Reed Dunn, Senior Recruitment Marketing Manager:
At the end of a blue ribbon hangs a heavy piece of hardware decorated with a glitter-covered silhouette of the Las Vegas Strip and a glow-in-the-dark version of the Rock ’n’ Roll Las Vegas Half Marathon logo.
It’s a prize that, for me, celebrates the end of three months of training for my first ever half marathon. Like an elementary school field day – where everyone gets a participation ribbon – just crossing the finish line in Las Vegas is enough to earn one of these mass-produced medallions. Still, this one is mine. And it represents much more than the completion of my first 13.1-mile run.
Recently, I realized preparing for this race was changing my life in a way much bigger than I could have expected when I set this goal a few months ago. Preparing for it taught me to love running. Completing it has made me want to set new running goals and register for more of these races.
My Las Vegas finishing time was 2 hours, 6 minutes, and 48 seconds. It’s not the fastest half marathon time ever recorded, but it certainly is one I’m proud to broadcast. I had an initial goal of finishing in 2 hours and 10 minutes, and I was tickled to have crossed the finish line a few minutes (and 12 seconds) ahead of schedule. Really, I was tickled to have crossed the finish line at all.
Going into the race, I felt well prepared. I had completed all of the long runs training plans suggest, plus a few more. I had entered and finished official 5K and 10K races during the training period, which also is recommended by most plans. I did hill training, even though the Las Vegas course is flat. I did speed training, even though I never got too obsessed with my time. I incorporated a great deal of strength training. And I made sure to go to yoga classes as often as I could fit them into my schedule.
As I lined up behind corral 16 on the boulevard next to Mandalay Bay, the sun already had dropped. The temperature was brisk – somewhere in the 40s at the 5:30 p.m. start time – and I was surrounded by thousands and thousands and thousands of runners packed tightly together to form a sea of athletes representing all 50 U.S. states and at least that many countries. In total, about 44,000 racers registered for the sold-out half marathon and full marathon.
The energy was so intense, it’s not easy to describe. It’s also not easy to forget.
There were runners dressed as Elvis and couples in athletic-cut wedding outfits to unite in marriage at the run-through chapel along the course. Blinking headbands and glow bracelets were plentiful. Green lasers bounced throughout the nearby palm trees, and an outdoor screen counted down the release for each corral. Giant white letters spelled “GO!” over the live camera feed of the start line.
I was overcome with chills, which had nothing to do with the dropping temperature. I was about to experience the most incredible experience of my life.
Before I knew it, my corral took off.
The start was slow, due to the mass amount of people trying to just get moving. That ended up being a blessing, since there was no possible way I could start out too fast and burn out too early.
For the first half of the race, I couldn’t really control my pace. The crowd controlled it. I started being more strategic after the seventh mile. Weaving between and around my fellow competitors, I was working to make up a bit of time. I felt great, and I knew I had it in me to get back at least a little of that lost time.
It wasn’t until mile 11 that things really loosened up. At this point, I still felt completely energized. I was more than hydrated, and I had been replenishing consistently throughout the course. My body was aching a bit, but I knew there was no question I would cross the finish line. It was just a matter of what my time would be when I did.
That last mile came before I knew it, and I tried to pick up the pace. In the last eighth of a mile, I was pushing myself to a dead sprint. The pack was tightening up, again, but I just looked ahead for holes where I could slide through and guarantee the strongest finish I had in me.
Crossing the finish line was a proud, proud moment for me. I did it and, even though I was surrounded by tens of thousands of people, it really felt like my moment. I just soaked it all in, chugged a couple of bottles of water and began the slow hobble two and a half miles back down the Strip to my hotel suite at The Venetian.
While I felt minimal soreness on the run, it was immediately obvious at the end of the race that I needed to stretch out my tightened leg muscles. Before that could happen, I lined up with the crowd of runners for my individual race photo. I held up the sparking medal that was draped around my neck and smiled like a third grader who just won the field day potato sack race.
Reed Dunn is senior recruitment marketing manager at Alere Wellbeing. This is the 10th installment in an Alere Wellbeing blog series that chronicles the journey to his first half marathon, the Dec. 4 Rock ’n’ Roll Half Marathon in Las Vegas.