Christmas!

I had a great Christmas. Everything was perfect.

Almost.

The EW got to make her first trip to Tulsa to spend Christmas with me and my family. From all accounts, everyone got along without incident (a good thing). We spent most of the weekend eating, entertaining my nieces and nephews, and eating some more. There is nothing like having the nephew run up stairs Christmas morning telling me and Courtney to "get up! Santa came and he can't open the presents until EVERYONE is down there". So we had to get up immediately. You can't beat Christmas with the kids.

On the gift front, my Garmin was upgraded to a 305 (my 201 got re-gifted to my sister contingent to me getting the 305). I can't wait to give the heart rate monitor a try and see how that modifies my training regiment.

Unfortunately, that may not be for a couple of days as Santa also brought me a bum Achilles. I am not sure how it happened. I ran 8 miles, averagiing 10:30 miles, Saturday morning and felt great. But somewhere between Kansas City and Coffeville, KS, my left Achilles started hurting. By the time Courtney and I stopped at the Braum's in Coffeville for lunch, I could barely put any weight on it.

This is the same injury that sort of sidelined me in the summer of 2005. I say "sort of" because while I took some planned time off from running, I still played softball, volleyball, tennis and everything else. So really, it didn't slow me down. I am hopeful that this will be the case, again.

That being said, I will be taking it easy this week. I may take a short run tomorrow and see how it does, but other than that, it is swimming, spinning and eliptical for me. I am supposed to run 14 on Saturday. We'll see how thing progress this week.

I hope everyone elses Christmas was a wonderful as mine was.

Vegas...the race recap

OK, so the vegas race report is a few days delayed. My bad.

But damnit, I was in Vegas for four days and really, recovery time was needed. If nothing else, Vegas was non-stop.

Several things about running in Vegas surprised me. Naturally, the first place I went upon arriving to Vegas was the sports book to check out the college basketball lines. Well, looking at the boards, the first thing I saw was the line for the Vegas Marathon.

Sweet! I could bet on myself to win the marathon. Wait. My name wasn't listed. What the hell. Come on. I signed up. I have a chance. I could win it. Where are my odds?

Then I noticed the word "field".

What.

Are those oddsmakers lumping me in with every other non-Kenyan runner. That's just not right.

I would have laid down a $5 bet had they put my name on the wager.

Oh well, it isn't like I was really going to win.

The weather in Vegas was cool and windy marathon morning. I enjoyed the cool weather. The wind, not so much. Also, the start line was chaotic as non-participants were mingling with participants in the corrals.
Needless to say, the start was chaotic and unorganized. But it was Vegas. What was I supposed to expect..


But once we got started, running down Las Vegas Boulevard was fun. Some of those casinos are just amazing.

That, and the fact that several couples were getting married at the "run-thru" chappel on the strip.

And what would a Vegas wedding be without Elvis.

The first 6 miles were a good time. Had the organizers done anything at all with the last 20, I may have enjoyed this marathon.

But once we turned off of Freemont Street, my attitude changed from "Wow, look at me. I am really rocking" to "Look, I just ran another 1/10th of a mile. I only have 143 tenths left".

The course was boring.

I ran faster than I wanted to just to end the misery.

It worked, too.

Because at mile 23, I was still ahead of the 5-hour pace group. I wasn't ready for that. I wasn't supposed to PR in Vegas. Not only that, but I didn't want to PR in Vegas. I wasn't ready for a PR. This was supposed to be a 5:30 struggle because I hadn't really run that much this fall.

But there I was. Sitting at 4:24 with 3.2 miles left.

And what did I do.

I started walking/running/walking/running.

My last 3.2 miles averaged a 14-15 minute pace. I finished in 5:09.

I then found Elvis.

And a beer.

And that was Vegas

It's not that I don't care...

I don't think I have ever been more relaxed going into marathon week.

And to be honest, I can only blame the location. I'm going to Vegas to run a marathon.

Let me say that again.

I'm going to Vegas to run a marathon.

Does anyone else see a problem with that statement. There are a lot of places you go to run a marathon. Vegas is not one of them. You go to Vegas to gamble. You go to Vegas to party. You go to Vegas for the cheap buffet lines. You go to Vegas for the shows. You don't go to Vegas to run a marathon.

But I am.

Normally, I would interject that at least I am going to Vegas with others planning on running the marathon and they will keep me honest. This is partially true. But a group of my college friends will also be in Vegas this weekend celebrating a friends husbands' 50th birthday (to clarify, he is much older than she is). It is safe to say that this group will be a little wild.

And that group of runners I am going out there with? Well, when they went out to Vegas for the marathon last year, rumor has it that they were seen on the casino floors 4 hours before the marathon started.

Needless to say, there probably won't be a PR this weekend.