Tag: CLTtoVegas

Rock ‘n’ Roll Vegas – Las Vegas, NV (2016)

Leave a comment

Less than two hours after finishing the Charlotte half marathon, 5 of us were hopping on a plane to make the trek across the country. After getting to Vegas an hour earlier than expected, we checked into the Tropicana, stuffed everyone’s luggage into one room and headed to the expo. Most of the group wasn’t interested in browsing much at the expo, but I had to go pick up my We Run Social shirt from Sparkle Athletic (on the left) and Beth and I hit up a few other booths before meeting back up with the group to head to our separate hotels.

We unpacked and I finally took my post-race shower while we lounged around before dinner at A Slice of Vegas. After dinner, Beth and I walked up the strip to the Bellagio to catch the fountain show and I ended Saturday with almost 23.5 miles covered.

Sunday saw us “sleeping in” until about 6:30 local time, which was really 9:30 for our east coast minds, so even though it was still early, it felt like we got a ton of sleep! After breakfast, I broke from the group and headed to the Neon Museum and then wandered around the Fremont area and the northern part of the strip before heading back to the hotel for a short nap before meeting the group at 3:00 to go to the race.

Since we were staying at the Tropicana, we were able to walk outside our front door and join the crowd heading north on the strip to the pre-race festivities. Snoop Dogg was the featured artist and put on a good concert for us before the race. With 45,000 runners doing the half and full marathon, we were broken into 3 big groups. The majority of our group were in the second group that was set to start at 5:00pm. By the time we were starting, it was already pretty dark out, so we were able to all the signs along the strip lit up.

The first two miles are an out-and-back heading south on the strip before coming up past Mandalay Bay and the Luxor and parts of that section were really dark. Lots of people had lights on their costumes, but there were a few sections that were really hard to see.

Corey, Beth and I ran together for the race and it hurt from the beginning. Having pushed myself to the 2:08 finish the day before and then sitting on a plane for 4 hours meant that I was really sore. We knew this race wasn’t going to be one that we were trying to hit a specific time – we wanted to enjoy the sites and take a lot of pictures and we certainly succeeded at that!

As part of the race, you could register to get married while on the run. We never did see which chapel the runners went to, but we passed a ton of different ones and most of them advertised which stars had gotten married there.

One of my friends had mentioned a fire-breathing praying mantis on the course and I kind of forgot about it until we saw fire shooting up behind a building and when we turned the corner, we saw the giant figure. Unfortunately, he stopped dancing and shooting fire as we got close and since we didn’t know how long it would be before he would start up again, we decided to keep going, but this was definitely one of my favorites from the strip.

Overall, I liked this race. It’s certainly a good one to do to see the sites of Vegas and since it’s an evening race, it’s really easy to do as a second weekend race. I would not recommend this race for anyone who is trying to hit any type of PR – there’s just too many people. The course had sections

where we were spread out, but just like the Marine Corps Marathon, for the most part, you had people on all sides. I also really enjoyed everyone’s costumes. There were a lot of people dressed like Elvis and tons of outfits that incorporated lights. Beth and I tied some around our waist belts, but they were more of an add-on than an important part of the outfit. I got a lot of shout outs in my Waldo costume and I’m sure there will be many people who have pictures with me hiding in the background, which is really what Waldo is all about! After the race, we grabbed dinner at Cesar’s Palace and then headed back to our hotels which was a bit of an adventure since roads were still closed.

Showing off our double-bling

I’m doing another back-to-back half marathon weekend in January, but thankfully these will be closer together in Jackson, MS and Mobile, AL. The drive time between the two races is still a good 3 hours, but I’ll have more opportunity to stop and walk around if I need to and I don’t plan on pushing myself in my first race, so hopefully I won’t be as sore. Now I’ve got a couple weeks off before my last race of the year at Ragnar Trail Alafia.

Charlotte Half Marathon – Charlotte, NC (2016)

Leave a comment
 The was the first year for this race as the Charlotte Marathon (and half, relay, 5k and mile). Last year it was the Thunder Road Marathon, which was my redemption race for Savannah Rock ‘n’ Roll getting black flagged. Over the summer, Beth and I had finally committed to running Rock ‘n’ Roll Vegas with our free entry from Savannah and I had thrown out that it would be cool to run Charlotte the day before since we could then do the last Thunder Road and the first Charlotte race. We didn’t act on it right away, but I had planted the seed, we made sure the flight options would work, and she shared the idea with some of her fellow Run Far runners. In no time it went from one crazy idea to 5 of us committed to do it!*

Fast forward a few months and as Beth and I were running the Marine Corps Marathon we realized that we would have to cover that distance again in two weeks, plus fly across the country in the middle. Those 12 days in between were all about rest for me. I took my dogs for a few walks, including a 7.5 mile hike, and got a sports massage to help me fully recover from the marathon.

Friday I met up with the Run Far group to pick up our packets and this year instead of printing names on the bibs, they let you “personalize” them. At first, I would have preferred something printed on mine, but then we came up with the idea of putting “CLT to Vegas” on all of ours and then adding some hashtags. #ringleader

Race morning, Helen and her boyfriend (our lifesaver!) picked all of us up so that we wouldn’t have to leave cars in uptown Charlotte over the weekend and we would have a quicker escape to the airport after the race. The rest of the group decided that they were going to start the race early because they were concerned about our cutoff time (2:20 in order to get to the airport for our 11:30 flight). I wanted to run the race for an official time, so I just started out near the front of the corral to avoid having to weave through people at the beginning of the race. I’ve done this race a few times, so I knew the course and knew there would be some good downhill sections to take advantage of and, of course, some long climbs that would slow me down.

I had a 2:15 pace band left over from another race and figured that would keep me in line for the time I needed to run. Having just run Rocktoberfest a month ago in 2:13, I was pretty confident in my ability to stay under 2:15, especially since it was much cooler to start this race and I love running in the colder weather.

After a brief downhill, we hit our first hill of the morning and that’s when I realized I forgot to put my buff on – my lungs were not happy with me in those first few (speedy) miles. I always struggle to breathe deeply when it’s cold out – it was mid-40’s for the race start, so I was definitely feeling that in my lungs.

I had my watch set to 5:1, but I ran the first few miles straight before we hit our first real hills in mile 3 and I walked as I ate my first GU. I like keeping the run / walk timer on even if I don’t plan to fully use it because when I do decide to walk, I will sometimes force myself to wait until it’s actually a walk break and then stick to the 1:00 buzzing to keep me on track. I’ve gotten a lot better at sticking to short walk breaks, but depending on how the day is going (my last two marathons, for instance), I’ve needed something to push me to start running again. Plus, with the 5:00 run, if I am struggling, I will split that up into 2:30 running, 1:00 walking, 1:30 running and then hit the actual 1:00 walk break.

I ran my first few miles fast and came close to my fastest 10k time, coming in at around 58 minutes, which was almost 4 minutes ahead of my expected pace and by mile 7, I was about 6 minutes ahead of my 2:15 pace band. In my head, this race had a really tough hill around mile 7, and even when we got to mile 8, I was still waiting to hit that hill. I’m pretty sure I was actually thinking of the hill in the RaceFest half marathon which I haven’t done since 2014. Either way, I was pleasantly surprised to realize that there wasn’t an extra monster hill waiting for me. There is a beast of a hill on Morehead Street in mile 9 and the remainder of that hill near the end of mile 10 (you cut away in the middle of the hill and then return to the same road after a residential detour), but again, I knew that it was coming, so I planned my walk breaks for the worst of the hill.

After that, I hit mile 11 and was still almost 6 minutes ahead of my pace when I hit a mini wall – I was out of water in my bottles and was taking another GU and my body was not too happy about that idea. I walked a few extra minutes and waited for it to settle down before I started shuffling, then running again. I only had 3 miles slower than my goal pace of 10:18 – mile 5 (10:19), mile 10 (10:51) and mile 12 (10:28) and most were well under it. I ended up finishing in 2:08:16 which is my second fastest half marathon, only slower than The Scream which is about 90% downhill, so I was really excited about my time.

When I finished, I immediately got into the gear check line which did. not. move… finally after 15 minutes of waiting, I just went up to the front of the line and asked someone if I could jump in because I needed to go catch a flight and even after they had my bib number it took them almost 10 minutes to find my bag. After that debacle, I ran to find the rest of the crew and my lack of uptown shortcuts meant I added an extra half mile to my walk (which was really a run because I was late), but I made it to the group and wasn’t the last one (yay!) so I had enough time to snap a quick picture of my medal with the tops of the uptown buildings behind the trees and the Carolina Panthers on the practice field in the background.

Now onto Vegas for race #2 of the weekend!

*Beth found out at packet pickup on Friday night that she never actually registered for the Charlotte half, so she decided not to pay the race day fees to join us Saturday morning, so only 4 of us did the back-to-back races.