Dec. 5, 2010. It's time for the Zappos Rock n' Roll Marathon Las Vegas. By now, I am attempting my third marathon in just 5 weeks. Have I lost my mind? Yes. But on purpose. I am trying to qualify for the Marathon Maniacs, also affectionately referred to as becoming a member of the "Insane Asylum". Marathon Maniacs is an elite group of crazy people committed to running as many marathons as their bodies and budget will allow each year. They're the ones you always see wearing the yellow singlets, looking like they are relaxed & having a good time, discussing which race they are going to do next after they finish the one they are currently running. Minimum membership requirements are 3 marathons in 3 months, and the levels of membership go up from there. I won't even begin to tell you what it takes to get into the Maniac Hall of Fame, but let's just say if I ran 30 marathons per year for the next decade, I still wouldn't quite be there...Nevertheless, I am obsessed with qualifying for MMs, since the Olympics are out of the question for me, and I'm not willing to give up my non-dairy ice cream in order to reach the racing weight required for elite marathon performance. So Maniacs are just the ticket. No need to be fast for this group...I just have to cross one more finish line.
I thought I had better qualify in style, so what better choice than Las Vegas?! It conveniently happens to be the weekend of my hubbie's 40th birthday, so according to him, all of my brothers and sisters-in-law are meeting in Vegas to celebrate his birthday. Of course, I am convinced that we are actually meeting in Vegas to celebrate my last race of 2010. O.K., maybe both. The ladies of the family have decided to race while the men of the family have decided to party and gamble. Can my sister-in-law and I spend more at the race expo than our husbands can lose at the poker tables? Only time will tell.
This race is starting and finishing at the Mandalay Bay on the southern end of the Las Vegas strip. My sister and brother-in-law have kindly secured a free hotel room with comp points from all their Vegas trips. (Yes, they got engaged here, so they like to return frequently for sentimental reasons). We are all set to share the free room, but the day before the trip, we decide that roomies are going cramp our style, so we defect and book a room next door at the Luxor. My hubbie splurges and gets a corner suite with a giant hot tub overlooking the Vegas nightlife. "Oh, sweet! That hot tub is going to be perfect for my post-race ice bath!" I declare, when we enter the room. My hubbie just stands there, looking defeated. "What?" I say. ...Long pause... "OH! I get it. How romantic."
Well, I am pretty excited to be staying at the Luxor. Besides being pyramid-shaped with elevators that slide on an angle, there is one unbeatable feature of this egyptian marvel: a Starbucks in EVERY corner of the hotel. Well, if the ancient egyptians had been jacked up on as much caffiene as I drank this weekend, those pyramids would have been built in half the time. Ever since I promised my daughter I would give up coffee this fall, I have found coffee utterly irresistable, and have resorted to sneaking it behind her back. Not even the $5.15 Vegas latte prices deterred me from my thrice-daily habit. The hotel casinos are so big, I could get a latte, and sip it on my way to the next Starbucks. Let's just say my caffiene bill topped 3 digits that weekend. It was my last big coffee binge before my 2011 New Year's Resolution would soon force me to quit Starbucks yet AGAIN!
I am blissfully strolling through the Luxor casino floor, latte in hand, when I stop dead (no pun intended) in my tracks. There in front of me is the "BODIES" exhibit. "Oh, that sounds interesting," I say to myself until I realize that the exhibit is actually composed of REAL human bodies, skin removed, and posed into action scenes, as well as random individual body parts on display for your viewing pleasure. Now it seems to me they are taking this pyramid/mummy theme a little bit too far. According to me, 99% of America would barf at the sight of dead bodies, and the other 1% has already graduated from medical school and is probably not that interested in revisting Anatomy 101. Is this what happens to you when you donate your body to science? Is my hotel going to be haunted? I cannot deal with the fact that on the other side of that flimsy partition is a live horror show...I run off to get another latte and refocus my attention on my race.
Now, for those of you who don't know, the Rock n' Roll series is a fun group of half and full marathons across the country. They always feature live bands throughout the race, and a big post-race party, which I have yet to attend, because my legs are always too tired to stand up for one more second. This year, Bret Michaels from Poison is performing. I refuse to attend, still believing that Holly Robinson Peete was robbed of her Donald Trump Apprentice title, just because ol' Bret came back from an aneurism to snag America's Heart and the sympathy vote. Mmmm, I loved Holly's Compassionberry Snapple. But anyway, back to the race...If you participate in multiple Rock n' Roll race events in one calendar year, you earn cumulative "Heavy Medal" race medals. Since my sister-in-law and I ran the VA Beach RnR half in September, this race will earn us an extra medal to hang on our walls of glory back home. SWEET! The race expos are also amazing, since they are sponsored by Brooks and loaded with awesome running clothes and gear. We taxied down to the Venetian and spent our little hearts out. We even got to make free race signs for our husbands to hold on race day. Mine said, "My wife is hot!" You know, hot and sweaty from running!
Conveniently, the Sands Convention center was connected to the Venetian shopping mall, so we just kept on shopping after we left the expo. I'm a proud supporter of the Las Vegas economy (and so is my husband, who has been fairing horribly on the casino floor).
Race morning is full of excitement. I am wearing my sparkly, bling "Marathon Mamma" T-shirt, because when in Vegas, one must sparkle. I down my Starbucks latte, and head through the Mandalay Bay to the start. There were quite a few Elvises & brides running in this year's race. Apparently, you can get married or renew your vows at the end of this race. Only in Vegas, and only if you can talk your hubbie into running with you, which is not happening for this lady (see my previous July blog on our Wedding Anniversary running disaster). Head to toe white spandex was definitely the most popular look. I'm wearing all black, but I'm still sparkling! Although I'm not getting married or singing any tunes, I am just as excited to run down the strip & see the casinos up close and in person.
Well, I can't say enough cool things about the half marathon. For the first 13.1 miles, the course ran the entire way up the strip, past the Stratosphere, and towards the older part of Las Vegas, then turned and came back towards Mandalay Bay again. Helicopters flying overhead covered the race live for over 2 hrs., so you could literally watch the race as you were running on all the live casino Jumbo-trons. It was so AWESOME!! As we passed the Luxor at mile 13, the race course split, and the half marathoners headed to the finish, while the die hards took a sharp right across the highway into no-man's-land. Did you know there is a part of Las Vegas OUTSIDE of the strip? Yeah, they cleared off all the desert tumbleweeds and replaced them with wearhouses and streets full of nothing interesting to look at. And that was the last 13.1 miles. The worst part about that was the fact that as we wound through the warehouse district, the Luxor was constantly in sight. The race finish so close, yet so many miles away. It taunted me like a desert oasis, and visions of crossing the finish line and sinking into a freezing ice bath in my Hugh Hefner-sized love tub swirled through my brain like water through the parched sand. My deliriously tired mind kept thinking, "If I just take a short-cut, I could be in my tub in less than 10 minutes." But alas, I would not qualify for the Maniacs, so I must press on.
Now, when you've never run a marathon before, the end can be a little bit tiring. Now imagine that you've never run a marathon, and then you decide to run 3 marathons in 5 weeks. The end of the third one gets REALLY tiring. My coach and I had devised a run/walk strategy during training in case my legs gave me issues this time. I decided to take the best of what I had learned in training and implement the walk/walk strategy for the last 3 miles or so. Sure, I jogged a little bit at Mile 25, when the live band played Bon Jovi's Wanted Dead or Alive, my husband and daughter's favorite Rock Band Anthem, but at that point, my jog was just a walk with a hop in between steps. I just couldn't make my legs go any faster. Miss I-just-ran-a-sub-4 was now crawling along at a 12:30 pace. Not an impressive speed, yet my mind was just too proud of me to even give myself a hard time. I even got a little misty eyed thinking back to all those races I had finished in 2010 and how psyched I was going to be to wear my Marathon Maniacs shirt in my next race.
I crossed the finish line in 4:16:59. Oh dear, that was even slower than my tooth costume time! Oh well, I was a Maniac now, so I felt nothing but proud of myself. At the finish line, my husband was waiting to congratulate me and I showed off my ace of spades finisher's medal to him.
Again, I was too tired to hang out for the post race concert, so Bret Michaels would just have to wait. My husband held my hand (i.e. half carried me) back to my hotel room. I was looking forward to a nice long ice bath, but wouldn't you know it, I was too tired to walk across the room and fill up my Hugh Hefner love tub. In fact, the only time I left the bed all day was to answer the door for my room service pizza. So, I wasn't exactly a party animal on my husband's 40th birthday, but I still ROCKED the house!!
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