Rock n Roll Las Vegas Half Marathon - RunHalf Marathon

I started out feeling great, looked at my HR and it was 200+ so ignored it because the first 10 minutes are always wacky...pace was in the 6:40's and I think I was okay with that as it was slightly downhill and I felt good, breathing was good. HR settled down and I spotted it at 157 which is very low Z4 but it didn't feel like a 10k effort so I was okay with it. Loved seeing all of the casinos click by but kept focused on my gait, as well as trying to keep my shoulders relaxed and arms loose. We made the zig zag little turnaround and I was 44:05 at the 10k mark, so I felt good about that.

The water stations were plentiful, but I was glad to be holding my own water as there was some slipping near me and I was just glad to run right down the middle. Sip of water every 15 min and half of my gu at 45 minutes was working well. I was fading just a little at the 1 hour mark, partly because the back part of the course is in kind of a sketchy part of town but also because I think we started to go uphill a little bit! Less crowds and less music, but I knew if I could hold on until 10 miles, we'd be back in business.

At about 1:15, I took the other half of my gu and choked on it! Ugh. Had to wash it down with more water than I would have liked, and this kind of made my stomach cramp a little bit. Saw the 3:10 pace guy pass me and said to myself, just keep up with him and the gu will go down, it will be okay. Looked at my HR and it was at like 180 or something crazy so decided not to look at it anymore! Poor pace guy was all alone so I decided to run behind him! This worked for the next 2 miles as my stomach was slowly getting better.

At about mile 12, my right hamstring started to twinge just a little, so for some reason, I decided to suck on my gu pack (electrolytes?), a sip of water and my leg felt fine. My stomach seemed okay, too. At 20k, I had told Fatty, "we sprint here!"...but I don't think that was going to happen, however, the 3:10 pace guy split off to do the marathon and I saw my pace drop down to 7:30 or something so I knew I needed to pick it up, so I latched onto a guy about 50 yards ahead with a Mexico on his back. He had great form, he was looking really smooth. I was working pretty hard here, I saw my pace at 6:30! I was catching up to Mexico as we made the turn into the Mandalay. He turned on his turbo jets to match me stride for stride and we ran this way almost all the way down to the finish, but then I didn't see him anymore.

It was amazing and it was the first running race where I didn't feel like the finish would never come.

Maybe not choke on my gel, but that's pretty much it! This race felt so good from start to finish.

I started to cool down pretty quickly within 15 minutes I was freezing even with my mylar blanket and the sun shining and Kathy had brought my sweats. Couldn't find Fatty, so we walked the mile back to the hotel, showered forever to get warm and then got some breakfast. Wore my new compression socks and they felt amazing! Walked back with Fatty to watch TrevC and M. finish their first marathons!!!


I loved how these corrals were set up. People were really good about seeding themselves well. I never had to weave around people except for the first 500 yards or so. The volunteers were awesome and the cheering crowds were amazing!