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.
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