This was a trip a couple years in the making. Lindsey and I talked about running the Las Vegas Marathon in 2007, and we started training for it–even creating a blogging website for training (that still ranks #1 in search engines). We trained all the way to running 16 miles on the weekends before Lindsey had trouble with her IT band. But, frankly we didn’t have the budget for the trip anyway, so we stopped training and was able to divert our fees to the 2008 run. We were destined to go the next year, but with the big move to Washington, DC over the summer, that threw out any and all travel plans, since we put dollars into the move and adjusting to life on the East Coast.
As August 2009 approached and the anniversary of the DC move had passed, we had no excuses. I started my training in the beginning of August, and stayed disciplined for many weeks. I blogged after each run, which kept my mind focused. The Rock n Roll Virginia Beach Half-Marathon was Labor Day Weekend, so I only had 5 weeks to prepare for it–a tight schedule. I ran that without any problems, and was so impressed with the people who put on the Rock n Roll events, that I was really pumped up about Las Vegas.
Then around Week 12, I was sick for 5 days, followed by a couple weeks of stress at work. I never got back to my full training schedule after that. The days were getting shorter, the weather was getting colder, and I was having a hard time getting out of work on time to run. But the plane, hotel and registration were already paid for, so we were going no matter what. We both were getting pretty stressed out about missing so many runs. In fact, in November I only ran 5 times–pretty bad considering I was running 4 times a week August through mid-October. After we admitted that the full marathon was too stressful, it was like a lift off our shoulders, and we knew we would have fun on the trip without stressing from being under trained thus in pain for the entire trip.
After Lindsey and I arrived Friday night at the MGM Grand, we went grabbed great seats at Cirque du Soleil’s KA, then ate at our favorite place–Sherwood Forest Cafe in Excalibur. After we crashed for the night, we met our friends Steve and Kelly Baron at the Mandalay Bay convention center to pick up race packets, then ate at Raffles Cafe at Mandalay Bay. I’ve known Steve for a few years through conference calls and emails but never met him in real life. We cabbed over to the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Sign before carb loading at the pasta party at Mandalay Bay, where Lindsey dressed up as a Running Elvi and got pics taken with the other Elvi’s running the marathon.
Sunday morning was marathon day and it was freezing! Temps were in the mid 30s, which is low for Las Vegas’ average this time of year. Many of the 27,000 runners didn’t know what to do with such cold weather, most camping out inside Mandalay Bay’s hallways until the last minute. The race was very well organized with plenty of porta-potties and signs for bag drop off locations and starting corral points. After the National Anthem followed by some fireworks, the race kicked off with great music and lots of enthusiastic runners. Evidently I missed the skydivers prior to the race. When passing the starting line, there was a Blues Brothers band performing above the starting line and Vegas showgirls on the sides next to Bengal tigers in cages.
I’m so glad I had my Garmin Forerunner GPS watch to help keep me on track throughout the run. I noticed my pace after the first mile was 12:23/mile, so I knew I had to pick it up after that. I think I was distracted by the bands, the spectators, and the general slowness from runners coming out of the gate.
After we passed the Welcome to Las Vegas Sign going south and turned around to head north up the Strip, the view of Vegas was breathtaking. I’ve never seen it from that far away. After that first mile, I picked up my pace and kept an average 12:00/mile pace for most the run. The Strip was amazing, and never a dull moment. I paced with a Running Elvi for the first 5 miles! It seemed to go by so fast with so many distractions like the awesome view of the hotels, the live TV coverage on the jumbotrons, the Running Elvi occasionally passing by and the bands performing every other mile throughout the run. I’m tellin ya, Rock n Roll Marathons are the only way to go! After passing the Stratosphere, the Strip got interesting, since that’s the more rundown part of Vegas. There were funny marquee signs like “Spend your stimulus here: $10 lap dances” and even the ma and pa bar owners were up early handing out cups of beer midway through the run.
When I turned around to head back south on the Strip towards the finish line, I wasn’t feeling any pain at all, and my pace was increasing at around 11:53/mile. I took a risk and started picking up the pace a bit more. I guess I overtrained for the half, especially since I ran the equivalent of 6 half-marathons leading up to this one. Towards the end, I went even faster, eventually ending with a 11:47/mile pace and a time of 2:36–my best run ever. You can see the exact path of the half marathon run here, since my watched captured the points via GPS and embeded them on a Google map.
After a nice cool down, the four of us went back to our hotels, cleaned up and met at the Wynn Hotel for The Buffet. We were starving, and we piled it on. After that, Steve and Kelly had to catch a flight back to Chicago.
Lindsey and I stayed until the last possible hour Wednesday night. During that time, we played a few games at several casinos, mostly roulette, slots and blackjack. Other things:
- We ate chicken wings and beer for breakfast at Hooters Casino
- Watched Holly Madison (The Girls Next Door fame) as Bo Peep in Peepshow at Planet Hollywood,
- Sat in on a timeshare presentation at the Westgate Towers for tickets to the Blue Man Group at The Venetian
- Walked through the brand new $8.5 billion CityCenter
- Shopped in Caesar’s Palace Forum Shops
- Ate like royalty at the Rio’s Carnival Buffet
- Spent holiday time in old Vegas at the Golden Nugget and saw the refurbished Silver Slipper neon sign
- Caught the Freemont Street Experience
- …and ate a lot of great food in between.
We spent our last day at the Welcome to Las Vegas Sign taking tons of day and evening pictures before playing a final round of roulette at the MGM Grand, breaking even, cashing out and getting the hell out of town.
BONUS PICS:
My best friends want to see the ridiculous Las Vegas Sign pictures that didn’t make the cut. So here they are. No matter what, I did get the perfect picture!
Most Memorable: Spending time at the Las Vegas Sign.
Best Quote: “Cowboys on the left, runners on the right.”
Funniest Observation: How Steve keeps wanting to hand feed Kelly after everyone’s finished eating.
Biggest Regret: Spending $45 on Gelato. We were duped at the counter!
Best Deal: $15 seats at Blue Man Group after sitting through some timeshare presentation.
Best Food: Rio’s Carnival Buffet
Biggest Letdown: The old animatronics at Caesar’s Palace Forum Shops. I think the lasers quit working entirely and the robots’ masks were starting to fall off.
Moment of Zen: Holly Madison and Feather Boas at Peepshow
Wisha Woulda Coulda: Met some Twitter/social media peeps while we were there (like @VegasBill, @VegasKate, @24k or @phVegas)
And the geek in me had a blast playing FourSquare on my iPhone! FourSquare is a program where you check in to local hotspots and gain points and badges for the places you travel. Looking back, I’m really glad I took the time to mark every spot I was at, because it helps with the memories! I had so much fun, I became the top player in all of Vegas and become the mayor of MGM Grand, Harrah’s, the Las Vegas Monorail and The Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Sign. (Being the mayor means you’ve been there more than anyone else).
