Vegas Baby!

Saturday night I fought my way through through massive crowds on the sidewalk near the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas, and looked at the cars backed up on the streets, and thought I was probably making better time on my feet.  Vegas is crowded.  But  fortunately, last weekend, much of the crowd in town was there to run!

The next night, I was running down the strip, with not a car to be found on the street!  Fans lined the sidewalks, along with bands playing every mile or so, to support the huge throng of runners.  The Rock-n-Roll Vegas marathon attracted 44,000 runners, and the vast majority came from out of town, excited about the chance to run on the famous Vegas strip at night!

Now, I'm not really a 'Vegas person'.  I don't really gamble, and am not really into the 'club scene' in Sin City.  But when the folks from the race invited me to come out and run a few months ago, I jumped at the chance.  I'm told this is the only time of the year, other than New year's eve, when they close the strip to traffic.  And coincidently, a couple of my regular running friends,had already signed up.  How could I refuse?

And it was an incredible experience  even before the race began!  The night before, organizers set up a pretty unique race through the Lobby of the Palazzo Hotel on the strip.  They called it the 'Stiletto Dash', and it attracted a pretty good crowd to see women try to race in 4 inch stilleto heels.  Amazingly, some of the women were pretty fast.  The fastest, however, was a ringer!  Suzy Favor Hamilton, former olympic 1500 meter runner, won the celebrity division of the race pretty easily.  I have to admit to being a huge fan of hers, and was a little tongue-tied when I got to meet her after her race!

Many of the elite runners in town were not racing, but there to meet and greet fans, which gave me a chance to meet folks like Suzy Hamilton, Rod Dixon, and Meb Keflezighi.  It was a pretty great experience for fans of our sport.

 And because it was a Rock-n-Roll race, it was also a great experience for music fans.  Most races in the Rock-n-Roll series feature a post race concert with a big name headliner.  But most of the races also start in the morning.  This race starts in the evening, so the concert was before the race.  It was a little unusual watching a band while stretching and trying to focus on strategy for the race ahead.  But since the band was Cheap Trick, and I'm a big fan, I got over it!

My friends Mark and Mark and I posed before the race with the band playing in the background.  We were all planning on trying to run a good race, but we weren't going to miss the fun!  It was probably a little strange for the band.  Their fans at concerts normally are probably sitting back enjoying a cold one focusing on the show.  Folks were having a good time at this show, but noone was drinking!

Once the concert ended, we quickly tried to make our way through the crowd to our starting corral.  That was a bit of a challenge, but we made it in time to hear Pearl Jam lead guitarist Mike McCready play a stirring rendition of the National Anthem. 

And then we were off!  We started in front of the Mandalay Bay hotel, and headed down the strip.  There was so much to see and hear, it bordered on sensory overload.  I quickly realized this was just going to be a run I wanted to enjoy, and not really race.  I wanted to take it all in!  This was the 6th half marathon I've done this year, along with countless other races, but it was the only one on the Las Vegas strip!

So I settled into 8 minute/mile pace and ran easily, with my head swivelling back and forth absorbing the people, lights and sounds in every direction.  And then the there were the bands, which sounded great, but almost seemed unnecessary with everything else going on.  It was awesome!  After about 4 miles we left the main portion of the strip and wound through neighborhoods for a few miles, but then we were back on the strip headed the opposite direction to the start/finish area.  And it was more of the same.

I don't think I ever wiped the smile off my face the entire time.

Race organizers provided all the runners with headlamps, but they were hardly necessary.  The lights of Las Vegas kept things pretty bright the whole route. 

As for the race, I ran my goal time in a half marathon last weekend.  This race was about the experience, and it's one I'd recommend you try!

See you on the roads.......

Comments

[Mike G.]

Interesting, race report, John. I've read tons of negative stuff about this race and although I was thinking about running this next year, may reconsider. Would love to talk to you about it sometime.