I got a $20 gift card from Dick’s Sporting Goods for being such a great customer. Way cool. But it was set to expire on 12/24. So I had to use it in the next few days or lose it. Hey $20 is $20! I went to the Dick’s near my work at lunch time. $20 generally wont go too far these days on running gear. Since I live in Rochester, NY, it is getting very cold outside for running. And the running gear I currently had, might just not cut it. I currently own Under Armour Cold Gear compression pants, and compression long sleeve shirt. These are pretty good down to a certain temp. But I need something more for even colder days. I have read about layers, and decided I need to add a layer. I decided to buy some shell pants. They had some Fitness Gear shell pants for $30. Great! After the $20 off, they will only cost $10! I took em up to the register, waited, and the girl rung them up. She said I needed to have at least $20 worth to use the card. Huh? The pants are $30. She said they were only $15. Only $15? Cool! I wasn’t sure what else to buy. I look ata shell jacket. I had planned to use either a micro-fiber jacket I have, or a fleece lined jacket that I already own. But I looked and found a Fitness Gear shell jacket with removabel sleeves. It has the benefit of being designed for running, and has reflective markings. The regular price was $50, but a little orange sticker had the price at $40 (actually $39.99, but I am rounding these prices). I took it up to the register. It rung up at $25! Way cool! I got the pants and jacket, and after the $20 off, they only cost me a little over $20 with tax! Awesome deal!
I bought my Proform J6si treadmill off of eBay for a couple hundred bucks. I used it heavily in training to run the Las Vegas Marathon. Then a few weeks ago, the belt started rubbing against the edge. I adjusted it, but it still rubbed some. But since I needed to run, I started running outside. I finished the Las Vegas Marathon successfully.
Now am starting to train for another marathon. Maybe the Buffalo Marathon. It is freezing outside, and I am fighting a cold, so I decided the run on the treadmill. But the belt was rubbing. I adjusted it some, but noticed the belt didn’t seem to be running straight. I started investing why, and found part of the running bed frame was cracked. Ouch! With some work, I mananged to remove the bed from the rest of the treadmill. My wife helped me carry it down to my car, and I am hoping to find a welder tomorrow, and get it welded. I think all the running on the treadmill may have been too much. Maybe it was designed more for walking, even though the speed of the thing goes up faster than I can comfortably run. Or maybe at 185 pounds, I weight too much.
Travel into Vegas went smoothly. I got my luggage, and car, and headed to Mandalay Bay. I went straight to the Quality Of Life Expo, and got to meet a few of the Running Elvi (plural for Elvis). I got my runner’s packet, and met a few more people from the Las Vegas Marathon message board. I have been very active on the message board, and knew a bunch of people that would be running in the marathon. I hadn’t eaten since 5am EST in Rochester, NY and I was starving. I walked across the street, and ate at McDonalds. After lunch, I headed back to Mandalay Bay, headed to my car, and changed into my Elvis costume (in the car). Then I headed back to the Expo. I got to meet more of the LVM21 (a club whose members are committed to running 21 consecutive LVMs) including Angie, Hill, ElvisDawn, Cannon, and others. I joined the other Running Elvi, and got my picture taken SO MANY TIMES!!! My jaw was hurting from smiling so much. We were part of some of the activities including meeting the bride’s and grooms. Robin Leach was the MC.
About 4:30, I headed over to Pahrump to stay at my Dad’s. I went to bed early, maybe 8-9pm.
I got up at 3am, and was out the door by 3:30. I drove to Vegas. I got a quick breakfast at Jack In The Box, and headed for MB. I went to turn into the Mandalay Bay how I knew to get to parking, but it was blocked off. I drove north on the strip trying to get over, but it was all blocked off. I was worried about getting there on time (I needed to be there by 5:15am). I followed a taxi that cut through the barriers. I drove south on the strip till I was forced to turn west. I went over, and turned south of Dean Martin Parkway hoping to come into Mandalay Bay from the back side. This was a mistake. I drove far south before I could back over to the strip. Once on the strip, I went north, and turned west just before Mandalay Bay. There was a long line. I managed to make my way to parking though. I managed to get into MB about 5am, used the bathroom, then headed over the Shark’s Reef entrance to meet the other Elvi. Had many more pictures taken. They took us to the starting line. We got to start in a corral with the LV Road Runners and LVM21. I met some more of the LVM21 including my buddy Ramrod! The Blue Man Group was great doing the Natl Anthem. Then we started running.
I ran the first part what I thought was easy. I was running along side Hannah’s Dad. He informed me that I was running 8:35 pace miles. Too fast. I slowed down. I walked for a bit, then ran, then walked, then ran. I was running along side Hannah’s Dad again. I asked him if he had slowed down. He said no. Crap…running too fast! I slowed down again. I saw “Ozzy” (actually an Ozzy trbute band apparently called Unauthorized Ozzy) performing on the strip, yelled “Ozzy! Elvis loves Ozzy!” and head banged for a couple seconds and then ran on. Several people asked me later on if that was really Ozzy Osbourne….yeh, Ozzy Osbourne is playing the LV strip unadvertised, and holding a sign saying “Hire This Band”. I went to the bathroom in a porta potty. I lost about 5-10 minutes here from waiting, and having to get half undressed to go. These Elvis suits are not designed to be easy to go to the bathroom! If I wear the Elvis suit again while running, I am having my wife modify it with a fly or something! This also caused me to limit me fluid intake afterwards!
At mile 5 I joined the other Running Elvi at the wedding chapel. I was there for about 10-15 minutes. My dad and his wife were there, and got some pictures of me. The Elvi were mostly just standing around, and didn’t seem to involved. A few of the other Elvi snuck out, and I joined them.
Running through Freemont was cool. All of the early morning drunks and gamblers trying to figure out what was going on. Along the course I met various LVM21ers. Including Lesley, Cannon, PrincessRunner, Crystal, Shoe, Wazzu. And CLDRunner (Kie)!!! Kie and I ran at the same average pace for a while. I would run, and we would be side by side for a while. Then I would slow down and walk, and he would pull away. Then I would run, and catch up with him again. Eventually I started walking more, and he pulled away. Around mile 19, I got goosed on the butt by a girl. I thought it might be someone I knew, but she just said that if I dressed the way I was, I had to expect it. Thanks for the pick me up!
My running stride got shorter and shorter. My legs got more and more fatigued. I started walking more and more, and especially after mile 20.
Around mile 23 I caught up with Kie again who was walking. We were both exhausted. We decided to finished this sucker together. A Running Elvi yelled that we looked good, and had only another mile and a half to go as he passed us. Kie and I walked together, and managed to spur each other into running. We ran and walked. We passed a mile marker, and thought it was mile 25. A girl there said we had 2 more miles to go. We though she was joking. But we eventually came to mile marker 25. This brought us down some as were thought we had already done the last mile. We managed to run most of the final mile. We even sprinted the last 10 meters or so. I wanted to cross with Kie. but he pushed me to run faster, so I crossed just ahead of him. Kie didn’t look so hot, and some volunteers came over to see if he was okay. I think he was just very tired. Me and Kie running those last few mile together was my favorite part of the whole marathon! Oh…we finished about 5:25.
Princess finished just after us. I got a picture with her.
My dad and his wife were there to see me finish, and got a picture. I had my finishers photo taken. I heard there was food for the Elvi at the VIP tent, but then found out it just closed. I never saw any other food at the finish. That kind of sucked! I was starving. I went and changed into normal clothes, and went looking for food. Food in the MB was too expensive! $13 for a cheeseburger? I don’t think so! I was more cheap than hungry! I hobbled over to McDonald’s across the street. That walk signal is TOOO short! Got food, and head back to MB.
I went to the Island Lounge, and hung out for a while with all of the LVM21ers! It was great meeting everyone!
I started researching a headlamp for running a couple weeks ago. I work 8-5, and in the winter months in Rochester, it is dark when I get to work, and dark when I leave. So if I want to run outside, I will need some sort of light. A couple weeks ago I went out running carrying a Mini-Mag. But it was awkward to point as my hand was in an unnormal position. I decided there must be some sort of flashlight designed for running. I already owned a headlamp, a Princeton Tec Vortec, which I use for hiking, and cave exploration. But I knew it would be too heavy to wear for running as it would be flopping all over the place. I was interested in an LED light that would have a long running time. I posted a message on a running board I am active on. A couple models of LED headlamps were suggested. One was the Petzl Zipka Plus. There is a variation of the Zipka called the Tikka Plus that is the same light, but has a strap instead of a cord around the head. These both have 4 LEDs. Another model suggested was the Princeton Tec EOS which is a single 1 watt LED headlamp.
I went to the local sporting goods store. They didn’t have either of these models. They did have a Princeton Tec Quad, a 4 LED headlamp similar to the Petzl Tikka. I went ahead an bought it. When I got back to work, I read some reviews of the Quad, and they were good. It seems the Quad is even brighter than the Tikka.
I intended to go running with the new headlamp last week, but got sick and wasn’t able to. Last night was my first opportunity to try it out. The Princeton Tec Quad has 4 modes. Three steady modes of differing light levels, and a flashing mode. I ran a little with the brighest mode, and it was fine. I tried the next mode down, and was able to run with that also. But I prefered the brighter mode. I did a 3 mile run and the light was great. Since it was subfreezing out, I was wearing a winter hat, and had the light strapped over that. It was comfortable though. The light can be angled downward, and I played with that some. I had it angled so it pointed about 10 feet in front of me. I liked that best. The light didn’t flop around at all, and was very light. Most of the weight is the 3 AAA batteries. After a bit, I wasn’t even very conscious of the light strapped to my head. I like it, and plan on using it for many more runs.
Well, I am running the Las Vegas Marathon this coming Sunday! The last two weeks I have been tapering down following the schedule by Hal Higdon. I ran 8 1/2 miles yesterday at an easy 11 minute pace. I was actually scheduled for 8 miles, but this is what the route worked out to. The previous Sunday I ran 12 miles, and I ran 20 miles the Sunday before that.
This week will be very easy. I am scheduled to run 3 miles Tuesday, and 4 miles on Wednesday. Thursday and Friday are rest days. The schedule has me running 1-2 miles on Saturday. But since I am going to be spending a big chunk of the day travelling to Las Vegas. I doubt I will get to run those. Being one of the Running Elvis I am supposed to get to run a glory lap around the Quality Of Life Expo at Manadalay Bay. But I am guessing that wont be very far.
Then Sunday is the race! I am pumped! I am ready! I can’t wait to get going!
Now the tricky part is that I want to run a 50k on December 31st! I will have to ramp up again, but not too much, because I need to taper for that too. So for next week, I will see how I feel. I might run a couple miles on Tuesday, maybe a 3-4 miles on Wednesday, and maybe 3-4 miles on Thursday. I will have to see how I feel. Since I have never runa marathon before, I may not be in any condition to run on Tuseday, Wednesday or Thursday…