My Husband and I decided to run this race because we loved another race in this series, Big Cottonwood so we thought it would be nice to explore the other locations that this race series extended to. We registered 2 months before the race for the half marathon. My husband wanted to run the full but it had already been sold out months ago, according to social media. All of the shirt choices were taken except for one also.

I had never been to Vegas before so we decided to fly in 2 days before to explore a bit. We booked our room at The Westin, which was near the host hotel but just as nice for less money. The expo was located at Cox Pavilion at the University. We didn’t rent a car so we relied on uber and the city bus, which worked out fine. We took the city bus from our hotel to the University of Las Vegas for the expo on Friday. It was pretty crowded when we got there around 2pm, the line to collect our bibs was long but easy to navigate once in. There were backdrops to take photos in front of which was pretty cool. The expo also had clothing and shoes for purchase. My husband and I both ended up exchanging our shirts for a different shirt. He shirts were nice but they were grey. Our swag bags also came with a nice pair of GoodR sunglasses. I thought that this was a nice touch.

Saturday morning we woke up early enough to catch an Uber to the bus-loading zone, which was half an hour away from the strip, which is where we were staying. It was extremely humid and hot outside and there was really no need for throws away clothes but I wore them anyway because I didn’t know what would be in store for us once we got to the top of the mountain.

Turns out that it wasn’t really cold at start so I took off my extra clothes and put them in my drop bag and checked my drop bag onto the truck so that I could retrieve it at the finish line. I see a few people start walking to the start so I follow them and from a distance I hear someone counting down and yelling Go! What?!? This was so strange to me because people were still sitting in a different area and waiting for direction and instructions. It threw me off but I just went with it. The temps heated up pretty fast. Aids stations were present every 2 miles, which was nice. The course was so stunningly beautiful. The weather was not idea though, it was too humid. It really felt like a desert!

The finish line had oranges, ice-cold towels, and water bottles. I sat down on the side with some oranges to wait on my husband to finish who was 8 minutes behind me, then we walked to get our drop bags, put our flip flops on and headed to the beer tent for free ice cold beer. Also, they were serving pizza but had no vegan options so once again our pizza coupon went to waste. I really wish this race series would add a vegan pizza option to the post race area…

Soon after we did receive a link in our e-mail about the free race photos! Yay!