Red Rock Canyon Half Marathon

Last weekend I went to Las Vegas for the annual family trip for Nascar. (But I didn't actually go to a race, only Dad and Ryan did.) Doing a little poking around on the internet beforehand I discovered that a marathon/half marathon would take place the same weekend, and it was definitely a race I wanted to do! Since I'm training for American's Toughest Road Marathon, I need to try and get lots of elevation change in my runs, and the Red Rock Canyon Half Marathon was a good fit. The course did a horseshoe loop on the road through the canyon, and had a cumulative elevation gain (according to my gps watch) of 1,525 feet. That's about half of what my marathon will have.

I arrived in Vegas Friday morning, and that evening my whole family drove out to the Suncoast Hotel and Casino so I could pick up my race packet and sign a form saying I wouldn't pet any tortoises. After dinner we all had an early night, since we'd be getting up super early! Mom volunteered right when I mentioned the race several weeks ago to come with me and watch, and it wasn't until Friday that I forced convinced Ryan to come, too. (Dad didn't come because he wanted to get to the Nascar track early, and he gets a free pass in my book because he's coming to watch my full marathon in April.)

So at 4:15am I woke up (Thanks to jet lag, it felt like 7:15 for me! Not so for my Arizona- and New Mexico-dwelling family though.) and headed next door to my parents' hotel room for my bagel, banana, and coffee. I woke Ryan up at 5:00, and by 5:40 the three of us were heading across town to the shuttle pickup at the Suncoast. They dropped me off but I had to wait ten or fifteen minutes for the next shuttle, and they followed in a shuttle for spectators about half an hour later.

According to my training schedule I was supposed to run fifteen miles that Saturday, which meant I had to run an extra two miles in addition to the half marathon. My plan was to get there early enough to do a two-mile warm up, but I only had time for 3/4 of a mile before I needed to take off my sweats, hand over my bag, make one last pit stop, and head to the start. Unfortunately the porta-potty line set me back a little, and I actually started the race about two minutes late. (Which is fine since they used chip timing, though apparently the winners were all based on the gun time.)

Okay, now for the race itself and pictures! Perhaps the best thing about this course is the scenery. Big open desert fills the center of the canyon and was always on my left, and red rocks and snow-dusted mountains surround the canyon. It had rained on Friday, but even though Saturday morning started out really overcast, it was dry. (Disclaimer: I took these pictures while running, so they may be blurry or tilted.)

Still in the visitor center parking lot, shortly after the start.

That sky looks ominous. Ryan hoped it would rain so he wouldn't have to come. It didn't.

The first 5.5 miles were mostly uphill. I was really proud of myself on the uphills, because even though I wasn't fast, I was able to keep chugging pretty well and pass people going up. I had looked at the course elevation profile ahead of time and thought the uphill would end at mile 5 though, so that last half mile uphill was sort of tortuous.

Look how pretty the mountains are!

Self portrait in motion.

After the scenery, the next best thing about this race is all the downhills! It's 5.5 miles up, but then 7.6 miles down without too steep of a grade, which made for some speedy miles for me. I still ended with my slowest half marathon time (this was my third half), but I felt really good about the whole thing and passing people on the uphills gave me more confidence about all this hill/mountain training I'm doing for my marathon. My official time: 2:00:46.99. Age group place: 8 (out of 54), gender place: 31 (out of 282), overall place: 125 (out of 496).

My mom took this as I crossed the finish line. I know the timer says 2:02 but don't forget I started late.

I was pretty beat after pushing through the last mile or so. Ryan was at the finish line and I had to grab onto him while they cut off the chip timer from my shoe.

After the race I drank some more water and ate half a banana, but then I headed out on the road to run another 1.25 miles to get me up to 15 for the day. Then we loaded onto the shuttle bus to get back to the hotel with our car. Overall I really liked this race. It was small and there wasn't a lot of crowd support due to the nature of the course, but the scenery made up for it.

Ryan complained a lot about having to get up so early to stand around at my race.

But really I think he enjoyed it. He got to hang out with Mom and later I heard he told Dad it was "beautiful" out there with snow on the mountains.

Thanks for the support family!