  Mark and I checked our gear, hit the port penthouses (that’s what they are called in Vegas) and squeezed into our start area, corral 5 with minutes to spare for the 6:15 a.m. start time.  As the sun rose over the strip, thousands of runners began their journey 13.1 or 26.2 miles.. it was truly awesome.

I ran with Mark for the first half of the race.  For some reason, even though we started in an earlier corral, we still had to navigate a lot of runners with a slower pace.  Usually this breaks up after a few miles but in Vegas we were still trying to pass and dodge people around mile 7 and that was frustrating.  Around this time, I lost Mark and fell a bit behind.  My muscles were screaming at this point too – quads and hip flexors.  I guess from running on pavement (rather than the trail).  

Running down the strip was such a unique, fun experience. I had forgotten my Garmin so I was trying to figure out my pace based on clock time at each mile marker… Mark says the Garmin didn’t work so well anyway because of the buildings along the course.  I warmed up and ditched a layer and my gloves after mile 7– but I regretted it big time coming back up the strip – miles 7, 8, 9 are a freezing blur to me.  At one point, I thought I was approaching mile mark 9 only to be thrilled when I saw that I was approaching mile 10 instead – benefit of forgetting my watch.  I got a boost from that and felt great that last 3.1 miles.  I approached the finish just as the clock time was hitting 2 hours.  So at that point I knew I had come in under 2 hours and probably better than my Houston time at the very least.  I found Mark who’d finished in 1:49:02 according to his Garmin and he told me he’d only finished a few minutes ago.  I started to have some hope for a PR – but really, I had no clue.  I texted my sister who looked up our finish times online.  She texts back: Mark: 1:49:01 and a +4 minute typo for my time… I was disappointed until she called me to ask me what my problem was since I had finished in 1:51:56!!   PR!   It was a great feeling.  We tried valiantly to enjoy our free beer and hang out but we were too cold – it was still in the 30s when we finished and with our teeth chattering, we headed back to hotel for hot showers.  I am so glad we did Vegas! 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 at 4:05 pm and is filed under Races. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.