Rock N Roll Las Vegas Half Marathon Recap - 11/11/18
Expo:
We had an insanely busy weekend planned while we were in Vegas, but we made sure to get to the expo first. It was at the LV Convention Center. Pretty easy to get to and parking was free. We grabbed our bibs and went into the Brooks section of the expo. It was HUGE. Brad was like “this seems really big…” and I was like this isn’t even the rest of the expo. Haha. I convinced myself to buy a third pair of the Tie Dye Brooks Launch 5 because they were 15% off and who knows what next year’s RnR Marathon Series shoes will look like. Brad grabbed a tie dye shirt to run and then we got in line. They gave me a free 13.1 pin that looked like my medal because I bought some shoes, which was cool. We went into the main expo and got our 21+ bracelet for our free beer after the race. I stopped by the Sparkle Athletic booth but they didn’t bring any Minnie skirts so the girl told me to just order for expo pick up at WDW for Dopey and keep a look out for Black Friday deals. (I keep forgetting to not buy things right now…) We looked around a little more and then left.
Pre-Race:
I was worried about this being a night race. I really didn’t know how to prepare for it, but let me say that I definitely wouldn’t do what I did again. Haha. After the expo, I hit up my old wine shop I used to work at for the bi-annual case lot sale. Which meant I “tasted” a lot of wine and spent too much money. We were home by 9:30pm and my husband made the very wise decision to keep us in that night. I woke up the next morning with a mild hangover and being super thankful that we didn’t go out. We had a busy morning that included going to McDonalds because a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit sounded so amazing, then going to Bass Pro Shop, then meeting my in laws at the wine shop. This is where I start making poor decisions, haha. I never committed to a full glass of anything, just tasters of some beers. But we got some Mac N Cheese from Panera, you know for carb loading reasons. I do not recommend this just hours before a race. Nope. So we left and parked the car as close as we could get to the Strip because you know, they close all the streets for this race! We call an Uber and head towards the traffic. It’s like REAL bad and we decide to get out and walk the rest of the way. At this point, we realize two things. 1. Brad’s 10k start line was like REALLY far away from where we were (2 miles to be exact). 2. His start time was 30 minutes earlier than we thought. So Brad had to BOOK IT to his start line and gets there with 5 other people just as they were taking down the start line! He barely made it, but he did.
I got to my start area and dropped off our gear bag and met with a girl I had met in a
Disneyland Race Exiles group on FB. We went to the bathroom and then we went to the party area where the band Capital Cities was playing. We had some time before they moved us to the corrals so we just chatted. She commented that I must be a “real runner” because I don’t do run/walk intervals and I don’t listen to music while I race. I mean, okay if you say so. I just like to take in the event I am running in without music. /shrug
We finally get moved up to where the corrals were but it took a REALLY long time and if you weren’t at the front you weren’t getting into any good corrals. There was a lot of waiting and honestly I was getting bored and wasn’t even feeling like running anymore. People were complaining about it being cold. It was NOT cold. It was perfect and I regretted wearing a long sleeved shirt at all. Stupid Rock N Roll race officials and sending out false information about it being “cold and windy”. It was neither of those things. Then some lady behind me was commenting about me wearing the official race shoes. “Oh yeah, I thought about wearing mine but I was not going to break them in on a half marathon.” OKAY. These are my second pair and they are well broken in, please mind your business. Anyway, finally the crowd starts moving and my friend wanted to get to Corral 1, so we pushed our way up and up and up. We made it all the way to Corral 2 which was pretty impressive because I didn’t think we would get that far….
Race:
We started right at 5:00pm. This was just a training run for me. I had 9 miles at long run pace scheduled so I was tacking on 2 warm up miles on the front and the back. That was the plan at least… The first two miles I did okay. My friend stayed with me and started her intervals at mile 1. We ran down the Strip towards the Welcome to Las Vegas sign (regret not stopping to take a picture) and then turned around and headed back up the Strip. I ran by the first station that my BIL works at and got a picture with the guys there. Apparently it was his crew but he was in Hawaii so they were like F that guy. Haha. Guys, the Strip is like REALLY long. There were lots of people out cheering us on. I got lots and lots of high fives. I ran up to a guy holding two beers in his hands and tried to get him to give me one, but he wouldn’t. On and on up the Strip we went. There were some great costumes along the way. I was able to see my husband when he was in the finisher chute and gave him a high five! Then you are running on the opposite side of the finishers watching people that were just so much farther ahead of you. Around mile 7 I was just not feeling it. I slowed way down. I think the Mac N Cheese was revolting against me. It wasn’t fun. But I pressed on. They changed the course from last year, so you only got to run on this really small portion of Fremont Street, which is my favorite, and it wasn’t the part under the lights AND they didn’t have any photographers there, so I was really bummed about that. I didn’t fuel up at all during the race which could have also been a reason I wasn’t feeling good. I did take some water and gatorade, but no food. At mile 12 there was someone handing out cups of beer and BLESS THEM they got me through that last mile. Finally I was done. Final time 2:26:09 (goal was 2:22, close enough for me).
After:
I walked through the WAY TOO LONG finishers shoot. Grabbed a chocolate milk and chugged it. Got some pictures. Got a beer. And went to find my husband. He was across the street. This is probably the best part of my whole night: I know that I just ran on the Strip but after I was able to walk across the Strip in the middle of the road with NO ONE IN SIGHT. No cars. No runners. No people. I just spun around and around and it was AMAZING. Worth the 13 mile run. Immediately following the race I was like very MEH about doing it again. But thinking back now, next year if I do it, I am doing it at a Party Pace. I am stopping at bars, drinking some beers, having more fun. Tonight is the last night to sign up for $99 so I think I am going to commit. JOIN ME!
