Sunday was race day but the bad thing about a 5:30 pm start time is filling in the spare time. As we did not want to walk too much around Vegas before the race we decided that Sunday morning would be a good time to head out to The Gun Store. This was the opportunity to fire a gun something I would most likely never have the chance to do again.
4 of us piled into a cab and headed out. 10 minutes later we arrived at The Gun Store and selected our packages. I had read a few reviews and The Gun Store tends to get some pretty long lines so I was happy that we arrived not long after it opened and we could walk right up. Julia and I went with the women’s package – 20 shots with a glock 19 and 10 shots with a semi-automatic. Julia went with the pink AK-47 with Hello Kitty sticker while I gave the Beretta CX4 a try.
BERETTA CX4
Overall, it was an interesting experience. I could not believe how loud guns are, definitely a good thing that you have to wear ear covers. The gun range is also kept really really cold. We got to choose 2 paper targets and I went with a clown (I have never liked them) and a military zombie. I used the clown for the pistol and zombie for the Beretta.
Die Clowny Die!!
Both guns have serious lick but in very different ways. I don’t think that I feel the need to ever fire another one but it was actually a pretty fun experience. I know that the target was not that far away but I am pretty proud that I hit the target for all 20 shots.
The guys went with the Coalition package that included a pistol, semi-automatic and also a fully automatic machine gun. That looked pretty cool.
Semiautomatics are more fun...
After the gun store, we headed back to the hotel to pick-up Gina and head out for lunch. We found a lovely Thai restaurant at the Aria. It was particularly nice that it was out-of-the-way so not as busy as some of the other restaurants we passed. They had quite a nice menu and I went with the cashew chicken. We the race just a few hours away so I wanted something not to heavy but hardy enough to last. I think this was a good choice although I also ate a Luna protein bar in the car on the way to the race.
Around 4 we headed back over the Aria to grab a shuttle down to the race site at Mandalay Bay. There was a quite a line up but before long a few shuttle buses came a picked up a bunch, we were at the very front of the line when the buses just seemed to stop coming. The race started at 5:30 and at 5:05 we were still waiting for the shuttle and the start line was over 2 miles away. Not Good. It came to a point we started to walk away to start the walk down to the race site when two limos showed up. It was probably bad Karma but we raced back in line and jumped into one of them.
Shaun, Julia and Jay during the Limo to The Race site
Gina, myself and a girl from Texas enjoying the Limo ride.
With the strip closed, traffic was INSANE so it took much longer than normal to reach the start line and we still had to hit the bag check and then get into our corral. We had arrived at the race just as it started but unsurprisingly enough (or not considering 38, 000 runners) we still had a 10 minute wait in our corral before we hit the start line.
Waiting in the corral - The start line is around here somewhere...
Running with 38,000 is crazy….completely and utterly crazy. I knew that a PB was out of the question and boy oh boy was I right. The crowds were intense and we spent most of the time weaving between other runners. We all started out together but it did not take long for us to separate out with Julia cutting out early and I lost the others not long after.
Running up and down the strip at night is actually really cool, however the strip is only about 5 miles long so there was some distance through some of the seedier areas filled with pawn and bail bond shops. Interesting but in a completely different way than the strip. I stopped to take a picture of a giant ruby slipper around the 11k mark and amazingly enough Julia found me just after. Great timing. We ended running most of rest of the course together. I was extremely happy to finally see Mandalay Bay in the distance but everything in Vegas is farther than it looks….sigh.
About the 11k mark.
However, after 2:25 I finally crossed the finish line followed shortly by Julia and then surprise surprise Jay (who must have made up some serious time). While I personally found the race good, I did not enjoy the recovery area at all as you came a complete halt about 100m after the finish line. It was insanely packed. I managed to get a bar and a bottle of water and cytomax. I saw people with other food items but there was simply no way to get to it.
We had agreed earlier to meet by the bathrooms in the Bag check area and we were definitely not alone. Gina and Shaun both had a difficult race with cramps and nausea ….so not fun but they still managed to finish which was awesome.
Another race bites the dust....
We were lucky enough to be a group that consulted the recovery area map and so knew where to get the shuttles back to our hotel (apparently many people had no idea where to find them). It was great, we walked right on and they had the heat going full blast and it wasn’t long before we were back at our hote
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