So, yeah, this is overdue (and it's just a small part of my Vegas recap, too), and we may all be past the half-marathon chit-chat 'round these parts anyway, but it would be a very anti-climactic half-marathon training recap without the half-marathon race recap, I think. So, sit down, make yourselves comfortable, this may take a while.
First, Vegas is and will probably always be a favorite place of mine. I simply love a place that is all "hey, I am ugly and crowded and blinding and very, very drunk, and, FUCK IT, TAKE ME OR LEAVE ME. Also, here is an escort card while you drink your champagne from the bottle on the street." It's just so unapologetically itself, and I love it.
So, when I saw the chance to combine a favorite city and a huge life goal -- run a half-marathon -- and I wanted to go to Vegas to celebrate my 30th birthday anyway, it all seemed very perfect, and in many ways, it was. It was perfect that I got to run this race, after all this time, with so many people I love.
But, okay, let me back up a bit. The day after we got to Vegas, we headed to the race expo, to get our bibs and race bags. It was an incredible expo (best I've been to, honestly), and if we didn't have a show to see that night, I would have stayed until it closed.
Then came Sunday, and, OH BOY, was I nervous. I was nervous that it would be tough, that it wouldn't be fun, that it would be really cold or that I'd hurt myself mid-race or something else sucky-yet-predictable, but I wasn't expecting what happened.
First, we had to gather at our assigned corrals (of which there were 40-or-so, total) and we probably stood around for over an hour waiting for the race to start, maybe longer. I turned on "The Cave," right before we started inching toward the starting line, and I felt good. I teared up in anticipation of doing it and I felt, right then, that I was ready.
We finally got to the starting line and took off. Kristie and I had talked about walking every two miles starting at mile three, but we both felt great at mile three and kept going. The first 4-5 miles were on the strip, and it was incredible to see all the lights around us and hear the spectators cheering. I felt great, other than a slightly annoying foot cramp (maybe because of the cold?), but it wasn't anything impossible to deal with.
Once we got off the strip, the race started to feel less organized. The bathrooms seemed to disappear, the lights were sporadic, the water stations became more insane, and we decided to stop around mile 8 (still feeling good) to use the bathroom at a Burger King. Unfortunately, the lines weren't budging, at all, and we probably waited a good ten minutes and, shit, I just got stiff. When we started running after that, it was pretty painful. Miles 8-9 were just hard, but not impossible, and then we hit mile 10.
I've run 10 miles, I've even felt good running 10 miles, but miles 10-13 of this race were excruciating. What was so frustrating was that, mentally, I was there. I was repeating every mantra I've ever used, I was looking at this beautifully lit-up strip and trying to channel all the energy of it, I was reading every handmade sign I passed, and I was thinking of every single person I loved, but I felt my body begin to shut down. I've honestly never felt like that during any run. It wasn't exhaustion or being mentally beat down, I just felt sick and it was very strange for me because, well, I so rarely get sick.
I will never know how I made it across that finish line. It wasn't sheer determination or strength or willpower, it was just autopilot, and I think that's why I feel so crappy about it. I didn't feel anything but pain when I finished.
Once we finished, everything got blurry. I couldn't think of eating or drinking anything, but I knew I needed something. I tried a bite of (green, under-ripe) banana, and wanted to throw that up. I tried an energy drink and wanted to throw that up. I couldn't really speak, which felt weird, but I finally saw Mike and kind of lost it for a bit. I finally felt a little relief after seeing him, and I knew that no matter what, thank goodness, I'd at least have him. From there, we went inside Mandalay Bay, the hotel where the race ended and tried to work our way back to our own hotel.
{I did not want to take this photo, but I'm so glad I did. Thank you Kristie for making me!}
Oh, guys, inside the hotel is when things really got awful. I don't know if the race organizers didn't communicate well with the hotel staff, but they somehow let thousands of runners (there were 44,000 total runners) walk through a somewhat small corridor of the hotel when a show was also letting out (and foot traffic was allowed the opposite way). I don't know why so many runners felt like I felt -- very, very sick -- even though there's speculation on the race's Facebook page and in articles around the web that there was contaminated water at one of the water stations, although who knows if that's true -- but it just got nightmarish in Mandalay Bay. Runners were fainting and vomiting but medics couldn't get to them through the wall-to-wall crowd. I was getting panicky because I'm short and in claustrophobic situations, I feel, well, claustrophobic, but I also felt really sick, and it was bad. Just bad bad bad.
It took about an hour to get through the crowd and when we finally did (oh, thank goodness), I finally got sick in a Luxor trashcan (and felt much better) and then had to walk another half mile or so to our hotel. I kept saying to Mike, "I honestly don't think I can do this. I don't think I can keep walking." And he kept saying, "I know you can, I know you can, I know you can." And that's all that got me through it. Oh, shit, it sounds so dramatic, I know, but it was hard and I've never been so happy to see a hotel room in all of my life. I collapsed into bed and slept until the next morning and it might have been the best night's sleep of my life.
I kind of hate that it all ended with a tough last four miles and a really tough trip back to the hotel, but I like to think any race I run from here on will be better. This is a race that took in nearly SIX MILLION DOLLARS and while a big chunk of that, presumably, went to charity, it just seemed that for the sheer SIZE of the race, it would be meticulously organized. It actually fueled my desire to organize a race one day because so many of the issues seemed preventable. (So many aren't worth getting into, either, but OH THERE WERE A FEW.)
Putting all that aside, can I just say, I am so glad to have had Kristie running with me and Mike waiting for me at the end. Shit, for a solitary sport, I sure do require a helluva support system to do it, don't I? (And I have one HELL of a good support system, too.)
All that really matters is that I finished the half-marathon. I somehow dug deep enough to do it, even though every part of me screamed to stop. I kept beating myself up because it wasn't fast enough or I didn't feel strong enough but screw that, right? I did it. I crossed the finish line (in 2:47:44) and I know that every half-marathon from here on will be better because of this first one. And, yeah, I can actually think of running more now, even though if you had asked me right afterward, I would have said NO NO NO NO NO NO, NOOOOOO, HAAAAA, NO.
Good thing, too. I run another in six weeks.