Vegas Baby!

Yeah, I hate my title too.

I had a wonderful time out West! But I'll start with my least favorite part. The half marathon in Vegas.

The race started at 6:15am in front of the Mandalay Bay Hotel. I stayed at the Wynn. When I looked at the map provided by the marathon, my hotel looked like it was roughly 2 - 2.5 miles from the start. "Cool, nice warm up, I thought." I left my hotel at 5:30am to head to the race. I had a little trouble getting out of the hotel and onto the strip. They make it so confusing so you'll just stay and gamble at the casino! Anyway, I ran into a line of people waiting to take a shuttle to the race. I thought about taking the shuttle, but I was too antsy to stand there in the freezing cold (it was 30* at the start) and I thought "It's only two miles." So I started running down the strip towards the Mandalay Bay. The street had been closed to traffic and me and one other person were the only crazy people running in the street to the start. It was actually pretty cool. While I hate getting out of bed early in the morning, there is nothing like being outside when people and places are waking up.

But of course this is Vegas which is open 24 hours a day. I wasn't surprised to see people stumbling out of casinos at 5:45am, I was surprised at HOW MANY people were stumbling out of casinos at 5:45am. I passed one group of five or six drunk people who asked me "Has the marathon started already?" so I replied "Yeah, I'm winning!" They cheered for me. After I'd run about half a mile, I still couldn't see the Mandalay Bay. I asked a cop blocking a side street if the Mandalay Bay was in the direction I was heading and he said "Yeah, a long way that way." I laughed thinking "Not if you run marathons."

Turns out the cop had the last laugh. By the time I got to my corral, I'd run at least 3.5 miles. I had 2 minutes to spare and had to stand in line to get into my corral. I saw a guy climbing over the fence to get in to the same corral. I recognized him as the guy standing in the back of the line to get onto the shuttle at the hotel. I felt that I'd made the right decision to run to the start. I would have gone mad standing in line and cutting it that close. As it was I felt pretty good and really ready to run a good race.

The race started and being in corral 4, I was 3 minutes off the line. I felt really strong and ready to run. I ran the first mile at an 8:42 pace. It was really cold. I wore shorts, an Under Armor shirt with another dry fit shirt over that. A hat and gloves. I should have worn tights.

The first part of the race heads from the Mandalay Bay towards the airport then you turn 360* and head back up the strip. When I made that turn, I was running directly into the wind and the sun was barely up. Brr! The course, however, was completely flat and for that I was grateful. At mile 2 I was still running sub-9 miles. At this point we were running past where we'd started and I could see a significant number of runners still waiting to start. There were 27,000 total runners in 30 corrals starting both races. I wondered why they'd hurried to get into their corrals.

I ran sub-9 miles until roughly mile 5 or 6. Into mile 7, which was really mile 10.5 for me, my foot started to hurt and I was tired. I began slowing down at that point. Luckily, there was no surprise hill at the end, like Chicago! I managed to finish at 2:09. I was happy with that, all things considered. It was really the 3.5 mile walk back that killed me!

There were a few things I liked about this course in addition to the flat course. The hotels broadcasted race coverage on the screens on their signs along the strip. It was pretty neat to see where the leaders were on the course. There were plenty of water stops along the course. The crowd support was adequate given the time the race started and the temperature. The start and the finish line seemed to be well organized. There were lots of great goodies in the race packet and at the finish line.

Things I didn't like include the lack of bands. It was a Rock 'n' Roll series race and I remember 3 bands on the course for the half. The organizers claim there were 35, but I don't think they know what they're talking about. The packet pickup parking was disorganized and we spent 15 minutes looking for a spot in the parking deck. We finally gave up and parked across the street. Some direction would have been nice. Additionally, finding the packet pickup area was difficult. We had to walk probably a mile through the Mandalay Bay to find the small room we needed. The place was packed with people and there were no signs directing you. The expo was small and pretty crappy.

There were a number of interesting sights on the course, as you can imagine. There was a small temporary wedding chapel set up at mile 3 or 4 and 50 couples were married during the race in a 3 minute wedding ceremony. I counted 7 Elvi (the plural form of 'Elvis'), 3 Amigos running together, 3 Santa Clauses, 1 Superman (there's always a superman!), one cheesehead, and one Captain America. The Captain America was a first!

Overall it wasn't bad, but I don't plan to do this race again. I'm glad I did it, but Vegas just isn't me. Too cheesy, too sad, really.