Rock and Roll Half Marathon - Las Vegas by Klaus Fritzsche

Dec 4, 2011

Linda( Kalina's training buddy), Kalina and me in Las Vegas

Last August we had the pleasure of having both our daughters and our grandson home for an extended visit. During that time, Kalina, our youngest, announced that she had joined a running group and their target race was the Rock and Roll half marathon taking place in Las Vegas on Dec 4. I was thrilled because, although Kalina has always been active, up to now she had never embraced the sport as I had. Then when she asked me to train along with her and come to Vegas and run with her I was blown away! She then went on to explain that it was also a fund raiser for the Crohn's and Colitis foundation of America - a cause I am all too personally familiar with. I was in!

And so, for the next 14 weeks we followed her training program, Kalina in Portland, Oregon and me here in Ontario. It was a good program including 4 runs per week, two cross training days and one day off. The long runs started at 3 miles and increased by one per week to a maximum of 12, followed by two weeks of tapering. I was able to follow the schedule reasonably well except for the 25km
Run for the Toad which fell on a weekend when I was supposed to be running only 12k. That one hurt!
Other than that it went well. Kalina and I would text each other after each increase to compare notes and encourage each other on. It was a lot of fun to be bonding this way with my daughter, knowing what she was going through as we all have in preparing for a challenge like this.

On Friday Dec 2, Rosanne and I flew to Las Vegas. We met a bunch if people on the plane that were also heading down to run the race. As we talked, we learned that 44,000 runners were expected, with 6000 of those doing the full. A pretty major event by any standards!

How does one describe Las Vegas? For those who have never been I would say: Go! Get it off your list! Spend a few days and take in a show or two. Play some slot machines if that's your bag, wander the enormous hotels that line the strip, each one more 'over the top' than the one before, all coming together like some gargantuan theme park with only one objective: to entertain you. New York, New York, for example, actually resembles the skyline of NY, except this one has a looping roller coaster carved into it. Inside is an arcade that looks like the streets of Manhattan, complete with store fronts facing cobble stone streets, apartments above and faux metal fire escapes. And very expensive StarBucks coffee!

That being said, Vegas is used to handling large numbers of people. It felt busy, but not overly crowded. We had taken a hotel a couple of blocks off the strip which turned out to be about 4 km away from the Mandalay where Kalina and her team were staying and which was also the location of the race start/finish. We met Linda, her training partner and the rest of her friends for dinner that Friday, great group of people, and then spent Saturday making our way to the expo to check in and pick up race kits. Kalina and her team had signed up for the pasta dinner on Saturday night so Rosanne and I took in a show called Zumanity. the best way I can describe this would be - baudy Burlesque meets Cirque du Soliel. It was a lot of fun!

Sunday - race day! Or more correctly put - race evening. The full marathon would start at 4:00pm, we would not get going until 5:30! This created a whole new challenge because almost all the races I've done have been in the morning! What do you do the whole day to prepare for a race that starts at 5:30? As it turned out, we had a late breakfast and then a late lunch in the Mandalay. I brought my running gear and we hung out in Kalina's room, watching TV and chatting with her team mates that came by for last minute encouragement and well wishes. For most of her 16 team mates, this was a first race for them too. The other area of concern was the weather. Vegas is generally pretty warm but in early December it can be down right cold, especially at night. It had been as high as 12 C that day but the evening temperature was supposed to dip well below that. There was even talk of snow! So - what to wear? I ended up with my Falcon long sleeve jersey and shorts. Kalina had on several layers including her team jersey and a nice blue ribbon on which she had written the names of everyone who had donated to her fund raising efforts - she would carry them the entire way!

Finally it was time to go. We made our way to the elevators and immediately were surrounded by others heading in the same direction. We joined the rest of her team in the hotel lobby and then moved en mass with the other runners toward the huge parking lot beside the hotel which served as the staging area for the race organizers. It was to be a wave start, but all of Team Challenge, the parent group Kalina was part of, we're started in corrals 17, 18 and 19. There were almost 40 corrals in all. Las Vegas Boulevard, aka 'the strip' had been closed since noon that day. The full marathoners had started at 4:00 and were running the first 21k on a series of side streets before joining our throng just past the start of our race.
As we stood waiting in our start corals, shivering in the decreasing temperatures, the theme of the race became prevalent. Cheap Trick was playing on a stage near the start line, too far away to see but their music was blasting out of huge speakers all around us. Strobe lights, lasers and neon flashed all around and helicopters flew overhead. We were all moving to the beat, keeping warm and enjoying the atmosphere! Finally, we heard the start and soon afterwards began to move forward. Even then if took about half an hour to reach the mats and finally start to run.

I had told Kalina that I would run this race with her. I knew from our talks during the training that her pace was slower than mine. She was targeting a 2:20 finish based on her long run averages. I felt that we might even be quicker than that due to the race day effect and I had cautioned her to start slow, not be drawn into the surge of the start and just run her own race. As it was, I was the one that needed the cautioning. Because of the masses of runners, it was hard to run without climbing up someone's legs. I was constantly jigging sideways, looking for a clear spot and zipping over to it only to realize that Kalina and Linda were twenty feet behind me. I kept hoping it would thin out but it never did. But it didn't matter. Once we realized that this was the way it was going to be, we just settled down and enjoyed the show. As advertised, there was a rock band every two miles along the way. And along most of the route past the huge hotels, there were throngs of people cheering and yelling. As if there wasn't enough music, one runner dressed up like Elvis pushed a carriage the whole way with a huge ghetto blaster in it pounding out Elvis tunes! He was fun to run with!
So we ran the length of the strip - made the turn and came back on the other side of the road. It was quite a sight heading back into the glitzier part of town, the huge MGM Grand acting as a beacon leading to the finish. Kalina never faltered. We walked for a moment at a few water stations and stopped for a porta- pottie at about mile 10, but other than that we ran the whole way. I was so proud of her. Rosanne was near the finish hoping to cheer us through but in the throng of runners we missed each other. Finally we were in the finishing chute and done, receiving our medals, wraps to keep warm, water, bars, food, and congratulations and tears of emotion from her team mates for a huge accomplishment and a job well done. Final time 2:29!

It was a great experience on a number of different levels and, the best part is, now a few days later, she and her friends are already talking about their next race!

Klaus