Everybody always asks me what my favorite marathon was. Big Sur, without a doubt, but nobody ever asks me what my least favorite marathon was. The Las Vegas International marathon, without a doubt...
I'm not saying that it was my slowest or poorest execution of a marathon, nor am I saying that it was my most difficult marathon. It was just by far my least favorite marathon all around. The thing is I was on a quest to break 4 hours in a marathon, and my friend Christine (one of my NYC marathon buddies) was on a quest to break 3 hours. We weren't really looking closely at the finer details--only the net downhill course that would guarantee PR runs. (PR = personal record). Not only that, but a trip to Las Vegas sounded like a lot of fun, so hey, decision made. We did have a great group, and we did have a lot of fun in Vegas, but out there on the course, oh boy, not so much. (At least not for me).
The entire event, including the expo, was on the outskirts of town.The expo was in a tent. The course was laid out as a point to point, with the starting line out on the old Jean highway and the finish line at the Family Vacation Village, just shy of the Las Vegas strip by about 5 miles or so. The run would be entirely in the desert. This was all ok with us, as the elevation chart showed that after an initial gradual uphill half marathon the course would make a rapid descent for the next 9 miles, then flatten out from mile 22 to the finish. There would be one turn on the entire route, and that would be the turn to the finish line--about 200 feet or so.
On race day morning we were bused out to the starting line, which literally was just a line drawn on the road. There was absolutely nothing else out there! There was not a cloud in the sky, and although chilly at first (52 degrees), it was going to warm up quite rapidly. Janet (also one of my NYC marathon buddies) was injured, so she told us that she would be out on the course on a mountain bike later to check on us, so I had that to look forward to. And off we went! Obviously, I would not see Christine again until the finish!
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| Race day morning--2 women with goals! |
From my memory and marathon log splits I really struggled with the initial up-hill climbing. I wrote that some of the climbs were "steep", and I was not happy to see that at the halfway mark my time was at 1:55. I would be cutting it close to break the 4 hour barrier, but I had the downhill portion ahead, so my mood was not that bad, but I did feel like it was "work". Without anything out there to distract me, I was focused on pacing, which after the last marathon was a good thing! We crested the last hill and for the first time we could see the city of Las Vegas in the horizon. At first this excited me, until I realized that, a: the horizon never moved, and b: The Luxor Hotel, our hotel, the pyramid, was the closest building in view. Every time I looked up I would see the buildings in the same spot, so I continued to look down at the yellow line in the highway. At this point the temperature had climbed and I was slowing down, even with the aid of the downhill course. I was still pacing ok enough to break 4 hours at this point, but I could feel myself unraveling inside. The boredom of the course was probably the worst thing I was dealing with. There was a guy dressed like Elvis out there singing with a boom box, and someone with a toy plane, but that was it for entertainment.
Finally, at around mile 21 Janet showed up on her bike. She told me she must have missed me and had ridden further back in the pack looking for me. I could feel myself irritated and wondering how far back did she go until she realized she missed me? I mean how bad did the people have to start looking until she thought to herself that I had to be ahead? See, this is how the devil creeps in your brain. It starts off with a seemingly benign minor irritation. Then she asked me if I was doing ok on water, because the water stops were total chaos. Apparently I was just a step ahead of the aid station meltdown, at least until the next one, where there were no cups and people grabbing at the pitchers in the volunteer's hands. I was really lucky to have Janet to get me through all of that!
When the road went from downhill to flat it felt like we were going uphill. It was the most excruciating pain! I started to slow to a walk and that's when Janet said to me that if I walked I would not make it under 4 hours. I wanted to scream, cry, cuss, but all I did was whimper a bit and start running again. She was right. God how I hated her. :) She continued talking to me, telling me stories to take my mind off my agony, and I flipped between being eternally grateful for the distraction and wanting to scream shut the hell up! At one point I came perilously close to just stopping, sitting in the middle of the road, and refusing to get up. I will never forget that feeling, and luckily, I rarely ever feel that way, but I do know that urge could be lurking out there and it truly is the devil. To fight that devil and win is such a great indescribable victory, and probably yet another reason why I love the marathon. At any rate, at last the horizon did indeed start to appear closer and closer, and it became apparent to me that I was going to break 4 hours, and that the torture of such a boring marathon was finally going to end.
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| Did I mention I was totally sunburned on one side? |
My finishing time was 3:57 and Christine's time was a 2:58! We accomplished what we had set out to do! The finish area had nothing but green bananas, stale popcorn, and water served in little paper dixie cups that crumpled after one use, so I think I went through 5 cheap paper cups of water! We were in an exposed parking lot with no shade and really no reason to stick around, so that was the end of the glorious marathon experience called the "Las vegas International Marathon". Of all of my marathon medals, this is the only one that has oxidized severely over the years to where it is hardly legible:
It is funny how to this day I consider this marathon, my third marathon, my least favorite by far. I suppose it is a testament as to how much effort I put into researching the marathons that I choose to do, but it's also worth noting that I have long since stopped considering running marathons for the sake of a PR or even a "fast time". They did improve this marathon over the years, bringing the starting line in a few miles closer, making the initial uphill less and actually finishing on the strip! Eventually, though, they sold out to the Competitor group, so it is now part of the "Rock and Roll" marathon series, with a night time run that is entirely within the city, so it is an entirely different race altogether. Good riddance I say!
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