elites, chaos and elvi, oh my!

okay...if you can't tell already, this is a monster post and contains a recap of my running from last week, the vegas marathon and rbf fest. get a cuppa joe, sit down and read on!

so, scott, partyrunner, drew, keith and deene have been blogging about vegas for the past couple months and the rbf that we'd been planning. oh, we had such grand ideas for the weekend. i had planned on heading out on thursday or so and setting up an 'anti-marathon' race for the support crews on saturday am, a fun awards ceremony and pasta feed the night before the race. well, the whole thing began to devolve into frantic chaos starting back in october. i lost all my vacation and friday's off when i changed jobs, so the race thingie got canceled.

then coach gave me the monster week with a double on friday and 20 on saturday. i decided to stay home for the long run, get it in early and then head out to vegas right after. we'd get out there in time to get our shopping done and cook a great dinner for everyone at my sister's place in vegas. nice, home cooked pasta meal...couldn't be anything better to calm the nerves the night before the race, right? well, on friday my sister contacted me to let me know that she and her kids had a bad stomach flu. um...would you like montezuma's revenge with your penne? so, the pasta party was scrapped and we planned on dinner at a restaurant instead.

so, saturday morning rolls around and i'm up with the roosters to put in my 20. cool temps, light breeze, slightly damp from the overnight rain...perfect running conditions. i headed out and was feeling pretty decent until i stopped at 5.5 to top off my bottles. starting back up, the quad tightened up just like it did during the track workout on tuesday. dangit. it was so tight, i almost started searching for a phone to have smsmh come get me. but, stubborn me, i decided to shuffle along until it loosened up. after about a mile, it was feeling great again and i was back in business. i guess those doubles are going to take some getting used to.

again, things were fine until is stopped at 12.5 to top off again. once again, a shuffle start and by mile 13 i was back in business. on the way out along the san diego creek trail, i kept seeing signs of a race course being set up. i was out really early, so i figured i'd be home well before they started, since the water stations weren't even manned yet. at 15 i was supposed to drop to mp for three miles and then push HARD for the last two. as i rounded a corner, a car and motorcycle officer pulled onto the trail right in front of me, followed by a handful of elite runners. well, that was all the motivation i needed to drop my pace.

they were running the southern california half marathon, which brings out some pretty talented runners. pushing low sevens, i was able to keep them in site, but the slowly began moving away, and i was getting passed by the rest of the leading field. still, it was fun to be at the front of the race and have spectators think i was part of it. heh. after two miles of running with the race, i split off and continued home. i was able to hit the high 6's for my last two miles, right on pace with what the coach had asked for. i cleaned up, ate, loaded the car and we were off for vegas by 11:30.

the drive was uneventful and we arrived in vegas at 3:30. i called around to everyone and solidified our dining plans and headed off to pick up the dennis/pitts crew. just before getting them, i got a call from partyrunner saying that her mom and grandmother decided not to come to dinner and she wasn't able to get the car. could we either pick her up, or change the venue? sure! so, we switched locations and partyrunner headed off to find the new spot. i picked up the dennis/pitts crew and they suggested just dropping them at the monorail and heading off to pick up deene. so, i let them out and headed off to find deene and her daughter. the traffic was nuts and it took me about an hour to get deene and then make my way back to the hotel to get smsmh. on our way to where we thought the new restaurant was, we found out that no one knew where it was, and it hadn't been found yet. smsmh got on the phone to directory assistance, and we got the address nailed. the rbf gaggle was walking looking for it, but we passed it first. i dropped smsmh and deene off and headed to pick up the rest of the crew.

ask anyone of them and they'll tell you that an xterra comfortably seats seven. and a mountain bike. yup.

deene wasn't feeling so hot and when her brother-in-law showed up at the restaurant, she opted to head back to her hotel. still haven't heard from her about the race, so i'm not sure how she did. the rest of us settled into a great dinner and had a blast getting to know each other. we made plans for the race day support, pickups, drop-offs, gear, etc. we had a bulletproof plan. all that we needed was a perfect execution. after the meal, i began shuttling folks back to the monorail station and their hotels.

smsmh and i headed back to the hotel and i headed straight to bed. i was up at 3 am and out the door by 3:30. i wanted to make sure that i didn't blow the pick-up. the cool thing, though, was that i found a route that had no traffic and was a straight shot to the starting area. i was at scott's hotel by 3:45, so i hopped into the lobby where it was nice and warm and waited. did i mention that it was in the mid 30's, bone dry and WINDY? scott came out by 4:20 and i had him dropped at the start by 4:30ish. perfect. i rang keith to see if he'd caught his taxi yet and he was still at the hotel. so, i scooted up there, grabbed he and his better half and had him dropped at the start by 5am. perfect!

back to scotts hotel to pick up brit and steven and then we were off to the first crew spot on the course at mile seven. we'd picked seven, since we had heard that there was going to be a free breakfast for the spectators there. perfect! we found the spot with no difficulty and parked ourselves just in front of the mile marker on the lee side of a huge building. as the race got underway, the grill was fired up and we had hot pancakes to fill our bellies. perfect!

soon, the elite runners came cruising by, wearing barely anything. the stark contrast between us, all bundled up, and the runners was comical. keith came by first, looking really relaxed and enjoying himself. he took a couple swigs of some fluids and was off again. next, partyrunner cruised up, sporting her rbf shirt and looking relaxed and happy, too. scott followed and took a quick pit stop to shed his warm-up pants. he sat on the sidewalk while steven helped him pull them off. i shot a quick camera phone shot and sent it off to riona to blog.

apparently, riona was right on top of getting the photos posted (although, a handful of text messages and photos never made it through...booooo cingular!), as we received a panicked phone call from scott's mom asking why he was on the ground. we laughed and brit chastised me. no more photos of people on the ground!

we hung around at the seven mile marker until 1:30 into the race. brit cheered for drew every time she saw another orange shirt, but we never actually saw him or deene. needing to get to mile 18 in time to see keith, we headed off. we made a quick pit stop at carls jr. and bumped into michael, who needed a ride to 18 as well so he could hook up with his wife. so, we all piled into the car and quickly made our way to the next stop. we were able to park right next to the route without any difficulty. the crew headed over to the course, while i pulled out the bike and got ready to ride off to mile 20.

i waited at 18 until keith showed up and then made my way over to the 20 mile marker. i must have been a little slow getting going, or keith came by while i was getting of the bike and getting fluids and the camera ready, because i never spotted him. partyrunner came by after about 10 minutes of cheering. she looked really strong and was grinning like a cheshire as she ran up to me. she dropped off her extra gu and headed on her merry way toward the finish.

scott came by next, looking focused, but again, strong. he was nailing a really good stride, but packed behind a bunch of other runners, so i couldn't get a clear shot of him in the rbf shirt that he had designed. i shouted out a good luck call to him and he headed on toward the finish. apparently, drew was right behind him, but i don't think i caught him in any of the photos, since there was a couple blocking my view back down the route. i hung out at mile 20 and cheered for a while. while there, a bunch of running elvi (about 20 of them) came by, stopped at the entertainment stand and spent some time singing and hamming it up. it was great for the runners and for the crowd. i think this is one race that they were probably happy to be in costume. that wind was a killer. when the clock hit 4:00, i hopped on the bike and rode the rest of the way to the finish.

much to my dismay, there wasn't an alphabetized finish area, so we played phone tag for a bit before zeroing everyone in. keith, scott and partyrunner all looked amazingly refreshed, despite having run in the cold and wind. i had a missed call from drew, but only got his voicemail when i rang him. deene we hadn't heard nor seen all day. the guys were really itching to get some chow, so we gave natalia the car while smsmh and i headed back to the hotel to check out. after some more shuttling, we were done with our support duties, so we headed over to meet up with my sister and her family for lunch.

that had to be one of the most fun and fluid support attempts that i'd ever done. i really enjoyed hitting several spots on the course and being able to cheer for so many people. honestly, i think i enjoyed it almost as much as actually running. unlike other races i've watch in the past, this was the first time that i wasn't yearning to be out there running. i had a role, and it consumed me. and that was perfect.