Las Vegas Marathon 2015

15 Nov 2015

Heading into registration at Las Vegas conference center you are greeted with a huge banner saying "You are kind of special, they're shutting The Strip down for you". And that sums up the race - it's totally Vegas, from the fact that it is a night race, to the Kid Rock gig at the start and the stretch limo courtesy of the Bellagio to the start.

There are three events on the Sunday, the marathon, the Half and the Half of the half, a 10k. In our group I was doing the marathon, Beckie was doing the half and Greg and Rachel were doing the 10k.

We made a slight error by making the race the last night of our holiday but there's only so much time available and you can't go to Vegas without some fun. We saw Santana, Cirque de Soleil and had a fairly riotous night in 9 fine Irishmen in New York, New York. Be that as it may race day came round and then we met our first real dilemma - the start of the full and the half were at four O'clock so eating through the day was a problem. I had my usual breakfast of porridge or oatmeal (after a bit of translation) and then just grazed on slow release carbs for the rest of the day. I don't know if that was right.

The Bellagio had organised shuttle buses for the runners, which turned out to be limos, to get us to the start which featured a Kid Rock gig. Kid Rock turned up again at the start to give us a Hendrix style rendition of the US national Anthem.

I left Becky in her start pen and went forward to my pen but we should have stayed together, no-one else stayed in the pen they were assigned. The first mile of the race was away from the strip  before we turned round and ran the length of the strip. The lights the crowd the bands were all amazing and left a real buzz. We left the strip before a quick run around the Downtown / Fremont Street area before disapearing off into the North LV suburbs for two hours. This phase of the race was almost devoid of support apart from cops on the route and the occasional homeless person tucked up in their blankets on what turned out to be a very cold night, it dropped to below freezing that evening.

It was in this phase that the 30 mph winds really started to bite but whilst there was no support from off the course the feeling of camaraderie with the runners around me was the best I've experienced. The shouts of "Good job man, you've got this!" were pretty much non stop. High fives from the LVPD at all the traffic control points were also unexpected after all we've been reading about the US police recently.

Around 21 miles my legs really tied up but finally I made it back to the Stratosphere and the beginning of civilization again, and at this point we rejoined the 1/2 marathon runners (or walkers at this stage.). Apparently walking the 1/2 marathon is a big thing over there. Anyway it was back up the strip to the Mirage and the finish where the crowds were really good.

I managed the race in 4:29 ish which I was very disappointed with but Becky Greg and Rachel all made really good times.

After I got through the finishing area I was only 50m from the Bellagio - perfect planning and preparation until I got into the Hotel and found the up escalator to the ground floor was broken. Unbelievable - it was only one flight but I had to have a rest half way up. Security wasn't impressed when I told them I couldn't move but, well, I couldn't!

Would I do it again, probably not, it was pretty expensive and there are other projects to be done in November, in particular the NY Marathon. Would I recommend it, undoubtedly.