This was written last week-sorry for the delay
Landed in Vegas late Friday and met the gang. We were 8 runners from cleveland, and the food at Diego’s was ok, not worth the price though, but hotel’s restaurants are expensive.
I didn’t stay to gamble (never do), just went early to my room and met my roommate Jermaine, a fellow runner from Michigan.
We woke an early and headed for a training run of just under 2 miles. We ran to Mandalay bay and back, which is the location of the race start the following day. I felt ok during this run, which helped my nerves. During the run, I received a donation and seen the notification as I finished and you should have seen the smile on my face, it was perfect timing.
After the run in the cold morning air, I went to the running expo, to pick my runners packet and my bag of goodies. It was mostly brochures, but also various energy drinks, energy gels, protein bar etc. the running coaches told us not to try anything new on race day and before, but I didn’t have breakfast and the morning run got me going so I sampled everything. Most was bad tasting, the drinks were worse, except one bio yogurt which I sampled 3 times. I also enrolled to various things to win prizes. The only thing I will win most likely is more junk mail.
After noon was spent in work so not blog material and in the evening we met the whole group of runners, around 900 of them from all over the country to a pasta party. The party had simple food , and only 1 type of pasta, which was odd for a pasta party. This event was a motivation event.
They brought a former Olympian trainer, which was interesting and funny. Prizes were given for biggest fundraiser. The top one raise 39000. I did 3200, so this guy rocked. He did more than twice the 2nd biggest. The evening host was the CNN morning weather man. Didn’t actually know him, but some might.
It was a fun evening full of screams, shouts and other motivational themes. After wards I went to see robin Williams, who was performing at the MGM, I was getting nervous by then and wasn’t free to enjoy the show to much, but robin Williams is my favorite actor and other that him saying f$$k all the time, the show was good. After wards I arranged all my stuff for tomorrow neatly on the floor and went to bed.
Woke up at 4, got dressed and went to the lobby where the mayhem was happening. Hundreds of runners were already there, all dressed in team challenge jerseys, each with their honoree on their shirts. We got some team challenge temporary tattoos and soon we went out still in the dark towards Mandalay Bay. It was cold and I was underdressed. The race was suppose to start at 6:15 , but they start us in waves, and I was in corral 26, and had to wait 40 minutes till my run began, tough 40 minutes with the cold and my nerves.
They had fireworks and skydivers on the starting line. The race begun m and we were waiting, then the sun rose and soon our race began as well.
This was the rock and roll race so along the path they had lots of unknown bands, and the singing helps distract. After about 2 miles I tossed my over shirt aside, whatever you throw in this races gets collected for good will. There were tons of hats, gloves and sweatshirts along the way. At this time I was already calculating how much more to go and soon squashed these though away, I tried hard not to think on the run. Mile 3 came close and I tried to take photos of every cool hotel we went by. It’s really nice running n the strip with bands playing, cheerleaders cheering, passer by shouting supportive cries and family members of runner supporting as well. with27 thousand runners, it was crowded, but not too much. 5k sign cam right after, and I missed mile4, and5 came to fast, I was feeling great and my running coach ran by me and said I was faster than I should be. I felt good and didn’t slow by will.
I passed the 10k mark in a good time for me, great actually ,then ran more with the other running coach (a married couple). I passed and was passed by many Elvises, some santa’s, wonder woman, and lots of newlyweds. They had a wedding on the strip for a dozen or so couple of runners, and after the event they ran, in uniform similar to bride and groom. The Elvis runners were the best since they had music with them. I actually took videos of myself during the run (soon on you tube). We passed the stratosphere(the big needle) and kept going on the unfamiliar regular areas of Vegas. I began waiting for the point of turning back, my legs began slowly get heavier and heavier, but I was still smiling and in a very optimistic good mood, unlike the mood I was in all week about the race.
Thing began getting hard around mile 9, a cramp in the left calf muscle, which is the uninjured one. Kept running and it eased, but I was mildly limping and legs grew heavier still. I was again next to my coach (he ran with all the cleveland group and did 18 miles by then, without looking a bit tired. Btw, the coach has colitis) another cramp a bit later and my limping increased. I was already much slower by now, and kept jogging to the endless cheers of the crowds (cheering to everyone..), mile 10 passed and I was alone again, I thought I might speedup, since I realized if I didn’t I would miss my time goal of 3 hours, I sped up which was a mistake and soon the other leg was cramping as well, and the last 5 k were very difficult. Breathing wise I was golden, but legs were my Achilles heel (which was sore as well). 2 miles to go and the Mandalay way was visible again, it was also getting colder again and my hands were freezing and my pace was very slow by now, but the spirit was up, that was the important thing , I didn’t let myself get me down. Message in a bottle was played by one of the bands and I was singing along. I actually made one phone call during the race, to my sister Michal, just before the finish line, since she was my honoree, I can’t believe I had air to speak on the phone. Last k was painfull, but I managed to sprint in the last 10 meters and cross the finish with my hands raised and my camera on.
Debbie, my pace maker (a fellow walker who walks as fast as I run) was behind the whole race- (didn’t see her) and she finished 35 seconds after me, knowing she was behind was also a push. Speaking with other runners helped, knowing I made promises helped. Passing the 10 k in a race was a fulfillment of a promise to myself at age 13…..to finish 10 k in the Ra’anana race.
Right after the finish line the adrenalin ended and pain began. They server bread and bananas and water and I had some of each and the pain level grew quickly, calf muscles, hamstring. My feet were killing me. But worst were the ribs. I don’t recall a rib pain during training, but they rib muscles were cramped bad. My jaw clenched and I was stretching for a long while trying to relax my muscles.
Lunch was server by PFchangs and warm Mongolian beef really hit the spot, too bad the lines were long, and I wished I hadn’t thrown my top shirt off, it was cold!. I was limping to the shuttle bus, barely making it on the bus steps and worse when we got off the bus, slowly I made it to the room, took a long hot shower and just sat in bed watched the lord of the rings.
I didn’t limp bad in the evening, and my legs were worse off after several of the longer training sessions, and other then the ribs I was better now than before.
We met in the evening and got some Chinese food, and I went back to the room already thinking about the next challenge (yes I am nuts).
Going to sleep, this was fantastic, I recommend you try it to know how good it feels to cross the finish line.
this is my result page
http://results.active.com/pages/oneResult.jsp?pID=71134144&rsID=88303
missed my goal by 2:55 minutes
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