Run to Win

As far as I can tell, the Las Vegas Marathon is no more, which is good news for all concerned because now the Rock’N'Roll folks have taken over and are running their version of a brand new marathon there this December.

In an unprecedented move, the marathon is going to be the first private event to shut down both lanes of Las Vegas Boulevard, which allows the half marathon course to be almost entirely on that one road.

Honestly, if there’s one road I’d want to run on in Vegas (when there’s no traffic of course) it would probably be right there on the Strip so you could see all the craziness as you ran by.

The runners will be treated to all the staples at the aid stations such as water and sports drink, and if Vegas holds true to my experiences on the strip they’ll probably be treated to some pornography as well.

Of course, even with better race management I still have to wonder…why would anyone really want to run a marathon in Las Vegas?

Before I went out to visit, I probably would have thought that it would be a great idea. Having been there, though, I’d much rather run a marathon outside of that bowl of pollution.

Inside the city, you’ll have trouble sucking down the air even going 2 or 3 minutes slower than race pace. Head just 20 minutes outside the city and cross the mountains there, and you’ll have all the clean air and beautiful scenery you can handle.

My recommendation is that if you are going to visit Las Vegas to run a marathon, take a look at the Calico Racing schedule and see what events they have going on. You’re lungs will thank you.

(More Info: LV Marathon Home Page – Calico Racing)

Just a quick note that if you entered the lottery for the 2009 New York City Marathon, the results are available. Just do a search for your name in their entrant database:

https://webapps.ingnycmarathon.org/marathonregistration/

They are also looking for folks to update their emergency information while they are checking on their status.

Good luck for anybody that tried to get in through the lottery!

There were about 6000 lottery slots open for about 40,000 registrants; the rest of the registrations were guaranteed entries through race performance or fund raising.

Would you rather see Ryan Hall running the Chicago Marathon or the New York City Marathon this Fall?

Well, he is giving you the opportunity to help him decide. “I want to run where people want to watch me run.”

You can vote by following him on Twitter and sending him a @reply message with your vote. His Twitter username is ryanhall3.

Just tweet @ryanhall3 New York City Marathon or @ryanhall3 Chicago Marathon to vote.

By the way – if you’d like to follow me on Twitter you can do so by following RunToWin!

(Source: Denver Post)

It has now been a week since the second running of the Cox Sports Marathon in Providence, Rhode Island. This is the race that I won last year, and I was looking to repeat again this year.

New Course Analysis

The course this year was completely different than last year, with a different start and finish line and much more extensive use of the local paved trail system. Rather than going north of Providence through Pawtucket, the course spent more time towards the South near Barrington. All in all, I rather liked the new course despite taking some of the hills away. There were a few problems with the new course, though.
(Click here to continue reading…)

I’ve finished writing up my race report for last weekend’s marathon, but I haven’t had a chance to go in and format it yet or add photos. So, here’s a quick link to how I did with my pace prediction before the race:
(Click here to continue reading…)

Jeff Edmonds is a runner from Nashville, Tennessee.

Like me, things didn’t go as planned. Here’s his story, as originally related at RunningAhead.com.

I had decided to run Avenue of the Giants because, well, it is beautiful [yes, it was] out there on the Northern California coast. Also, it was located close to one of my oldest running friends. It would be a chance to visit him, to run together. We were both as fit as we’d been in a long time and thought it would be great to pace each other through to a couple of PR’s. We would run fast, like we had when we were young. Such was the plan.

“But there was one thing I did miss, and when I realized what it was, and thought about it, it became something of an obsession. … What it was was this: When you’re a competitive runner in training, you are constantly in a process of ascending.” — Quenton Cassidy
(Click here to continue reading…)

This is just a quick update now that I’m home from Providence.

I ran my race plan perfectly, at least through the half marathon. I was at 77:24 at halfway.

Then I blew up. My left calf got a little tweaked around 15 miles in, so I slowed down and changed my gait a bit, and then things just went downhill fast and a bunch of guys caught me. over the second half of the race I lost 11 minutes.

Had I not gone out so aggressively (2:35:00 pace) then would I have been able to run under 2:40? Possibly. I am sure that I could have PRed at least.

Do I regret having gone out so hard? Not in the least. I don’t think that I could have won with the competition this year, and had there been a chance then I’d have needed to run over my head to do it.

I just wasn’t in the kind of shape I needed for the strategy I used, but as Sir Roger Bannister said, “If a man coaches himself, then he has only himself to blame when he is beaten.” I took a big risk, and I didn’t fall apart as much as I might have but more than I wanted to.

I’m happy with my race, but I’m disappointed in how it went, if that makes sense. It was a worthwhile experience even if I didn’t meet my goals, which were further hampered by stopping a few times to relieve myself and by getting punched in the groin late in the race.

I’ll have more details in a full race report, but I just wanted to let everybody know how I did in case you didn’t catch my comment this morning in the prediction thread. (Congratulations to Mark for being the closest to how fast I’d actually run.)

This is just a reminder that today is the last day to predict what my time will be in tomorrow morning’s marathon.

Last year, I won the marathon in 2:43:27, which was pretty exciting.

Going into the race this year, I have 3 goals.

1. Break the course record.
2. Set the course record.
3. Run faster than 2:37:00.

If you haven’t made a guess yet, you can get full details here:
http://news.runtowin.com/2009/04/30/guess-how-long-it-will-take-me-to-run-the-cox-sports-marathon.html

On another note, I will probably get an update on the site late today with how Mike Brooks did during his 10 day race and whether he was able to run the last 31 miles to reach his goal of 500 miles or not. His back was hurting him pretty bad the last I heard from him. I won’t be able to get the audio update onto the site until tomorrow evening, though.