Hoover Dam Half Marathon

Short Version: Gorgeous course, wasn't my day.

Long Version:

On Friday, October 29th, my sister and I left my house for the Baltimore airport. After a long 5 hour flight, we arrived in Las Vegas. We picked up the rental car and drove down the Vegas strip. That drive concluded our time in Vegas. Neither of us had any desire for anything Vegas has to offer so we drove through to say we saw it and made our way just slightly south to Boulder City. I was pretty much prepared for our hotel this night to be a dump. It was adequate enough for one night but I'm glad it was only one night, because it certainly wasn't very nice or clean. The sign sums it up pretty well:

We grabbed our race packets, headed into the town to grab some groceries for the week and picked up a Domino's pizza for dinner. Due to the 3-hour time difference, it was an early bedtime this night.

The next morning, we headed just down the street to the Lake Mead Recreation Center and took in the gorgeous views. Pretty quickly, it was 8 AM and we were off. The first two miles of this course felt hard to me and I knew at that moment I wasn't going to have a stellar day. I was really thirsty already and know I hadn't hydrated enough the day before with the traveling. I also had a big of an upset stomach and the sun was beating down already. The first few miles were a slight, but constant uphill. Shortly after the uphill portion, we hit the trail which which was the surface for most of the race. It was a packed-gravel trail but it was looser trail than the rail trails that I'm used to around here. The scenary made the next few miles go by quickly though.

Along the trail, we also ran through a series of tunnels.


Shortly before the half-way mark was the turn-around. We had a short section of switchbacks, which were fun to run down and harder to get back up! They took us down to the top level of the Hoover Dam parking garage which gave us the view of the Hoover Dam and the new bypass bridge. The parking garage can be seen in the middle right side of this picture. All these pictures were taken after the race was over. We went back and walked several portions of the trail and did a drive-by of the Hoover Dam as well, so it is from a different angle.

Although I struggled a bit in the first half, I had finally gotten into a little bit of a groove and hit the half way mark a little over an hour. Then, I started feeling worse and worse and I walked...a bunch. It was a pretty big blow to the ego because I haven't really ever had to walk that much before, especially not in doing 13 miles. I've had to slow down before but usually I could still keep a jog going...not this day. I was really, really hot and my stomach still wasn't doing well.

My sister told me to take off my shirt. I'm not really one comfortable running in just a sports bra but after several minutes of saying no, I eventually said screw it and off went the shirt. I figured I didn't know anyone in Nevada anyway. This helped a bit but I still struggled and kept having to walk.

I believe it was around the 10 mile mark when there was an aid station with oranges instead of just water and Heed Energy drink. That orange slice was the most glorious thing in the world and I finally started to feel a little better. I thought I was going to be able to finish running the final 3 miles but I did take one more walk break with less than a mile to go.

Eventually, I crossed the finish line with the official time of 2:19:00, which is by far my worst half marathon...which really sucked considering I did two earlier in the year on very little training that went much better. But, there's always more. I was on vacation so I wasn't going to let it bother me too much!

The after part of this race was absolutely fabulous. They had the Salvation Army Emergency Response crew out cooking for us and since we finished in the breakfast-time range, we had the options of pumpkin pancakes and scrambled eggs (both made for you and served to you on a plate, no disgusting buffet lines that people had been scrounging through!). Plus there was plenty of fruit, pretzels, yogurt, granola bars and more. It was fabulous and after eating and drinking a bunch, I felt much, much better! The event had a marathon as well, and as those people were finishing, they had the options of chili, cornbread and more. It was a small event (I seem to gravitate towards these!) and I'd certainly recommend it. This day was sunnier than I thought it would be and a bit windy. Although it was rough on me, it was a great event presented by Calico Racing.

I actually really like a couple of our photos from the event as well and might actually break down and purchase them even if it wasn't stellar running day.

Coming up next: a bunch of posts non-running related about the rest of our trip which was an fantastic trip!