Las Vegas half-marathon

I ran my second half-marathon on Sunday. The course involved running the Las Vegas Strip at night, so the race started at 4:30 pm. We headed over from our hotel around 2 pm because Ashley’s mom was running the half of the half which started at 3:30. Our hotel was at the opposite end of the Strip from the race start, and we took the Monorail down to its last stop. We walked the almost 2 miles from that stop at the MGM Grand to the starting area. Macklemore and Ryan Lewis performed the pre-race concert. I wasn’t too interested in them, and I was freezing even though I’d bought a long-sleeve running shirt at the race expo. We headed down to the corrals, and I lined up with Ashley and her dad in theirs because I knew I was going to finish behind them anyways. The sandals I wore Saturday afternoon had rubbed a blister on the bottom of my right foot, so I was pretty sure I was not going to have a great time. Meb (the first American man to win the Boston Marathon in a long time) officially kicked off the race, and our corral started around 5:15. The course headed north along the end of the Strip near the airport, swung around to the other side of the road near the Welcome to Las Vegas sign, headed down the Strip to downtown Las Vegas (which is not the Strip), then turned around again to finish near Caesar’s Palace and the Mirage.

I started off at a good pace. I found a lady running and walking at similar intervals to me, so I paced myself off of her. She also noticed this, so we started running together around mile 3. Her name is Beth, and she’s a lawyer from Savannah. We alternated running and walking for the next few miles and stopped to use the bathroom after mile 7. Both of us were feeling a bit worn out, so we cut a bit off the mileage and hopped over to the return section of the course. Before you crucify me for not running all 13.1 miles on the course, the total distance from the corrals at the start to the end of the finish line zone was around 15 miles. Also, I finished the race, and I paid for the medal. We chugged along for the remainder until about mile 12.5. The blister from Saturday popped with the finish line banners literally in sight. The pain was excruciating (the blister was at the base of two toes), so I hobbled along for about a half mile. Beth convinced me to run the last tenth of a mile over the actual finish line. Obviously, I finished with a better time, but I will not claim this race as a PR because I didn’t run the whole thing. I think I would’ve been able to do it all had it not been for the blister pestering me all day.

Overall, the race was good. The course was mercifully flat (especially compared to Nashville), even if the road wasn’t in the best condition. The course could’ve have more lights along certain sections (towards downtown Las Vegas), but the porta-potty situation was much better than Nashville. A few downsides: 1) part of the race is run near the airport, so you breathe in jet fuel fumes; 2) I am not a fan of the late start race. We sat around all day waiting for it to start and didn’t really have a chance to eat lunch; 3) the course could be laid out to not be so far from the public transportation. Other runners I talked to also complained about feeling tired from walking to the race start.