Elvi

After not sleeping for a second night I woke up before the alarm went off. Michael was kind enough to walk the many miles of hallway to source out coffee for us shortly after 4:30 in the morning. Upon his return he told tales of hordes of runners lined up endlessly at Starbucks (he went to another deli instead). It made me kind of anxious. It was shaping up to be a bigger event than I had mentally prepared myself for.

Downed the coffee and breakfast and donned our over sized, soon-to-be-discarded sweatshirts and headed over to the start line at Mandalay Bay.

One nice thing about running a marathon in a city that sees 40 million pass through each year is that they have the bathroom thing sorted. No porta potties. I mean, there were porta potties, but I got to use the loo in the casino at Mandalay Bay and enjoy the warmth and the running water and the civility before scampering outside and scrambling over a gate into the 2nd corral (I was supposed to be in the 4th corral but Michael said it was okay and so it was okay then).

Because the sun was just coming up it was dark enough for fireworks to get the party started. But not too dark that I couldn't fully appreciate the guy in front of me that was running the marathon in his underwear. Briefs, to be exact.

Lemme tell ya. I had a very brisk 10k keeping pace with this guy.

Lots of Elvises. Some Santas. A bunch of people got married during the marathon. Tons of spectators and great, enthusiastic volunteers for the first leg of it.

Then I saw the signs at the nine mile mark indicating that halfs were to continue back down the strip while the fulls were being relegated to the desert.

I thought about it and thought about it. I was feeling okay, but I had a lot of gremlins in my head. My heart wasn't in it. I knew I had 17 miles to go and I knew it would be a lonely 17 miles. Most of the runners moved over to the half side of the road (there were close to 18,000 half marathoners and about 5,800 full marathoners). A volunteer asked a woman as she ran by if she was aware that she was taking the half marathon route because she was wearing a full bib and she said she knew.

Then I thought this is what marathoning is about. It's about looking at your watch and knowing that in twenty-four minutes you could be crossing the finish line of the half, but you won't be. You will run the extra 13.1 miles to prove that you can do it even though you know that by the time you hit the twenty mile mark you will be ready to throw in the towel and call it quits though you'll still have another 6 miles to push through.