2006 New Las Vegas Marathon

by Larry Zurawski

I ran the second annual New Las Vegas Marathon (not to be confused with the old Las Vegas Marathon, which was held in February until last year) on December 10, 2006. The official name this year was “The New Las Vegas Marathon and Half Marathon” (they didn’t have a half in 2005), and it was promoted as “bigger and better than ever”.

Bigger? Not unless you count both races. There were over 8,000 marathon finishers in 2005, but fewer than 6,000 in 2006. Better? Not by any measure. 2005 had most of the makings of a world-class race: Excellent organization, a fast-and-not-overcrowded course, a strong field of elite runners, an attractive destination, and the usual Vegas gimmicks that added some fun without interfering with the race.

The course starts on the south end of The Strip, in front of Mandalay Bay, and follows The Strip north for the first 6 miles (which is pretty cool). It then turns west and passes through Fremont Street (the old downtown, which is even cooler). The half marathon heads back south at this point. The marathon continues in a big rectangle around the city, and finishes in the parking lot in back of Mandalay Bay.

In 2005, I had the race of my life, and ideal weather conditions, and finished with a PR time of 3:21:15, qualifying me for Boston for the first time. I felt that I was in slightly better shape this year, and that if I had a good day and the weather cooperated, I had another PR in me, and might even be able to run as fast as 3:18. As it turns out, the weather did not cooperate, as there was a strong head wind for most of the second half of the race, and I finished in 3:22:11. No complaints about that, especially considering that I had to do battle with the wind.

So, I had a good race, but that’s not what I’ll remember about Vegas 2006. What I will remember is the race organization (or lack thereof). It was pathetic to the point of being funny. Everything that was done right in 2005 was done wrong in 2006. I have no idea why, because the same company (Devine Racing) ran the show both years. As I cover my race experience in detail in the following paragraphs, I’ll include everything that was done wrong. I’m doing this not to whine and complain, but because in retrospect, I find a lot of it funny in a sad-but-entertaining sort of way.

The first snafu occurred at the expo on Saturday. The chips did not include ties. I asked about this and was told to run my laces through the chip. Fortunately, somebody found a handful of ties a while later. There was also a lot of confusion about corrals and color-coded bibs, which finally got sorted out. Also, they handed out cheap cotton T shirts, which were a far cry from last year’s Coolmax shirts.

I squeezed myself into the 3-to-4-hour corral at around 5:45AM on Sunday for the (scheduled) 6AM start. In 2005 the corral was relatively uncrowded, but this year it was packed like a cattle car since it also served as the 1:30-to-2-hour half marathon corral. I stood there while Blue Man Group performed, Robin Leach gave a speech (I have no idea why), and fireworks went off. Then the elite woman started (yes, there was only ONE elite female runner) about 17 minutes ahead of the rest of the field. She got a head start over the men, and the first one to cross the finish line (a man, who passed her after mile 25) won $50,000.

Finally (about 15 minutes late) the gun sounded and we were off. But not as quickly as I had hoped. I was lined up on the left side of the corral, and at the last minute, without warning, they decided to funnel everybody to the right to accommodate a horde of photographers. Picture the left lane closed without warning on the interstate and you’ll get an idea of the merging problem that this caused. As a result of the merging, I got behind a lot of the slower runners, which meant more passing in the early miles.

A couple hundred feet before the overhead banner, a chip mat appeared without warning. I assumed that this wasn’t the real start, and that there would be another mat under the banner, but of course I was wrong and my watch was off from the very beginning. It didn’t take me long to get up to my race pace, but that changed after about a mile when I found myself behind a wall of very slow runners. I think these were the Las Vegas Roadrunners, the local running club that was allowed to start right behind the elite runners, and they were oblivious to everyone behind them. I worked my way through the wall and got up to pace again.

After another mile or so, I got caught behind another wall, this time of Running Elvises. Feeling a little guilty, since they were the main attraction, I pushed my way through them, and almost tripped over a guitar in the process. At that point, things opened up enough that I could begin to see mile markers (and the Elvises turned off into the wedding chapel at mile 5 to participate in the mass marriage ceremony). I clocked a 7:41 mile (slower than I wanted), followed by 7:39 (still too slow), followed by 6:46 (OK, the last 2 miles were short), 6:04 (they were really short!), then 10 minutes (what the %&^*&^&%?)! At that point, I decided to ignore most of the mile markers, run by feel rather than time, and only trust the major miles markers, like 10 and 20, which couldn’t possibly be wrong (or could they?)

I got to the 10 mile marker (not to be confused with the 10 mile mark, although I didn’t know it at the time), in just over 74 minutes, a 7:25 pace, which is exactly what I wanted. At this point, the head wind became a major factor, and it would continue to be a factor for most of the remaining miles. I was feeling strong and kept plugging ahead into the wind, running with my head down like a buffalo when necessary. Quite a distance past the 13 miler marker, I crossed a chip mat with a time of 1:40. I assumed this was more-or-less the halfway mark, but had no reason to believe it was accurate (it turns out that it was) based on my experience with the mile markers.

At that point, since I was feeling strong, I picked up my effort a bit and actually passed a few people. The next few miles were uneventful. I continued chugging along, feeling strong but getting tired of running into the wind. The next memory that sticks with me occurred somewhere beyond the 19 mile marker. I crossed a chip mat, and the runner next to me asked “is that 20?”. I told him no way it was 20, since my watch only read 2:23 at that point, so we figured it was just some random placement. I later found out that the mat was at 30K, or 18.6 miles, which in every other race I’ve ever run was before the 19 mile marker. About 6 minutes later, I got to the 20 mile marker. I didn’t really trust it, but figured that, if I was going to trust any mile marker, it might as well be mile 20. It told me that I was on about a 3:16 pace. That sounded too good to be true (I might have believed 3:18), but it was all I had to go on, and I figured it was at least a solid ballpark estimate. In retrospect, I told myself (to quote Napoleon Dynamite): “Gosh! Idiot!” for believing anything at this point. It turns out that the 20 mile marker was about a half mile short!

At this point, I got a reprieve from the wind for a couple of miles as the course headed to the west through mile 24. I was still feeling strong. Not at all depleted, and not feeling at all close to bonking. I even felt sufficiently hydrated to skip a few aid stations. Quite a distance past the 20 mile marker, I spotted a small “35K” spray painted on the curb. I calculated my pace based on this, and it told me quite a different story from the mile markers. It told me that I was on a 3:21+ pace, which unfortunately turned out to be accurate.

Somewhere between miles 23 and 24, the course turns back to the south, and goes along behind several big hotels: Bellagio’s, Excalibur, Luxor, and a few others that I can’t remember. In 2005, this part of the course was wide open, and provided a nice tail wind. This year, it had the worst head wind of the whole race, and was swarming with half marathoners who were run/walking at about a 15 minute pace. I’ve never in my life seen this many slow runners! I felt like a sideshow - a lone marathoner (actually one of a few) crashing their party, and I’m sure that just about everyone else who ran the marathon in under 4 hours felt the same way. I saw the 24 mile marker and paid no attention to it. Shortly after that, I passed a band singing a song who’s only words were “2 miles to go, 2 miles to go”. Shortly after that, I passed another 24 mile marker, which I think was more-or-less at the 25 mile mark. The leader of the sub-3:20 pace group passed me, but he was all alone. I’m guessing that everyone in his group fell off the pace because of the wind.

At that point, with the sun in my eyes, wind in my face, and run/walkers all around me, I had the odd sensation of not feeling my legs. It’s not like they were numb or anything, and I was moving pretty well, but it felt different. Maybe all of the other distractions caused my senses to focus elsewhere. I ran alongside Mandalay Bay forever, and finally made a left turn into the parking lot shortly before mile 26. Up to this point, the half marathoners were reasonably separated from the few marathoner, but all bets were off after the left turn. I brushed against one of them, dodged a couple more, and narrowly missed nailing another one solidly in the back. After a few twists and turns I saw two adjacent finishing chutes, with 3 different clocks above them, showing 3 different times. So I still didn’t know my pace! I wasn’t quite sure where to go. Since most people were going through the chute on the left, I picked the one on the right, which turned out to be the correct choice.

After I crossed the finish line, I felt a feeling (or lack thereof) that I’d never experienced before at the end of a marathon: Ambivalence. I didn’t know how I felt about my race. I missed a PR, but knew that I had run a good race, and that I probably would have gotten the PR if there had been less wind or accurate mile markers. I didn’t feel the usual elation upon finishing because I felt more like I had crashed a half marathon party than that I had finished a marathon.

First stop in the finish area was for chip removal. The volunteer removing the chip didn’t even have scissors! I won’t blame her if she doesn’t offer to volunteer again next year. Fortunately, she was strong enough to yank it off. Next stop was the finisher medal. Last year’s medals were cool. This year’s were lame. Next stop was the photo op. They give you a choice of being photographed with either Elvis or a show girl. Nice touch. Last year I chose the show girl. No waiting! This year I skipped the photo op because I didn’t want to stand in the long line.

I walked over to the food area, expecting to find something good done up Vegas style. There was plenty of water. And a few bananas. That was it. Most of it had been consumed by the 5000 half marathons who finished before me. And it was hard to get to because the spectators were hanging around the tables. That’s right, they allowed spectators into the finish area. Can you imagine that at Boston, or Grandma’s, or Chicago? I grabbed a couple bottles of water and got out of there.

On Sunday night, I watched a replay of the TV broadcast. As I watched the finish, I felt bad for the winner and embarrassed for the organizers. First, picture the finish at your favorite world-class marathon. The leader is all alone, and the throngs of spectators are all focused on him. What I saw at Vegas was a lone marathon runner being gawked at by a horde of 2:16 half marathoners running along side of him, with several police motorcycles clearing the way for him. There were plenty of spectators, but they weren’t cheering for him. They were all yelling out the name of their favorite friend or loved one who happened to be finishing the half marathon at the same time. I wonder how many of the spectators even realized that the marathon winner was approaching? With a couple hundred yards to go, the marathon leader hesitated and looked around. In all of the confusion, he didn’t know where to go (I can relate). If it had been a close race, the hesitation could have cost him the race.

The marathon was the headline story in Monday morning’s newspaper. I even found a small paragraph that mentioned the winner of the race. All of the other coverage focused on the Running Elvises and mass marriage ceremony at mile 5. Needless to say, they didn’t publish any race results.

Splits were slow in coming, but they finally showed up on the web this morning. I ran 1:40:10 for the first half and 1:42:01 for the second half. I’m very happy with that, since it’s more-or-less even splits if you adjust for the wind. I finished 273^rd out of 5957 marathon finishers, and 42 out of 629 in the male 40-to-44 age group. And I beat over 700 of the half marathoners!

The more I think about the race, the more my reaction is: “What were they thinking?” And how could the race organizers follow up an excellent 2005 effort with such a pathetic effort in 2006? It’s funny, it’s sad, and it’s pathetic. But more and more, my prevailing feeling is that it’s just plain weird!