Rock N Roll Las Vegas - The Final 24 Hours

The last 24 hours in Las Vegas were a great big blur! Having a race start at 4:30 in the afternoon, somewhere it gets dark early, really messes with your head. Figuring out when to eat, if you should nap, how much you should eat, what to wear… its all just very different when its not happening at 6 in the morning.

After sleeping in for a bit and relaxing at the hotel I met some of my fellow Rock N Bloggers for lunch. Our original plans was burgers at Bobby’s Burger Palace, but their lack of a veggie burger killed that idea. Seriously Bobby? An entire restaurant dedicated to burgers and you couldn’t throw one measly little veggie burger on there? Oh well. Our second stop was 800 degrees for pizza. Even though I’d really wanted a burger, pizza sounded really good by the time we got to the front of the line. You could tell it was race day with a line of runners clear out the door.

800 degrees is a neat concept. It is kind of like Chipotle where you go along and tell them what you want and they put it on there. They have a few “ready to go” options up on the menu or you can customize it. Their 800 degree ovens mean by the time you are done paying for your pizza it is just about to come out of the oven. How cool is that?

After a slow walk back up the strip we all parted ways to go and get ready for the race. I kept going back and forth about my outfit, but finally decided that long sleeves were a must (this was the ABSOLUTE right call – more of that later). Finally around 3:30 we took the monorail down to the MGM and then walked the rest of the way to the race start. With 48 corrals we knew it was going to be awhile before we started, so we killed a little time walking around and taking some fun videos. Finally we decided it was time to make our way to our corral. It was cold and windy at the start and I was glad to be huddle together with my fellow runners for a bit.

Unfortunately about 15 minutes before our corral made it across the start line it started to rain. Yup, on top of the cold and wind it was now raining. See why that long sleeved top was a good idea? Once the rain started it seemed like they were letting the corrals go a little sooner and I was quite alright with that. At the start of the race you head south towards the airport and then turn around and head back up the strip. This route takes you right by the famous welcome to Las Vegas sign. Since we weren’t worried about time we went ahead and stopped for a picture. It was totally worth it!

I must admit that I was really hoping for better race weather. After the horribly hot and humid race in Savannah the weekend before I was looking forward to a nice cool night race… not a cold, windy, and rainy night race. But guess what? None of that mattered because I was running the freaking Las Vegas Strip at Night!! This was by far one of the coolest (ha ha) races I’ve ever done. It is just so neat knowing that the only other time they ever shut down the strip is on New Year’s Eve. Yup, they shut down the strip just for me. It was a REALLY hard race but it was worth every cold minute of it.

When I finally got across the finish line I knew that I had EARNED that medal. Las Vegas was half marathon #10 for me and I couldn’t have picked a more amazing race. When I ran my first half marathon I wasn’t even sure I was going to finish, but here I was finishing #10 and I was damn proud of myself. We didn’t stick around at the finish too long because it was cold and all we wanted was warm showers, dry clothes, food, and a tasty adult beverage. Within an hour we had all of those things! And yes, I did have my post race cupcake 🙂

The next morning I had just enough time to head to the We Run Social meetup at the Bellagio before having to head to the airport to catch my flight home. I was so excited to see my new Rock N Blogger friends one last time before I left and meet some of the bloggers that I only know online. The fountains at the Bellagio didn’t do their thing because of the insane wind (it was even worse than the night before) but we still have a great time chatting, showing off our medals, and of course taking some pictures. After lots of hugs and goodbyes I went back to the hotel for my luggage and was on my way out of Las Vegas. Yup, I was Leaving Las Vegas.

If there is one race that I think you need to add to your bucket list, this is it. Rock N Roll puts on one heck of an event and there is nothing like running on the strip at night. It was just an all around amazing and fun weekend. I got to meet new people, eat entirely too much food, walk too many miles, take lots of pictures, and finish off the weekend with a 13.1 run up (and down) the Las Vegas trip. Not too shabby.