There’ve been more than a few “Las Vegas Marathons.” There was an original course way back in the day that ran you out into the desert. Then Rock N Roll took it over for many years and had part of it run on the strip… sometimes early morning, more than once late at night with the bright lights ready to set your soul on fire. The REVEL folks (or their new corporate overlords as I think they were bought out recently? Maybe not)… they have a Las Vegas Marathon as well.
But last year marked an inaugural ‘Original Las Vegas Marathon‘ event put on by a smaller company, one that typically organizes a lot of races out in Ventura County (of the infamous loops along the PCH variety which I’ve done a number of times in various iterations/course titles). It was originally pitched as running the old course, hence the “original” moniker. I couldn’t run it last year for a variety of reasons but thought I’d give it a go for this, its second year running. I have to imagine the course has changed. This one was run along a bike path that was also kinda a sidewalk at times and at one stage into a neighborhood itself (though that was apparently in error as either I mistook a turn or the bike rider who was leading our early starters pack out was given a bad map).
Yes, for the second week in a row, I got lost on a course. This one was partly due to hubris and arrogance — I thought I understood bike paths and routings. Fool me twice, shame on me, yeah?
All in, the race was an out and back, two loop course along, as I said, kinda sorta a bike path. A few road crossings patrolled by police to help us get across. A few detours both intentional and unintentional. It felt on brand for the folks who put those Ventura races on. That’s not a complaint, just an observation.
What I like about these folks are that they are a small but mighty organization that really does try to give you some value for money. There’s a shirt and a windbreaker jacket. They offer race day pickup at no charge. Early starts for those of us who just want to get it going. I opted for the early start as I drove out from Los Angeles at midnight for the race… I couldn’t sleep so left a little earlier than I intended and with minimal traffic save for end-of-night Ubers in Hollywood and “where are these people going?!” stragglers on the freeways, I made great time out to the city of sin… or in this case, its adjacent city, Henderson. The course wasn’t really designed to be spotted and sighted in the pitch black, pre-dawn light. But that’s the price you pay for getting going at 5:07 AM rather than 6.
The views were fine when the sun peeked itself through the mountain ranges… though running directly into the sun at times made for a surprise encounter of a runner lost in the corona. That’s not a drunk running joke – literally it was hard to spot people running toward you on their back portion when you were running out, the direct sunlight obliterating details.
Per the new normal of my slightly broken “but maybe it just prefers the words” website, I’m unable to load photos onto this post. That includes the inflatable Elvis mascot that wouldn’t be out of place amongst the brave heroes of Portland… or of my free Dunkin’ Donut at the finish that I thought would be a “I haven’t had one in a stone’s age” treat but turned out to not sit well with me. If I can’t enjoy a donut after running a marathon, maybe I’m not a donut guy. Croissants all day.
As a funny aside to all this technical difficulties/wordsmith opportunities, I got an email from The Wild, Wild West Marathon’s team saying they had posted free race pics here. They didn’t get a single photo of me. As with this blog post, is it still true in the social media era that one must have pics or it didn’t happen? What do I care, as I’m very much anti-social media (save for this silly blog… you won’t find me on Facebook and my instagram account has been locked for years… there might still be a Friendster widow hanging about the ether… and a MySpace page if you look hard enough).
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Closing thoughts: This race was originally more of a warmup for a REVEL race in November. But due to landslides, that race has been cancelled as there’s no where to run 26.2 miles at Big Bear. Ironic as I suppose one might say the same thing about Lone Pine… there you just had to blaze your own path like settlers of old! You’d think the same could be done by Revel runners… albeit maybe that’s not a good idea.
I’m still nursing a bit of an ankle injury from Wild, Wild West’s trails… it bothered me all 26.2+ miles today on the course but it didn’t hurt any more or less when I finished than when I started. So if the net result is a non-issue, I’m not going to be too worried about it.
Nonetheless, I’m rethinking my plan of adding a different race the Big Bear weekend as I’ll already be in town. It’s actually run by these same folks – it’s the Santa Clarita Marathon which I’ve run before. The other option is a multi-day event at the Four Corners in December, with a different state as the starting location each day. Let’s see how the ankle feels in a few days.