Rock ‘n’ Roll Las Vegas Marathon Race Recap
On Sunday I ran the RnRLV night marathon with a few extra miles thrown in.
Let me say before I get crucified on the “real” ultra running boards that I don’t think that running/resting for 8 hours/running again is any sort of amazing ultra feat, and I don’t think running 13 miles on a flat treadmill and then 26 on a flat desert highway is similar to trail running.
What I do think is that I’m somewhat interested in ultra running and I’d like to flirt with some longer distances. The full mary will always have my heart, but I’ve got a trail 50k in 2 weeks, Team Undecided3 is being reprised for a third Ragnar ULTRA team in February, and my first 50 miler is in April so any time I can get in a few extra fun miles is good with me.
So I got up Sunday morning and ran 13.1 miles/1:47 (8:10 pace) on the hotel treadmill with 2% incline. I’ll do another post on what I ate pre-race, how I recovered between runs, and how I felt afterwards, but too many words at once scare me so it’ll have to wait.
The marathon started at 4:30 on the south end of the Strip – it was perfect weather, not too windy and 65 but cooling down. Physically I felt good and ready to go, but I was nervous: I didn’t know how my body and mind would respond. Looking back I think I mentally hyped myself up too much when I should have just turned off my brain and ran.
I doubt that many dudes follow me on twitter, but I was able to meet Mike, one funny guy who tweets me about Miley Cyrus twerking, doing lunges on an airplane to Boston, all sorts of cray stuff. He just ran his first half recently in 1:38!
I said goodbye to my friend Reese, who had to go grab her bib, and then got in my corral where I met up with Pam and Monica.
I was also able to meet PavementRunner who ran a half marathon that morning in San Antonio and then flew to Vegas to run the marathon!! Crazy rad and yes, I’m totally jealous. Next year…
{Instagram: RunEatRepeat}
Monica and I started the race and ran together until the half and full split at the 15k mark. For me it made the miles go by faster and we kept it nice and easy around a 8:25-8:30 pace.
At the split the marathoners took a hard right and headed out into no man’s land. The next 12 miles are so boring – you run in residential and industrial areas with no fans, no crowds, no noise, no bright lights, no nothing. This big chunk of the race felt very lonely to me; after running the strip with so much stimulation and running with a buddy, I was now bored and alone. fun. not.
I wasn’t looking at my watch because it was dark and I didn’t have the backlight on so I didn’t know it (or feel it) but my pace was starting to slow down in the later miles of the race, and I ended up positive splitting by about 3 minutes (running the second half of the race three minutes slower than the first half).
I hate when I positive split a race. I know I ran a lot of miles, my legs were tired, yada yah yah, but I still don’t like finishing a race slower than I started. I will always feel like I need to be mentally tougher and suck it up a little more. #fishermenmentality
I finished in 3:44:39, average pace of 8:35. I had given myself a 3:30-3:45 range and was hoping to be closer to the 30 part than the 45 part. Here’s a few splits from the race website:
Pace
5k 8:25
10k 8:24
13.1M 8:27
20M 8:37
It was a struggle mentally to stay in the race especially since I felt so bored during those middle miles. Running down a very short dead-end road at mile 14 wasn’t that great of entertainment; it was like they just added distance where ever they could – dark industrial road? perfect!
I also took it really cautiously in the later miles, as if I was running as gingerly as possible. I felt fine but in my mind, my knees were going to fall off on the roadside. I definitely don’t think I brought my best/toughest mental game to the party, but I think some of those worries and mental struggles just come with experience and familiarity with longer distances.
Next time I will put a hurt on 39 miles instead of it playing mind games with me.
Post-race a few “healthy” calories were consumed at Holsteins in the Cosmo: the California turkey burger and fries (for me), the adult birthday cake shake (for me and the boy), the Cereal Bowl/Captain Crunch shake, fried pickles appetizer (for me), lobster roll appetizer, ‘Mexican’ Car Bomb appetizer, and 4 other burgers completed our order, just a few small things.
*Thanks to PRO Compression for keeping me turnt out the whole weekend; I think I brought 6 pairs of the marathon socks with me, a shirt and tights. Even my husband mentioned that I was “turning into a runner and wearing compression gear all weekend long” which now that I think about it, might not have been a compliment… :/
