From ER to PR: A Sasquatch Takes Vegas

Ah, Las Vegas … Sin City … the City of Lights …  a crossroads of human peculiarity closely resembling a cracked out, urban format version of ‘True Blood’ where the abs are replaced by copious amounts of cowboy hats.  Apparently marathon weekend also featured the rodeo and professional bull riding, so, needless to say too much more, this was a truly colorful and shapely people-watching weekend!  Regardless, Vegas was my A-race, the one that I sunk more blood, sweat and miles into than I have for any other race in nearly four years.  This was my fourth attempt at the sub-3-hour marathon, which has eluded by as little as 59-seconds and as much as 18-minutes.  But this time it was going to be different, right?  The work was done, conditions were prime, there was nothing standing in the way of my success, was there?

Four years ago I set my marathon PR during the Boston marathon, racing against my buddy Justin in a friendly bit of competition, I ran a 3:00:58, which was fantastic!  Why did I fall short then?  I calorie crashed late in the race, the timing of my nutrition was a bit off.  After that I flopped two more attempts, the next at the 2010 Chicago marathon, where I flopped horribly thanks to an extremely syrupy Gatorade mix that prompted an untimely, repetitious bout of regurgitation from miles 16 to 22 … finish time, 3:10:49.  My third strike came at the 2011 Boston marathon where, once again, errors in nutrition culminated in a less than spectacular finish time (3:16:18), but a fantastic story and finishing photo.  The most important thing for me to take away from all of these races was what I learned from my mistakes, right?  Of course!!  And you can bet your ass I did, but the learning curve was obviously quite a bit flatter than I would have hoped for … apparently I’m a little slow.  Now with all that fine learning and raceducation, what could possibly go wrong on attempt ole lucky number 4?!

Picture it, Massachusetts, Thanksgiving weekend, second week of taper and my eyes squarely focused on Las Vegas.  Strong.  Fit.  Fast.  Healthy.  Oh no … wait just one second … yah, about that last one, yaaaaaaaah, not so much.  While home with my entire family for the holiday weekend, my darling sister was sick with the black plague of upper respiratory infections, which I apparently contracted out of pure brotherly love.  As a result, I spent the bulk of that weekend just trying to sweat the damn thing out, laboring with a 102+ fever and looking like a mere shade of the healthy self that ran the Turkey Trot that Thursday morning bright and early.  Now, you may ask, “Did I still run that weekend?”  Ha! Please, you know I did, but it was a seriously cut down version of what I had planned on doing.  I mean seriously, you’d think that with my ridiculously congested lungs and lovely fever that that would be enough of an obstacle heading into race week for me to deal with, but I had no such luck, and this was soooooo far from over.

Tuesday morning rolls around, still battling this upper respiratory crap, and I wake up looking like friggin’ Eddie Murphy in ‘The Nutty Professor’ with a lower lip the size of a banana boat!  I really, really wish I was making this stuff up, but there it is!!!  After trying a few different ways of dealing with this apparent allergic reaction, to what I am still uncertain, I went to the ER where I was given steroids for the allergic reaction and then a potpourri of other drugs to deal with the chowder in my lungs and the lingering fever that just didn’t feel like leaving.  In the span of a week my body had gone from being primed for greatness to a pharmaceutical waste dump that could barely run half a mile without coughing up a pound or twos worth of globular mucous masses.  I was a hot mess and starting to FREAK out about race day.

Fast forward a few days and I’m staring to be on the mend, but the lungs are still pretty shoddy.  I get to Vegas on Friday night and it’s colder there than it is on the East Coast! What the hell is that all about?  To be fair, the weather conditions when I got there were pretty perfect, mid to high 50s with a light wind, that is until the following morning.  I get up for my shakeout run with an few 100m pick ups thrown in the mix and I end up running in a nippy 37-degree sunny morning with a 20-25 mph wind kicking around, just what I always wanted!!!! Regardless, my legs felt good and I was looking forward to meeting up with some Twitter folk for dinner that evening (@SkibbaDoo, @SugarMagnolia70, @CoachKristieLV, @Moonkinrunning, @_SilverGirl_, @SnowVols) and just having a chill night, which I did.  It really was pretty sweet.

Race day morning, just to add to the pressure of the weekend, my coach for this race, the White She-Devil (@le_diable), arrived to come and lay witness to her handiwork in person, or, in her words, “make sure you don’t f*ck up.”  We go grab breakfast at Einstein’s Bagels and review our race plan one more time.  While there she tells me about one of her friends that ran that morning, went out a smidge too fast, pushed their limits, buckled a bit in the last 10k, but threw everything she had at her race.  The story stuck with me and reaffirmed the validity of our plan for the day: don’t go out too fast, be patient through the first half, and make the second half of the race my bitch!!  Shortly after breakfast we went and met up with Jamie (@lucky7runner), a fellow Team Sasquatcher, and picked up a pair of arm sleeves from her, which I had asked her to grab while at the expo since it seemed like it was going to be a bit colder than I had prepared for (I will forever be in your debt Jamie).  I grabbed the sleeves, wished Jamie good luck in the half, and went upstairs to put my feet up until go time.

Time marched along quickly and it was soon time to get ready to rumble. I got changed, threw on some SERIOUS metal to get my head in the right brain space, did a few down and up dogs to stretch out my hips, calves and hamstrings, and then it was out onto Las Vegas Boulevard to get loose with WSD.  For those who know me, as serious as I do get pre-race I am still a goof, so imagining me skipping down the street doing my plyo-metric leg looseners, followed by a nice easy jog, is not all that odd.  After hitting the bathroom it was off to corral #2, which was a joke, because they didn’t check bibs or segregate the waves at all, and I saw my friend Jennifer (@jnnnln) all ready to go.  We not-so-stealthily edged our way forward and claimed our place in what then appeared to be the lead pack?  You really couldn’t tell at all and, in the end, who cared.?! They weren’t really paying attention to anything going on in the corrals.

BOOM!  The gun sounded and the time for wondering was over, it was time to see what I could do.

The first section of the marathon course randomly wove and braided through some weird “neighborhoods” and industrial park-like areas that were quiet, isolated, and with very little if any crowd support.  To be honest, I didn’t care at all, because I was on a mission and there wasn’t anything that was going to distract me from my objective.  Every once in a while on the course I saw the WSD running in the opposite direction, keeping me on task.  I kept the pace comfortable, smooth, and right in the vicinity we had talked about (6:40ish) through the first half, basically hanging with a small cluster of wily gentlemen that kept me in check.  Once I hit the half-marathon mark EVERYTHING changed and the gloves came off …

… and apparently so did the wheels for the race organizers as the Full marathoners collided with the Half runners, like a sweat swelled tsunami.  Interestingly enough, the half-marathon was supposed to start about 90-minutes AFTER the full, with the two merging and sharing Las Vegas Boulevard, etc., for the rest of the race.  Only problem was that the half started a little early and when I got to the merge, which was a sharp left, I literally slammed right into three or four people from the half running 8 or 9-minute miles that were pushing into the single lane delineated for the full.  I felt like the Blues Brothers driving through the city streets of Chicago the way people were slamming into each other all running down the finish line; it’s 13.1 miles to the finish line, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of endurolytes, it’s dark, and we’re wearing sunglasses. Some choice words were issued for me regarding my fore-checking skills, which I dutifully disregarded, and the race continued, albeit with a slight change in tone.  Honestly, I got so pissed off at the fact that the half was now greedily usurping the ENTIRE road that my nice 6:30ish pace I’d been holding erupted to more like a 6:10ish pace.  If I could have laid waste to all the people that had forced their way into the marathon lane, which was no larger than the Central Park bike lane, I would have.  I’m sorry, I’m usually not so aggressive about such things, but I was not going to let this logistical snafu jeopardize everything I worked for.

When I first signed up for this race I honestly thought running the strip would have been more fun, enjoying the pretty lights and interesting people, but I got in such a zone that everything else just disappeared and I just kept pushing.  For a time I had no idea where I was on the course, because there were at least 3-4 mile markers that were missing, but once I figured out where I was my thoughts returned to the story of the runner from that morning.  All I kept thinking about was that last 10k, “there is no way I am slowing down. Whatever I have left is going to be left on this course and slowing down is NOT an option.”

In the last 10k, I did slow a little, but not a lot.  The head wind that had picked up with about 7-miles to go was starting to wear on me, as was the long false flat that I had been staring at.  Within 2-miles of the finish everything was on fire, but I could see the Mandalay Bay was close and that meant the finish was not far from my grasp.  Those last 2-miles seemed to last FOREVER regardless of how hard I kept pushing, and, to be fair, I spoke with 3 people later on that had the course measured out a little more than a half-mile too long, based on their Garmins.  The last few turns to the finish line were horrible, but I was there and the clock read 2:50!!!!

As I crossed the finish line I tried catching my breath, but my lungs just wouldn’t allow it thanks to all the sludge and congestion and all I could do was cough.  Every step or two another violent cough, which started to worry me cause I was starting to feel a little light headed.  I took a second to gather myself and decided to go into the medical tent to warm my lungs up for a minute and see if that would help at all, which it did.  Sitting there in the empty tent it hadn’t even fully set in yet, I hadn’t even looked at my watch to see my time!!!

Victory NEVER felt so sweet!! Official finish time 2:50:29 (10:29 PR), 27^th Overall Finisher, 25^th Male, 7^th in AG, and, a negative split on the back half that also was a half-marathon PR (1:26:08 first half, 1:24:21 second half).  The plan, the training, and the weather was pretty much perfect even if my health wasn’t and the night was mine to revel in!!