The New Las Vegas Marathon. Official Time 3:44:25 A PR since this was my first marathon. I had a goal of completing a marathon sometime in my life and finally acheived it. My training was pathetic at best for it but, I wasn't out to set any records. My first goal was to finish and the second was to finish in 3:30. I pulled that number out the air since I have run 13 miles twice (in my life up to this point) in 1:30 so I figured I could do two 1:45 splits. Here are the details. The race starts out at Mandalay Bay with the 13,000+ other runners standing around shivering. I didn't know it would be this cold in Vegas. They start late and I have to run around a couple hundred runners/walkers for the first two miles. I couldn't believe how many slow people start at the "front". That was pretty annoying but then I soon settled into my 8:00 mile pace. The course takes you up the strip and crosses down freemont street. All of that was pretty sweet. From then on it is BORING city residential/commercial streets. I started out right on my pace and held it for quite some time. I ran with some woman from Cali for 15 miles or so as we were on the same pace. Right around mile 18 my HR climbed to 180 and was pegged there. No matter how slow I went, it was 180+ to the finish. I truly hit the wall and it hurt. I had to stop at each aid station and walk or stop altogether for 30 seconds to a minute and regroup until I could go further. I think I still ran about 9 min/mile in-between the stations. It was that bad to the end. Ouch. My splits were as follows: 5K - 25:16 10K - 49:03 (23:47 5K) 15K - 1:13:05 (24:02 5K) 20K - 1:38:10 (25:05 5K) Half - 1:43:32 25K - 2:02:56 (23:46 5K) 30K - 2:29:27 (26:31 5K) 35K - 3:00:17 (29:50 5K) 40K - 3:30:51 (30:33 5K) Second Half - 2:00:53 Final Time: 3:44:25 Ave HR: 171 Max HR: 183 I placed 1114/13,000+ runners 97th in 25-29 age group Overall, I did really great consdering my "training" consisted of between 11 and 24 miles a week for three months prior to the race. The day was cold with high winds that took a lot out of you. Not the greatest experience and I vowed I would never do that again. ...It took 8 months to forget the experience enough to train for the Top of Utah Marathon and now I am hooked. | 