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| Three Amigos: Meeting at Dozer's house the Friday prior to Sunday's Race. You will notice that there is a significant amount of snow on the ground. |
| Blizzard: We drove through a blizzard on the way up to Spokane to catch our flight. Good start to a marathon trip. |
| Watching Movies: We rented a car in Vegas (you'll see it later), found the condo Dave rented (great condo!), went to the race expo, pick up our packets, then headed for bed. All day Saturday we sat around watching movies with our feet up, hydrating -- Forrest Gump, Steve Prefontaine. I think Brave Heart was just on the tube. We brought the others. |
| Race Numbers: Here are our running jerseys, all ready to go for tomorrow. They print any nickname you want (within reason) on your bib number. I was amazed at how many people I heard say "Go Foo Monkey". |
| Rental Car: They upgraded us to a PT Cruiser convertible (the one behind the tree) for no charge so we drove around in Vegas in the balmy 58 degree temperature (quite warm after the blizzard) with the top down. |
| Warming Up: We took advantage of these exercise machines to warm up prior to the race. Honestly -- the trip to the start was almost as arduous at the marathon itself. The closest we could park was a mile and a half from the start, and we had to walk through 2 casinos to get there. The Mandalay Bay was the host hotel, along with the Luxor. Did you know that the Luxor has live song birds flying around their capacious lobby? |
| It's a bit nipply out isn't it?: That's why I wore gloves. |
| Uncle Sam: I believe this guy was from Philadelphia and he carried that flag the whole way. That must have been tough because there was an 8kt headwind miles 8-11, along about where the gospel choirs were. |
| Just Before the Start: We ambled out to the starting line and just sat down on the pavement for a while. We were a little early. Then we got up for a picture and a couple Blue Monkey Cheers and waited for the race to start. |
| Our Starting Position: I think we got to the start about 15 or 20 before the start time (was that really 5:30am?), and we ended up pretty close to the front. They had a sub-4hour qualifyer start area just ahead of us -- the gap you see in the first image is between them and the rest of the loser start area. We were only 3 arms-lengths from the front of the loser starting area. About 5 minutes after we got there we took the second picture, looking toward the rear. We couldn't see the end of the heads. This is the largest race any of us had ever been to. |
| Reindeer Girl: A lot of people dress up kind of funny for marathons, but I think the Vegas marathon is more so than any other. Here, just after the start, we met this reindeer. |
| Bride: I can't remember how many couples were stopping at mile 6 (a run-through chapel) to get married, but it must have been near 20. |
| Elvi: What would the Vegas marathon be without a lot of running Elvi. They advertised that they would have 26.2 running Elvi, but I never saw the .2. And I think they had a lot more than 40. |
| Bellagio Fountain: Normally the Bellagio fountain errups every 10 minutes, coreographed to music played from speakers along the sidewalk. It's normally dormant for 5 or 6 minutes every 10. For the marathon they turned on the fountains, which dance constantly, but not to music. I was a little disappointed. |
| Mirage Volcano: Erupting as we ran by. We should have pulled a Japanese disaster film scene. |
| Peeing: This sign along the fence of a construction site called to many runners. It was amazing. Monkeys succumbed as well. Also, the sun finally came up and we're 4 or 5 miles in. Boy that was an early start. |
| Fremont Street: I was hoping they would have the ceiling of Fremont street lit up, but I guess they can't do that in the day time. Duh. |
| Bumblebee Girl: Had to get a picture of this runner. Mile 12. |
| Santas Little Helpers: We were pretty delerious at mile 20, but I think these were real. We took a picture just to check later. There was a great E-Street style band at mile 18 with a killer saxaphone. I wished I could have stayed to listen. |
| Mile to Go: Jason's really struggling here. He was suffering from a lack of training miles, and we knew this would be tough, but he really toughed it out. He came within one minute of his goal time. Very good for a first time marathon. |
| The Blue Monkey Twins with Elvis: We were walking down the ramp from the Bellagio Friday nite, all 3 of us wearing our Blue Monkey T's and hats, and some woman (from Iowa?) says "Look, twins." So here are the twins with Elvis after the race. By the way, Dave ran a HUGE PR, a 3:37, which is over a half hour better than his previous PR, a 4:08 at Couer d'Alene in May. He started at 9:00s for the first 6 miles, then took off, going sub-8:00s for many of his last miles. |
| Bocca de Beppos: I'm not sure that's how you spell that, but it was a great Italian restaurant with incredible food. An excellent choice for a decadent piece of post-race gluttony. We gorged ourselves. By the way, Dave's daughter, Anna, made that hat. |