It was an early morning, up at 4:25. For breakfast I had some multigrain bread I has smuggled out of the pasta dinner the night before. I smothered it with the peanut butter I had picked up at Walgreens a couple of days before. We were dressed and out the door by just after 5am. Pretty good timing for two women sharing the same bathroom…lol. As we walked to the corrals I ate the banana that was also part of my breakfast. It didn’t take long to get to the back of the corrals, 29 as it was practically out the door of our hotel. Thankfully we were no longer way back there. We walked to the front to check out the band and the tigers. They had really done it up. There were show girls, live tigers and a band playing on a stage over our heads, directly above the start matts.
As it was still early there was no line up for the pottys so I made one last pit stop. I was hoping to run the race without any pit stops so this one was pretty important. Little by little the runners gathered until the place was pretty much packed. We placed ourselves in corral 10 and to the side. Before we knew it the race was starting. It took a fair bit of time for the 9 corrals ahead of us to head out. They did an actual count down from 10 for each and every corral. That was kind of cool.
While Jessica and I started out together, it didn’t take long before she was way ahead and out of site. I managed to maintain a good pace for awhile. I had a 2:30:00 pace band on my wrist to try and keep on track. I had also taken a light weight tote bag and pinned it to my shoulders. It would come in handy at the end for post race goodies. I’d added my name and a cartoon of me to it so as runners ran by they often yelled “good job Pink Chick”. At first I’m like, how did they know, then I remember I’d pinned the tote to my back…lol. The race route took out towards the end of town past the Welcome Sign and then back up the strip past where we had started. It was around mile 2 when we past the original start of the race. Runners from the last few corrals had not yet started. I thanked my lucky stars and Jessica, I was not still in there.
My friend Mark had started out in corral 1, he’s speedy and was doing the full. We had a deal for a beer that I had to beat his planned 3 hour marathon time. So far so good. I was as mile 4 which was about mile 9 or 10 for him when I saw him heading off the strip for the rest of the marathon route. The half marathon got to stay on the strip for all but about two or three blocks of the race. I yelled to him but he was long gone on his long speedy legs. He’s like well over 6 feet tall. Him and the rest of the Adrenaline Rush Runners were easily spotted throughout the race. They don’t all know me but I yelled “go Calgary” every time I spotted one. I got strange looks as they probably thought, how does she know…lol.
Somewhere around mile 6 my friend Irene came up from behind and gave me a big hug. I was happy to see her. We ran together for a bit before she headed off at her own pace, just a bit faster then me, but then who isn’t…lol. About mile 8 things started to hurt but I ignored the pain and it seemed to go away. Shortly after Irene’s hubby caught up with me and we also ran together for a bit.
By now I was losing time. My pace was slipping and my chances of hitting 2:3:00 had pretty much vanished. I was still hopefull I’d make 3 hours. I had only taken water at one of the stops so far. Really wasn’t thirsty. I had eaten some of my gummies and chased them with my own water. No pit stops. All photos were taken while running. I only stopped for two photos. One was when I spotted Mark heading off toward the marathon route and the other was for a quick photo op with a cute fireman. You know me, can’t pass that one up.
With 5k left it still looked like I would be close to the 3 hour mark but well that goal too vanished as I ran the last 5k very slowly and painfully.
I managed to smile through the pain for a great finishing photo with my arms in the air, then limped through picking up my water & food. Tears of both pain & joy streamed down my cheeks. Surprisingly not one soul/volunteer asked if I needed help. Oh yeah, I had to P bad but there were no potties anywhere in the finisher shoot. Of course if you left the shoot area you could not get back in for food. I barley made it out and to the potty.
Relieved I looked around and spotted Mark & gang. Not only was he done, he was already changed. Guess I didn’t beat him. He made it in 2:59:??. I was 3:16:04. It was still a good time, faster then 2007 by half an hour. Oh well. After that I limped around until Irene & hubby spotted me. They helped me limp to the medical tent where my knee was iced and wrapped. Oh yeah, got some tylenol as well. Felt much better.
I eventually found Jessica. She had hoped for 2 hours but finished 2:38:40. Still a pretty fantastic time for her 1st ever race of any kind. Jessica got her medal engraved I didn’t. I sat in the Casino while she went back for her medal. I put a buck in the penny slots and managed to get it up to a whole $5.18 by the time she came back. Last of the big time gamblers, eh.
It was about 1pm by the time we made it back to the hotel. I unwrapped my knee and put on my swimsuit. Time for another swim and relax in the hot tub. Yup add another 200m. The swim/hot tub helped.
Later we went for dinner at Dick’s Pub. A hilarious place to eat where the waiters brag about being rude & lude. I was craving a burger. We got the biggest, juiciest burgers on the menu and were in heaven. We of course followed this by more margaritas. But as both of us were tired and hurting from a long day we were in bed by 7:30 that night.
By the way I did take lots of photos during the race. I also took a photo of my time at each mile/km marker so you can see by my Garmin how I was doing and just where I started to fall apart. You also get an idea of what the route was like.
Well that’s it for running. I still have another post to add of the last two days in Vegas. Hopefully I’ll get to that in another day or so.
Great job, Dawn! Slashing half an hour off a half marathon is huge. I’m surprised you weren’t more thirsty. Temps were in the 50′s maybe? I see lots of coats and on the spectators, but its Vegas. How cold can it get there? Maybe those folks are just wimpy. You’re from Canada, the Vegas folks don’t know from cold.
Hope the knee is doing well now and you have pretty much recovered.