Rock n Roll Las Vegas Marathon

I will start this one out by stating this was my experience. My opinion. I am not judging the entire Rock n Roll company on this 1 race. I have raced in lots of races. Been to many places and ran road, trail, big races like NYC marathon, raced in Xenia marathon where I felt alone at times. I have certain expectations now. I had read some negative reviews about this race but I always give the event the chance to impress me. I'm always willing to listen to others opinions whether you agree or disagree with my opinion.

Short background on how we decided to run this race. Brittney and I took a weekend in Vegas in January 2003 as our honeymoon. I was in police academy when we got married. We stayed at The Mirage and saw Siegfried and Roy's Tiger show. In 2016, we saw a special price for the Las Vegas Marathon. Brittney and I agreed for our 15th anniversary, we would take another long weekend in Vegas. Brittney asked that I ran with her at her pace to cover the distance. The couple who runs together..gets stronger together! We saw the marathon ended at The Mirage. PERFECT! What better hotel to stay in?! So we booked our hotel, registered for the race, and waited to go.

The flight in to Vegas was smooth. Friday we hiked Zion National Park. We took a strenuous trail which is not recommended 2 days before a marathon. But we were going to have fun in the marathon, not try to run our fastest race.Saturday we saw a few hotels and smoky casinos. We do not like smoky casinos. Smells gross! We went to the expo and had fun there. I loved the Brooks porta potties changing rooms!

We then went back to the hotel and took a 3 hour nap. Apparently a flight that changes 3 time zones then hiking all day wears you out. We made our way to SLS Las Vegas. This is the north end of the strip. I thought the 5k started at 6:30 and was pretty chill. Until Brittney saw a sign stating 5k started at 6! It was 5:48 when she saw that! Oops! I busted a move to get to start line. I made it into my corral before the National Anthem! I shook 2 LVMPD Officer's hands and off we went. The route was basically a mile and a half out and back down a back street of Vegas. There was a DJ with huge lighting system and music could be heard most of the way. There was a few good costumes on runners. I knew I had to run a marathon the next day and didn't want to completely smoke my legs. I also wanted to stretch my legs a little. I've been feeling slow since Ironman Louisville. So I ran strong the first mile but didn't overdo it. I felt good so I stayed on pace.The 3rd mile I was having a blast and saw a KISS cover band who was rocking out which energized me. Then I saw this huge Brooks inflatable arch that I thought was the finish line. 

 I kicked it up a notch to discover I still had about .2 miles to run. Whoops but oh well. I finished at 23:12 official time. Always feels good to run fast! Legs didn't feel tired. I got a nice medal out of it


, covered my daily mile, and I knew I'd get the challenge medal the next day also.

Brittney's favorite band is the Goo Goo Dolls. I like their music as well. We were both super happy to find out Rock n Roll offered a free Goo Goo Dolls concert for runners and runner's families. This was held in same park 5k started/finished in. There was lots of police presence, but I still looked at all the windows of the surrounding hotels. I figured there were sniper teams covering all hotels, but I had to check the windows myself. The concert was great. I loved the outdoor venue. It was almost chilly out but we had a blast. After the concert, we made our way back to the monorail. In SLS, we saw a group of people who were in the running for an $85,000 BWM. We crashed back at our hotel. No staying up late partying for us.

Sunday morning we had breakfast at Paris hotel. Went through Cesar's Palace and back to The Mirage to rest. The thought of starting a marathon at 4:30 pm is just odd.How do you eat that day? You don't want to get hungry but you don't want to start a marathon on a full stomach. We decided to make our way close to New York New York hotel, where the start line was. We split a cheese pizza at 2 pm. We stayed off our feet at CPK. The runners at the next table talked to us. It was a father son team. Dad was running the half, the 27 year old son, Jeff, was running his first marathon. Jeff was excited and nervous. We then went out to scout out the lay of the land. Gear check was about a half mile from starting corrals. Once we were ready to check our bag, we located  the trucks tucked behind T Mobile arena. We walked to corrals and found everyone else in Vegas at the same place!
There was 1 gate to get into the corrals. ONE GATE. There were different colored corrals that each had 12 corrals per color. We were standing on top of each other and not moving. I was pretty sure that we would not be able to start on time because we weren't able to enter the corral for about 15 minutes. Then, somehow, like a salmon swimming up stream, we made our way to our corral. The start line did have pyrotechnics and rock music. I thought the trouble was behind us and all we had to do was run 26.2 miles. The first mile took us out past the
 
sign. We then ran past the field where the shooting victims had been. It was all fenced off. Still eerie. Very sad. We got to the turn around and there were 4 violinists. Their music was beautiful. Back towards the strip and we saw



The sun had went down. This sign wasn't as big or glamorous as the movies makes it out to be. Then we get into all the hotels and lights! Running the strip was awesome!
Elton John, (impersonator) was rocking a piano! Then KISS (impersonators) were rocking out in the middle of the strip! Buddy Holly (impersonator) was jamming at north end of the strip. We were about 5 miles in and I was pumped! This was fun!

Then we turned...and this is where I started to realize that we had already run the only part of Vegas worth running. We went past Stratosphere and started making our way back towards the strip. The marathon then turned right about 8 miles in where the half marathon continued towards the finish line. The back streets of Vegas were pretty dark. I told Brittney I was happy I was running with her, because I didn't feel all that safe in these neighborhoods. There was lots of police presence, but wow, this part was not fun. Then we hit the "Blue's Band". 12 miles into a run, I don't want to hear how you lost your dog and girlfriend. That was rough. We made our way out to The Pavilions.

This was our first "labyrinth". We got there just after mile 13. It had neon lights and a DJ rocking great music over speakers throughout the venue. I also saw runners running every which way in between cones. This was not good. I knew this would get old soon. After a few miles, YES ..MILES..running in between tents..we left towards an underpass. Its completely dark in the underpass. NO LIGHTS, barely tell where other runners are. Couldn't see street. So what next? That's right, we hit a turn around at mile 17 and go back under the underpass and to top it off...run BACK into tents! If I had hair, I would've pulled it out. at about 18.7 miles...we finally got to leave the tent maze.

Mind numbing! Feeling like a mouse trapped. Good lord was I happy to leave that part. I know you don't want negative thoughts to enter the mind during an endurance event. But that part sucked. 6 miles in 1 place was horrendous.We started back towards the strip. We had 7 miles to go. Brittney and I weren't fast, but we were steady. At around mile 21, we entered the field where the concert was. I then realized that RnR did it again..another LABYRINTH!!!

Forward, left, then right, back the way we started, through the field, follow the arrows. You think you're almost out and NOPE!  Back around you go! This was terrible. I've never seen a race do this. How they measured this out had to be insane. Mile 24 we got to leave. 3 miles in a small park. Mind numbing. Not enjoyable. Crazy. Then we ran past the marijuana dispensary. We joined back up with the half marathoners who had started later and were the back of that pack. Only to go out and back another half mile. Elvis impersonator was rocking! but all the out and backs, the mazes, I was ready to be finished with this. That's when I heard, "HEY! You guys were at CPK!" Our new friend Jeff had found us. He was hurting but looked ok. We talked and he agreed to hang with us for the last 1.5 miles. Back on the strip and bright lights got brighter. Music got louder! Lasers! FINISH LINE! Hand in hand, Brittney and I finished it! We were thrilled.


Happy to be done, proud of our efforts! Got our well earned FINISHER MEDALS


and made our way through the HALF MILE chute. We could've taken as many ROTTEN bananas as we wanted, because NO ONE wanted those. They offered a bottle of water, Gatorade and a protein bar. That was it. SAD! Why in the heck they made this chute so long was ridiculous. The set up was so long, it blocked runners paths back to The Mirage! You say The Mirage is host hotel and then block access back to it after the race??? Makes no sense to me. We had to go into traffic lanes at Cesar's Palace to figure out a way to our hotel. Usually after a marathon, I'm on a runner's high. I was thoroughly DISAPPOINTED in this race. I now understand the negative reviews I read. There was no bananas or oranges on the course. The mazes are horrible. RnR promises live bands every mile, not even close. Gear check was far away from corrals, corrals overcrowded. Route was ridiculous. Then today I read RnR ran out of medals. I know they gave FINISHER medals and jackets to people who were picked up by Sag wagons. People who did not run the entire distance were also given FINISHER times...times that look fast, but not EARNED! This irritates the crap out of me. I can't understand this. You are given a challenge, to run 26.2 miles to earn a finisher medal. If you fail, that's OK. But don't accept something you haven't earned. I feel very strong about this. Because I work my tail off to earn my medals.

I will say the medals and jacket were awesome.

 I got the ReMix Challenge guitar medal for running the 5k and marathon. But this hardly makes up for such a miserable race. If the opportunity to run again in Vegas, I would consider the half. Great changes would have to be made for me to ever consider the marathon in Vegas again. Again, this was just my experience. I have been told other RnR races were better ran. This was my first RnR race and I'm not in any hurry to do another. I'm always happy to discuss if you have any questions or want other details.