Archive for December, 2011

I flew in Saturday afternoon and checked in to Mandalay Bay, chosen because that’s where the race started & ended.  I get up to my room and upon entering, see 2 pieces of luggage in the hall.  I’m taken aback but even moreso when I realize there’s a guy sitting at the desk, typing on a laptop and in a chair next to him sits a woman.

Perplexed and slightly weirded out, I say belligerently  “Uh, what’s up? this is supposed to my room.” and the guy stands up quickly, looking quite scared actually, and tells me they were given that room and didn’t like it but their replacement room isn’t ready.  While he’s explaining and quickly gathering his stuff together, I realize they’re very nice people, and I’m tired from traveling (7+  hours to get there) so I just plop down on the bed, insist they hang out till their room is ready and we shoot the breeze for a while.

At one point, he asks how much the room costs and is shocked that it’s around $200/night.  I ask what he’s paying and he tells me it’s free.  Apparently, he lost a shitload of money there in a previous visit ($8000) and when you do that, the hotel will send invite after invite for you to stay there for free.  The good news is that the money he lost was actually won there first, so he came out even.  Anyway, that was my little education on how to get free rooms in Vegas.  Of course, I had to take a photo of them for Facebook because the situation was so ridiculous.

Roomies for an hour

About an hour after that, I meet up with my long-time yet never-previously-met online running sister, Carrie, who I’ve just loved for ages.  She and her friend Dina were hilarious and so easy to hang with, it was like we’d known each other forever (a theme for the entire weekend, actually).  We went to the Expo and dinner, then spent over an  hour trying to figure out how to get back to our hotel.  Here we are in the midst of the Venetian trying in vain to escape.

Dina, Me and Carrie

The next morning was CIM (California International Marathon) where the crazy doublers were doing their first marathon of the day along with a handful of non-doubling friends, so I had great fun tracking their races.  Almost every single person I knew PRd with a seamless, wonderful race…it was just a joyful morning.

After that, I went over to the Aria to meet Jay, who had flown in that morning after doing the Northface 50-miler the day before.  Jay is a gifted, speedy runner (he’s shooting for a 2:26 this Spring at Boston) and while he had signed up for the 50mile race, he hadn’t been training for it though he’d been doing some crazy stunt running in the weeks beforehand (Grand Canyon rim-to-rim-to-rim).  As it turned out, our friend Steve was doing the 50-miler but at the last minute, lost his pacer, so Jay offered to pace Steve.  Those guys kicked crazy ass, coming in well under Steve’s goal and almost 2 hours faster than the previous year.

Anyway, Jay was feeling amazingly good for having done 50mi the previous day.  We had brunch and bloody marys at around noon, which was my pre-race meal and hydration plan.  It was the last thing I had before the 5:30 race start, which worked out fine, except for me fighting drowsiness in the interim.

Jay and me brunchin' it up

At around 3pm, most of the CIM crew showed up in the lobby for a quick pre-race meeting.  It was so exciting to see them, some I’d met before and some for the first time: Paul, Matt, Kevin, Catherine, Holly, James and Matt’s girlfriend, Erin.

With a couple hours left, I went back to the room to get my running garb on before meeting Matt for the race.

The Race
First off, thank god I was injured for this one, because if it was a goal race, I’d have been incredibly pissed.  It was a clusterfuck on many levels, though for Matt and I, running at la-la-la pace, it didn’t affect us, but we could easily see the mess it was for those who were running the full or anyone trying to get a goal.

As far as my leg, I was really nervous about it.  My last run, a 5-miler on Friday, was not a feel-good run, my leg was pissed at me for having made it do two 8-milers before it was ready, so I was very nervous about how I was going to get through 13.  On the good side, Saturday was a rest day and I had most of Sunday as well.

Since the race started & ended at my hotel, the place was a madhouse with runners everywhere you looked (there were 44,000 participants).  Here I am with Matt before the race.

Matt and me before the race. I'm a dead ringer for Eddie Munster.

We line up, freezing our asses off (very windy at the start) and at 5:30pm, the gun goes off.  Matt and I, Lame and Lamer, begin our night-time journey up the Strip.  He was a total blast to run with, we talked and laughed, stopped at iHop so he could take a piss (44,000 runners and they had about 3 banks of Porta-pottys on the whole damn course).  I mentioned my leg but didn’t tell him how scared I was about it, so when I’d innocently ask “do you need to go slower, are you ok?” (he’d just run a 3:01 marathon that morning) I was actually doing it for myself as much as him, always relieved when he’d say “let’s pull it back”.

As it turned out, my leg was not a problem at all.  I was ever so slightly aware of my groin (all that’s left of the injury), but it never got worse so it wasn’t a factor at all.  And as the miles ticked by, I felt stronger and less careful, so he eventually had to ask me to pull it back regularly, which I was totally fine to do – the race was a wash as far as time, I couldn’t have cared less what we ended up with.

I wore my Garmin, btw, but the satellites didn’t catch for over an hour into the race, so I never looked at it, though I did press lap during the iHop stop, just for posterity’s sake.  With about 2 miles to go, Matt realizes if we speed up a bit, we can come in under 2hours.  I didn’t care but it was kind of fun having something to shoot for at the end.

When we were almost done, we discussed how we’d cross the finish to which I instantly replied “holding hands!” because I’ve never had the occasion to do that and this was a special little situation we had here.  Some guy next to us heard us and said how sweet that was, so we chatted with him for a bit before giving it a “kick” (totally deserves quotation marks since our kick was probably around 8:30 pace, lol).  As we turned the corner to the finish area, we passed Cheap Trick playing their one big hit “I Want You To Want Me” which was kinda fun.  We made it in 1:59:54. Hilarious.

As for the finish, not only did we hold hands, but we did it total noob-style up in the air which makes for a totally goofy finish video but if you keep watching, you see us hug and that was a pretty sweet moment. 2nd video on this page, we come into the frame at 6 seconds.

We thought we got a racing shot together but I guess the photographer missed it, bummer.  Behold my general demeanor throughout the race:

Happy Me

As for the rest of our crew, Paul, who was supposed to do the double and is actually the person who thought up the crazy scheme in the first place, missed his plane to Sacramento, so Vegas was his “only” marathon of the day, but as mentioned, the race was a clusterfuck so while he did great, it was nowhere near his potential had it been a regular, not screwed-up race (ex. the pacers were having to run up on the sidewalks due to walkers in the one tiny lane they allotted to the Full people).  Carrie also had a tough time and gave up on it being a goal race after the merge of Halfers and Full people (terrible for the full folks) but luckily she found Dina so they finished together.  The doublers all finished between 4 and 5 hours, some of them stopping at a liquor store for beer, midway.

Party!
After the race, Kevin and his wonderful wife Catherine had reserved the Media Suite at Mandalay for a party pad and it was so cool:  floor to ceiling windows with a magnificent view of the city and a bathroom as big as my apartment.  Eventually, everyone trickled in, including some folks I hadn’t seen yet – Steve, who had done that studly 50-miler the day before the Vegas full, arrived with his wife Gina and her two friends, Melissa and Katy (who ended up being a total blast to hang with, more on that below) as well as Beth and her husband.  Beth has Lupus and was the impetus for Steve doing his particular contribution to the double race craziness, running it for charity.

We finally make it out to find dinner but because the place was so packed with runners, we didn’t eat until 2:30am.  After dinner, Steve, Jay and I hit the Black Jack tables…a totally new experience for me.  I’ve been to Vegas twice, once for work and once as a jump off for a Grand Canyon trip but the only gambling I’ve ever done involved one-armed bandits. The tables have always been a complete mystery to me, so it was really fun to watch and learn.  We stayed there till 4:30am.  Classic.

The next day, I met up with Steve and his harem for a little more Black Jack fun before meeting the folks who hadn’t left yet, for lunch.  There were about 13 of us still, so it was a pretty good crowd.  Here’s a photo of me and the guys from our forum thread.  What a studly lineup.

Kevin, me, Matt, Paul, Steve

Monday Night
Everyone had dispersed at this point but Steve and the ladies were still around so we had a blast perusing different casinos, doing this goofy novelty Photoshop thing where they Photoshop your head onto models who, of course, are bustier and hotter than you’ll ever be.  Here we are in the casino:

Katy, Gina, Steve, me, Melissa

Steve, btw, not only was my Black Jack instructor, he even let me lose some of his money, which scared the shit out of me, but to counter that, I conferred with him or Gina every time it was my turn to make a decision.  Was great fun, thanks again, Steve!!

At around 2am, drunk from margarita, beer and vodka, I ventured onto the karaoke stage.  I figured it out today, it’s been 12 years since I opened my mouth to sing so I knew I’d suck.  Choosing a song was crazy because there were so many to choose from and I don’t have a go-to karaoke song having only done it once before.  I ended up with Walk On By, and if it wasn’t humiliating enough sucking in general, the key was too high, so I had the guy start it again in a lower key.  I still warbled and ended up in pitch-hell, but fuck, it’s Vegas, so no regrets.  Here’s your proof:

2am Karaoke Hell. Note how I'm really getting my groove on (please God, when will this song be over?)

And that’s it.  An epic vacation and one of the most fun weekends I’ve had.  Big love to all you guys and gals that I got to hang with, I’m sure we’ll be doing it again sometime, somewhere.  Viva Las Vegas!

Life’s a trip.  I’ve gone from Boohoo Blue to Luckiest Lady in the span of a few short days.  Here are the highlights:

#1. Runners World has featured one of my Gifted Runner shirts in their Unique Christmas Gifts for Runners web slideshow.  Way cool surprise.

#2. Just when I think it’s a dead month for voiceovers, I get a flurry of bookings.  It’s already been a lucrative week and fun too, didn’t have to speak much Medical-ese, mostly plain English.

#3. I committed to something next September that’ll be way out of my comfort zone: Reach The Beach relay.  There are two teams (20+ people) comprised of RW forumites, though they hang out in a different sub-forum than the one I frequent, so I only know a few of them and that’s through Facebook.  This adds an extra level of unknown fun to the adventure – more imaginary friends becoming real ones.  I heart this.

#4. I found $20 on the floor at Target yesterday.

#5.  Running has been beautiful.  I bumped up a little sooner than I would have if not for the Half, but the rest days are keeping my legs in check.  I finally feel like I’ve come out the other side.  Whew!  The week, when done, will look like this: 6, 8, Rest, 8, 5, Rest/Travel, 13.1. The face already looks like this:

Viva Las Vegas!
When next I write, it’ll be from a hotel room in that man-made desert wonderland.  In the meantime, I want to send out early race wishes for all my friends racing CIM, Vegas or White Rock.  This weekend will be a race tracker’s paradise.

A special Good Luck goes to my brave pals doing both CIM and Vegas in one godawfully long day – Paul, Holly, James and Matt – along with Steve, who is doing his own freaky stunt: The Northface 50mi race on Saturday, then going to Sacramento to cheer the CIM crew, then the Full in Vegas. Needless to say, they’re all insane.

Also racing and hanging with me this weekend will be Carrie (finally, Girlfriend, we meet!) and sweet Kevin who are doing one marathon each and Jay who is doing Northface (not the 50miler, maybe the marathon) then will jump in the course for a bit at Vegas.  And this is just the core group, not including spouses and friends.

Lastly, there’ll also be a handful of forum/Facebook/blog friends doing Vegas, too.  Off the top of my head: Joe, Eric, Jeff and Deb.  To you guys, I’m gonna be at the Expo on Saturday probably around 4:30 or 5, so hopefully we can bump in to each other then if not during the race itself.

So that’s the story.  Next post comes from Vegas, Babies.  Till then…muah!