2003 Las Vegas Marathon

Congratulations to Dan and Kirsten for their awesome qualifying runs at the Las Vegas Marathon. Dan finished with a nice 1 minute cushion at 3:14:00 while Kirsten came in at 3:28 well under her needed 3:45. I, on the other hand, will have to wait for Boston next year.

To put some perspective on Dan's achievement, let me describe the conditions. We started the race with a slight offset tail wind coming up from our left shoulder. That changed to a side wind by about 8-9 miles. At about mile 12, we were running into a full head wind; sand, dust, and tumbleweeds tossed in to make it interesting. I had fallen back very early in the race, but Dan was able to get into a good pace group that worked together to overcome the wind. I struggled with the wind until mile 16 when I looked at my watch and realized that there was no way I was going to make 3:15 unless I grew rocket boosters out of my ass. Fighting the wind for another 10 miles was not high up on my to do list for the day, so I bagged it and walked over to the sag bus. I walked up on the bus and looked at the sea of faces before me and realized "these people are a bunch of LOSERS!!!!". I could not stomach riding home on the loser bus, so I got off, slogged back on the course and proceeded to finish the damm race in 3:39.
The headwind was reported to be 50 MPH with some 60 MPH gusts. All of us have the nice sandblasted facial look. Kirsten and I lost our contacts, and Dan is still cleaning dust and sand out of orifices he did not even knew he had.

Greg, Fred, and Janine ran great half marathons. Fred in at 1:27, Greg in 1:32 and Janine in at 1:50. Fred did some great pacing for Dan, and Greg was in position to pace me in, but no one could spot me. I was probably tucked into a pack of runners trying to stay out of the wind and sand.

Thanks to the Vegas group for a great weekend despite the race and thanks to all my well wishers prior to the race. I am bound and determined to run a 3:15...maybe Napa???