Standing at the starting line of my 2nd ever 5K race, I thought to myself, what am I doing? So here is the break down. I was in Vegas for a little vacation with some old buddies from my Navy days, Naret and Mark. We booked the room and flights about 3 months ago, just about the same time I started really training. So I figured it would be a good idea to see if there was a 5K road race in Vegas that would be my goal race to prepare for. After a little searching I found the Midsummer Nights Dream 5K/10K. Well if you have been reading my blog, you know that I have already completed a 5K 2 weeks ago, so this was not going to be my first race.
Anyways, so we get to Vegas on Friday the 3rd and the first thing I noticed was the heat. I knew it was going to be hot, but not that hot. Of course we go hit the clubs that night and get back to the room by 3:30AM. Just a little tidbit of info, if you calculate the time I got up to catch the plane in Providence which is 4:00AM and the time I went to bed, 3:30AM and add the 3 hour difference in time zones, I was awake for over 26 hours. So with probably 5 hours of sleep and drinking water all day, Mark and I get to the race with about 15 mins to get ready.
The course was a 2 loops around a drainage basin and a little path thru a park. Seems simple enough, no hills! At the start everything seemed good. Then around a quarter of the way thru the first lap my mouth started getting dry. Around half way thru the first lap I needed a drink. Did I mention it was hot? They had 1 aid station set up at the start finish line, which I think they should have had one at the other side of the loop. By the time I finished the race I was sucking down cups of water and Heed like it was going out of style.
I finished the race in 32:09 mins, not a PR but I am just glad I finished. Mark ran it in 28:18. We met a girl from Texas who was also on vacation with her husband and decided to run the race as well. We had celebratory beer while waiting for the cab to pick us up and drive us back to the strip.
I am glad I ran the race. I would probably do it again, but maybe in the winter time.
Anyways, so we get to Vegas on Friday the 3rd and the first thing I noticed was the heat. I knew it was going to be hot, but not that hot. Of course we go hit the clubs that night and get back to the room by 3:30AM. Just a little tidbit of info, if you calculate the time I got up to catch the plane in Providence which is 4:00AM and the time I went to bed, 3:30AM and add the 3 hour difference in time zones, I was awake for over 26 hours. So with probably 5 hours of sleep and drinking water all day, Mark and I get to the race with about 15 mins to get ready.
The course was a 2 loops around a drainage basin and a little path thru a park. Seems simple enough, no hills! At the start everything seemed good. Then around a quarter of the way thru the first lap my mouth started getting dry. Around half way thru the first lap I needed a drink. Did I mention it was hot? They had 1 aid station set up at the start finish line, which I think they should have had one at the other side of the loop. By the time I finished the race I was sucking down cups of water and Heed like it was going out of style.
I finished the race in 32:09 mins, not a PR but I am just glad I finished. Mark ran it in 28:18. We met a girl from Texas who was also on vacation with her husband and decided to run the race as well. We had celebratory beer while waiting for the cab to pick us up and drive us back to the strip.
I am glad I ran the race. I would probably do it again, but maybe in the winter time.
