At little background about our corral. When I registered, I put down 2:30 as my expected finishing time. But Jamie put down 3:00. So we were assigned to different corrals. Obviously, we wanted to run the race togther since that had been the plan from day 1, so just started with Jamie in her corral since the race officials didn't care if you moved to a slower corral at the last minute.
So when we started, we were dodging people left and right because we were having to get around all the walkers and slower joggers. We though it would spread out after a few minutes, but the race was so huge that we were dodging people the entire 13.1 miles. Thankfully, there were only a few times that we got truly stuck behind people for several seconds. Because it was so crowded, I was worried I would lose Jamie, but we kept finding each other. It was basically impossible to run side by side of more than a few seconds. So we both put in our headphones and just tried to keep an eye on eachother. Even with all that, we still managed to say a few words to each other. Here is what the conversation sounded like around mile 2.
Me (as we pass Treasure Island): "Wow! Look Gilley's is back (cowboy bar).I thought that place got imploded with the Frontier."
Jamie: "Looks like they put a new one in TI. We should go there sometime."
Me: Definately.
As you can see, we were feeling good and finished the 1st 5K in 32 mins which was right on pace for us.
When we got to the Sahara around mile 5, we stopped and got water. We stopped again around the 10K mark and took some GU and Gatorade. We were at 1:08, again a good pace for us. The turn around snaked through downtown Vegas along Fremont street and back onto the Strip. We were going strong at this point and the conversation sounded like this at mile 7.
Jamie: "This is so much easier than running around your neighborhood. It's totally flat."
Me: "Yeah, and there's no dogs chasing us either. We're totally doing this in under 2:30".

We stayed in this jolly, confident mood until about mile 10. This is where it stopped being so fun. Here is what the conversation sounded like around mile 11.
Jamie: "Every joint in my body hurts."
Me: "I'm pretty sure my left foot is bleeding"
But we kept running and once we hit the Luxor, Jamie became possessed and started picking up the pace. I just hung on and followed her, feeling like my legs were going to fall off. The last tenths of the last mile were the hardest.
We crossed the finish line together and beat our goal time of 2:30.

Maybe start in a faster corral. We had to dodge a lot of people, but maybe that was unavoisable in a race this big.
Other than that nothing. It was a good first HM and I hope next year I can go in with more miles on my legs.

Brett Michaels was playing at the finsh line. So we stayed for while. When they announced he was coming on stage, a lady in the crowded asked, "Is he some rock and roll guy?" Cracked me up.



As always, just a need to train more.


Great race. Very well organized and smooth running.