Who runs 2 races in 24 hours?

What brought us to Vegas in the first place was to participate in the Rock'n'Roll Half Marathon, 10k & 5k races taking place in the span of 24 hours over a weekend. Preparing for 1 distance run takes enough work, but preparing for 2 races back to back? Who does that? Well....evidently Z and I. Now I'll admit my back to back races were the shorter two distances, but even still it took quite a lot of effort especially considering I posted my best 5k time. I had a little motivation on this one....


I started this race with Z and another friend; both run faster than me and so I really wanted to keep pace with them because it is sometimes nice to be running with people you know instead of always on your own. This race started at the event grounds by the SLS Las Vegas where they had music blasting and handed out light batons to the runners seeing as the race was a night race. The route was OK... we ran a path along the fair grounds towards one of the streets and ran a u-loop on the street before entering back onto the fair grounds and zigzagging the grounds for the remaining 2k. They had a couple music stations set up blasting some good tunes to keep us going. A decent amount of spectators cheered us on along the way too! This was my first night race and it was pretty cool. About 9000 runners participated in this one. 


The next day, late afternoon I made my way back to the SLS Las Vegas which also served as the start line for my 10k race. Here I was greeted with a concert by an 80's cover band. They were actually quite good and we were singing and dancing in the street while we waited for the start. This race had about 6000 runners. The course was a street course and it took us through downtown Vegas, past a couple wedding chapels and with a short distance along Freemont Street before heading onto Las Vegas Blvd towards the strip. The really cool thing about the Vegas Rock'n'Roll races is that they shut down both sides of the strip to traffic and pedestrians to accommodate the runners and we all finished in front of The Mirage hotel. There's nothing to describe the cool feeling of running down Las Vegas Blvd and seeing the grand hotels on either side of the road. The half and marathon, had about 34,000 runners (most ran the half). Their headliner concert was Kid Rock!! I'm not a fan of Kid Rock, so not disappointed in the least bit to have missed that concert, but do think it's really cool that they got such a big name to perform. Overall I'd say the races were very well organized and well run. They had a lot of volunteers along the route at various fuel stations....that must take a lot of effort to organize. The expo was quite large and had a lot of exhibitors with some pretty good deals....I picked up my first pair of compression calf sleeves for 1/2 price! Score on that one....wish I had picked up a second pair after using them. 

It took a little different preparation for a night run than other races I've done.  The biggest difference was figuring out the timing of eating because you don't want to eat too late so you cramp up but you also don't want to eat too early so that you don't have enough fuel in you. And what to do all day? We walked around a lot the days leading up to the races and I didn't exactly wear the best shoes  for all that walking so one of my feet was hurting quite a bit. Z is so awesome!! As we were driving back to the hotel from Red Rock he "tricked" me and took me to a shoe store instead and I got to buy a new pair of shoes better suited for walking!! Thankfully we also had an awesome hotel room and we opted for chillin' on race days which definitely helped. 

Red Rock Canyon and The Hoover Dam

We came to Vegas a few days before our races so we could have a mini vacation and do a little sightseeing away from the busyness of Vegas. We took a drive out to Red Rock Canyon where as the name suggests you find large red rock formations. The area is a national conservation area and while we didn't see any wild life, there are signs that indicate you could encounter rattlesnakes and lizards. We stopped in one area that is popular with climbers. The rock here was very smooth in texture and mostly two toned in colour- red and white but the colours were alternately layered on one another. It was certainly a natural wonder. From here we took the 13-mile scenic drive through the conservation area. There are plenty of trails along the way, which if we weren't running in a couple days we may have considered doing one, but we wanted to save our legs and feet for the weekend. The drive really is extremely scenic and there are plenty of places to stop for photo ops. The vegetation for being in an arid desert seemed to be alive and well. This was a very cool place to visit and didn't really take much time out of our day.

Another day trip was to the engineering marvel known as the Hoover Dam. Built in 5 years during the Great Depression, and using over 3 million cubic yards of concrete this structure is certainly worth seeing when in the area. We paid $10 for parking and from there it was free to roam around the dam. You can take a guided tour but we opted to skip that. The Dam is not only used to generate power, but also acts as a water source for municipal and irrigation uses. We also stopped at the Mike O'Callaghan Pat Timman Memorial Bridge and walked to the middle to chat a view of the dam from the front. What an incredible sight!! This arch shaped bridge connects Nevada and Arizona south of the Hoover Dam and rises 890 feet above the Colorado River.

Viva Las Vegas

What to do when you have both a travel bug and a running bug? Travel for a run of course!! We're off the Vegas for the Rock'n'Roll marathon weekend where I'll be running my first back to back race....5k Saturday evening and 10k Sunday afternoon; Z is doing the 5 and then the half. This is one of only two times a year when the Vegas Strip will be closed to traffic so that thousands of runners can run down the strip to the finish line.

Our trip started with Air Canada moving our original seats so that Z and I were not sitting together. How annoying.....we've been fortunate not to have experienced this before, thankfully it wasn't that long of a trip. Unfortunately I couldn't entice my seats mates to trade aisle for window either. The flight was an AC Rouge flight which is very crammed in the back. It's interesting that AC has moved so many of their flights to Rouge....I guess it's all about trying to save costs and cram more paying customers into a plane. Too bad customers just accept this as the norm. In flight service is provided through their app which you have to download prior to flying and the entertainment selection quite frankly sucks! No recent movies available for my viewing pleasure. Again thankfully it wasn't a long flight and it was a means to get us to our destination. Not only did we no get seated together but somewhere along the journey Z's suitcase handle got broken....we're blaming AC!!

Hello Vegas, it's been a few years!! Let's see how you've changed (if at all) since the last time I visited. Had a very pleasant taxi driver take us to our hotel, The Cosmopolitan. Turns out he'll be volunteering at the race this weekend in one of the medical tents; really hope we don't see him again!!

Our check in was easy and we managed to get ourselves a pretty stellar upgrade. At first the desk clerk indicated that hotel management was cracking down on upgrades and people were losing their jobs by giving upgrades that weren't allowed but as we went through the process. We asked for a Bellagio fountain view room which he agreed he could do but it would be two queen beds...we preferred a king bed and as we continued talking and he remembered we were here for the runs, he decided it would be better to put us in the east tower as it was closer to the strip and where the runners' exit would be. Turns out he ended up putting us in a king sized terrace suite with an awesome view of the Bellagio water fountains. Oh yeah, one of the cool things about the Cosmo is that the rooms have balconies, something you don't find at other hotels.

After settling into our room we went for lunch at Milos, one of the many restaurants at the hotel. Here we enjoyed a pre-set three course lunch....the service was fantastic, our server was ever so friendly and made some really great recommendations that we throughly enjoyed. We each started off with a tomato salad which turned out to be a very tasty take on a Greek salad, I had the chicken skewer as my main which included immensely moist chicken breast that was seasoned to perfection, Z enjoyed the sea bass....they fly their sea food in fresh in every day and they actually display it on ice in front of the kitchen area, along with other fresh ingredients....Z really enjoyed his fish, and for dessert we shared the fresh fruit plate and the walnut cake which was one of our server's recommendations. The walnut cake was heavenly......so moist and difficult to keep up my end of the bargain in sharing, but I was good and did somewhat to Z's surprise.

Z had bought a discounted ticket for the High Roller, so we made our way there after lunch. The High Roller is a relatively new attraction in Vegas and is like the London Eye, a big ferris wheel but with enclosed cabins that can hold up to 40 people. It wasn't really busy when we arrived so we only had 9 people in our cabin. The ride takes about a half hour and gives some of the best 360 views of Vegas as you ascend to the highest point of 550 ft. I wasn't entirely sold on doing this when Z first mentioned it, but very glad he bought the tickets anyways because it was a pretty cool experience. The views were stunning and we hit it just at the right time and got to experience the sun setting. Just absolutely breathtaking and hard to describe the light effect on the dessert mountains when the sun sets and you can see that from up high.

Leaving the High Roller we strolled along the Linq pedestrian street and enjoyed some ice cream despite the cool weather. This ice cream place also had cookies and cupcakes and because we are in the city that "never sleeps" they even have a 24-hour cupcake ATM just in case you have a need for a cupcake at 3am.

We capped off our first day with O....an aquatic performance by Cirque that combines Cirque's astonishing acrobatics with a giant water pool that also turns into a dry(ish) stage at various points in the performance. This show is unlike any others I've seen before.....the cast consists of acrobats, synchronize swimmers and divers, all of which end up in the water at some point and usually in a very spectacular fashion. This is definitely a show to be seen. I was amazed at every aspect of it. The only criticism I have is that at time there were so many cool and amazing things going on it was hard to know where to focus my attention. I would highly recommend this one and suggest a seat higher up in the venue so to have a better view of the show without having to constantly be looking up.