I’m back in the UK now so time for our race recap!

We had a direct flight to Vegas the Friday before our run, our flight was about 9 hours and we got to our hotel around 8pm.  We had dinner reservations at Carmine’s with my cousin and her husband at 9.  It was so great they came to meet us in Vegas and my Aunt and Uncle also from Seattle were flying in the next afternoon.

Carmine’s serve family style Italian dishes so we decided to go with the Veal parm with angel hair pasta, and it was plenty for the four of us.  Let the carb-o-loading begin!  Carmine’s has recently opened up in the Forum Shops in Caesar’s Palace, the same place where the Cheesecake Factory is,  would be rude to walk by without getting anything!  I got the pumpkin pecan cheesecake, cause I love anything pumpkin pecan, but it wasn’t as good as I hoped it would be.  My cousin’s husband Andrew got the dulce de leche, which was awesome so I helped him out with that!

I was unfortunately wide awake Saturday morning at 630am, thanks 8 hour time difference, so we got up early and went to the expo at the convention center.  It was packed so we just wanted to get in, get our packs, and get out. I really wanted to try and find some salted caramel GU for the run, I had heard so much good stuff about it and don’t think it is available yet in the UK.

We got our picture taken at the gotchocolatemilk stand.  I used to collect all the got milk? pictures I found in magazines, dunno why! but I thought it would be fun to get ours done.

We met up with my cousins at Planet Daillie’s in Planet Hollywood for some lunch.  They have THE BEST Reuben I’ve ever had, and the Russian dressing they give on the side is killer.

We got tickets to the UFC fight that night, GSP had a title fight and there was no way Greg would miss it when we were in Vegas at the same time.  The pre-lims started at 330, and the main event wasn’t until about 930.  It was such a fun atmosphere, but shame that Hendricks didn’t win it.  We ended up seeing Bruce Buffer on our way back up to our room!

We met up with my Aunt, Uncle, and cousins for dinner and went to one of my favorite Mexican restaurants off the strip called Lindo Michoacan.  It’s an authentic Mexican restaurant, and they have their own shuttle service and will take you back to anywhere you want on the strip!

We were staying at MGM, and had a little hiccup with our reservation so we were given a complimentary meal at the hotel buffet.  We had planned out everywhere we wanted to go in the short time we were there so we weren’t sure where we would be able to fit it in.  I had wanted to go to Denny’s the morning of the race to carb-o-load on pecan pancakes, so we decided to go to the buffet then instead.  I didn’t see the pancakes until after I had filled my plate so only had a couple mini ones and carb-ed up on biscuits, corned beef hash and a maple glazed scone.  I probably ate too much, but we had about 5 hours until the race so it was more than enough that I wouldn’t need to snack on anything else before.

We had a couple of hours to kill before the race, and wanted to find somewhere in the hotel to watch the Seahawks game.  It was only showing in a few bars that had a minimum spend to sit there, so we just decided to go back to our room and chill out.  So excited Seahawks are 11-1 now, and we have tickets to a game when we are back in Seattle for Christmas, we are super excited to go to our first NFL game in the states!

Luckily we didn’t have too far to walk to the race start, so we headed over and lined up for one last potty break before the run.

Unfortunately, I was the last one out of the porta-potties and the first corral had already started.  We were supposed to be in corral 8, but by the time we got to the corrals we were in 27! We tried to walk along side and move closer to the front but the closest we got was 17 and just stayed there.

It felt like we were just trying to catching up the whole time and were weaving in and out of people the entire race.  My watch said I had run 13.26 miles at the end of it so there was lots of criss crossing across the street!

I wanted to try and run my first half under 9 minute miles so if I had to slow down in the last few miles I’d have a buffer and still be able to make my goal to get under 2 hours.

The first 8 miles felt great, the weather was perfect and the course was flat, so couldn’t have asked for better conditions. Once we were off the strip and running through random neighborhoods, my legs were starting to get heavy and I was ready and looking out to see how much further till we were back on the strip.

I looked at my watch and saw that I was at 10 miles, 3.1 to go and was on track to beat 2 hours.  A few minutes later I saw the 10 mile marker up ahead of me so that was a little disheartening, and I wasn’t sure how much my watch was off.  I really started slowing the the last mile and a half, my legs were really hurting so I just wanted to stop and walk for a few seconds and hopefully be able to pick the pace back up. It helped a little bit, and the finish line was in sight but I didn’t have a lot left in me to push it much faster.  According to my watch I crossed the finish line in 1:58:49, 6 minutes quicker than my PB! Official time was 1:58:40

We unfortunately weren’t in the mood for clubbing, and will probably be the first and only time I didn’t drink much in Vegas.  I’ll have to make up for it in August during my bachelorette party!!

My Aunt and Uncle left Tuesday morning, so we just spent the rest of our time walking around the casinos checking out the Thanksgiving and Christmas decorations and chowing down in between! We went to Grimaldi’s in the Venetian, amazing pizza and Fogo de Chao for dinner which is an all you can eat Brazilian buffet that has the best bbqed meat, I mean filet mignon wrapped in bacon? Yes please!

We left on Wednesday night, Greg back to London and me to my mom’s in Maryland for Thanksgiving.

Until next time Vegas!