I just flew in from Las Vegas, and boy are my arms tired. We left on Saturday morning and stayed out there until Tuesday. Amy & I ran in the Las Vegas half marathon. Caught up with a few friends, as well.
The race was novel, and I’m glad to have done it, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to anyone, and I don’t think I’d be eager to run it again. It was too crowded, and the organization was somewhat lacking. Part of it has to do with what I think is an intentional lack of transportation infrastructure. I don’t know Las Vegas politics or anything else, so maybe I’m completely off base. But, that city has a huge number of people moving to and from a limited set of destination points — primarily from the airport to casinos along the strip. A train from the airport to a few stops along the strip would alleviate all kinds of congestion. But, cabs are huge money; so if I had to guess, the cab interests are probably standing in the way of this.
Anyway, the lack of transportation infrastructure factored into a lot of problems with people getting to and from the start and finish lines. Indianapolis seems to manage this with their comparably sized mini-marathon (probably having to do with more participants having their own cars and lots of parking garages in downtown Indy); but this event was deficient on both ends. The Mandalay Bay was closest to the finish line. I heard the lobby described as looking like a refugee camp after the race; people looking for shuttles which weren’t, apparently, clearly marked or sufficient in capacity.
In addition, the corrals weren’t well managed – a lot of slower people ended up starting in front of a lot of faster people. The plan was to start the corrals in 2 minute waves, but for whatever reason, they started all of the back half of the corrals all it once, leading to a lot of congestion. I guess they started running out of water, medals, the post-race “space blankets” (or whatever they’re called.)
That said, the trip was not all unrelenting misery. Running under the lights was fun. A band in the downtown area was playing a countrified version of Gin N’ Juice when I ran by. And, I got to hear Cheap Trick playing “Dream Police” before the race. (We walked 2 miles to get to the starting line, so I missed most of Cheap Trick’s performance.) More importantly, we got to spend some time with friends out in Las Vegas before and after the race. It’s nice to get away from time to time, but I have to say, it’s awfully nice to be back home and with the kids.