It was the year of the half marathons. That was the plan anyway. We had made progress – Austin in February, Michigan in April and now it was time to accomplish Nevada. Conveniently, a work trip at the end of May allowed us to book a flight a few days prior, and we were able to register for the Mt. Charleston half, a race organized by a group called Revel. This worked out well, since Mt. Charleston was on our hiking bucket list. Having spent some time in exploring Red Rocks about nine months ago, we were familiar with the area.

Friday 2018 04 27

Flying from DFW to Las Vegas means gaining two hours of time. Even waiting to leave until after the workday was over, it was not too late when we arrived in Sin City. Our Saturday plans (running 13.1 miles) involved arriving at the race location at 5:00am, but this early obligation did not deter these travelers from stopping for food and drinks before finding our hotel. We’re not fans of the noisy chaotic strip or casinos, so we headed over to the slightly less noisy Fremont Street for what was promised to be amazing pizza. Evel Pie has been serving pizza on Fremont Street since 2016, and one of our party had enjoyed their food (and dive joint vibe) multiple times during previous trips. At some point, it might have been edible pie, but on this night, we were served circular shaped food with a squishy crust and tomato sauce and a few pieces of un-melted cheese.

We decided alcohol would be a good consolation for the disappointing pizza and headed down the street to Atomic Liquors. A nice (if by nice you mean saturated in cigarette smoke and populated by pool tables) place, but a loud place. So many people. Despite the crowds and noise, we were entertained by the sights, and the beverages did not disappoint. Vegas might be noisy, crowded and dirty, but there are always interesting things to see.

Finally, in the wee hours of the morning, we decided it might be a good idea to find a bed and get some rest.

Saturday 2018 04 28

The thing about Revel’s marathons (aside from them all being largely downhill, and having some pretty solid swag) are the rules. Participants MUST ride a bus from Las Vegas to the start line. For us, this means departing our warm hotel at the top of Mt. Charleston around 3:30 am, driving down to the city, finding a parking spot, then catching a bus which would take us BACK the direction we just came from, and wait at the start line, which was approximately 1.5 miles from our hotel. Logical.

Hungover and exhausted, we did the things we were supposed to do, trying to block out the chatter of excited runners (guessing these serious folks did not stay at Atomic Liquors until way too late) and force our heads to focus on the next task. The charter bus groaned loudly, and pulled to a stop. We followed our race companions off the bus, and accepted the aluminum foil blankets handed to us by a volunteer. Turns out, we would need those. The start of the race was still 45 minutes away, the sun had yet to make its appearance. So what next? We were herded like cattle into a bullpen area, where all runners are expected to just stand there and wait (and freeze) in the early morning air.

Rules (again, more rules) prohibited leaving the bullpen, but some runners ignored those and wandered off into the desert, out of boredom or looking for a burning bush to guide them into life’s next challenge. Hopefully the burning bush would instruct its chosen one to set the runners free from the bullpen.

Since others went before us, we opted to wander off as well, exploring some hiking trails while we waited for the rest of the cattle to arrive on their shuttle buses. The trail we chose took us a bit out of the way, and it ended on the shoulder of the road where two more shuttles were releasing their racers. “In line!” shouted a race administrator, making eye contact with us, but failing to realize we had wandered from the desert, not the bus. “Stay in line! That way!” pointing to the bullpen. His tone of voice wasn’t one to argue with (he could probably convince the burning bush to wither away) and we chose not to.

We found our place in line with shuttle busers, and shuffled dutifully back to the bullpen. Visions of Rat Race: the mother-daughter team just finishes the rocket car debacle, emerge from the car, flustered and confused, and are immediately placed into the line of mentally challenged patients boarding the bus which would transport them back to the hospital. We remained in the bullpen until race time, clutching our questionably functional aluminum sheets around frozen limbs.

After what felt like hours, we were called to the start. The cattle lined up as called.

The sun was finally arriving to the land of the living, and the humans were grateful. We started when directed (by a loud gun) and headed down the hill with a large crowd of runners.

The first few miles went quickly. Too quickly, we thought, glancing down at our watches. We were averaging a faster pace than we ever had, but we both felt pretty good, and besides there was a guy in a wheelchair pushing right along with us at the same pace. If he could do this, so could we. We kept going.

There was nothing to complain about, aside from the guy buzzing back up the hill on an e-bike to taunt us about easier methods of transportation. The sun had come out, warming the air and resulting in a perfect temperature. There were only a few clouds in the sky. We were surrounded by mountains – the perfect backdrop. We knocked out those miles quickly, with some help from the natural elevation. The first eight miles took us downhill from Mount Charleston into the west side of the Las Vegas suburbs. In most half marathons, when you hit mile 10, you’re thinking it’s only a 5k left – no problem. In this race, it was a problem. At mile 10, we found ourselves headed into a suburban Las Vegas neighborhood on flat ground.

After running the prior nine miles downhill, the transition to flat ground was … impossible. Our pace slowed down, our muscles ached, bodies begged us to stop this unnecessary torture, compounded by the existential ugliness of suburban Las Vegas. We had to continue – everyone else was. Mile 12 and 13 transitioned from flat to a slight grade uphill and we questioned our sanity – was this worth it? Did we need to finish this race? We compromised with short spurts of walking. Walk, run, walk, run, we managed this way for the final three miles, wondering what was going on. This was the fastest pace we’d ever recorded, but also the most miserable second half of a race ever. When the finish line flags were visible, it was the most amazing thing we had ever seen. Somehow, we crossed that line, resisting the urge to immediately collapse.

Evidently, downhill running (long distance) is not easy on a human body. According to MapMyRun, “the muscles are lengthened rather than shortened, and fewer muscle fibers are activated. This results in greater intensity, which often leads to small tears in the muscles, known as delayed onset muscle soreness”. Who knew?

13.1 miles accomplished with PR times for both of us (by a large margin), we found a quiet spot nearby and stretched out in the grass for a long time. When we were physically capable of standing up (or at least trying to), we found our way to the shuttle bus. Yes, another bus. This one would take us from the finish line to the parking lot – the spot we had parked our car at 4:00 in the morning. The bus was filled with excited runners – some marathon finishers, some half. It seemed all had been gifted with eternal energy as they carried on conversations about routes, times, foot pain, etc. We didn’t speak as the bus transported us to the parking lot, focused on every pain in every part of our bodies, wondering if it was possible for heads to randomly detach from neck and roll down the aisle of a shuttle bus filled with chatty runners. Arriving at the parking lot, we found the rental vehicle, dutifully waiting for it’s exhausted renters in the same place.

When we had enough energy to use technology, we searched Google for (what else?) alcohol. That would fix this serious issue with every muscle in every part of our bodies. Unfortunately, most of this part of Las Vegas doesn’t wake up early, and the parts that do were choked with leftover Camel smoke and desperation. Despite the fact that we had been awake for what felt like days, the bars in the area had not even taken the bar stools down from the night before. We finally located a BJs that had just opened its doors to customers (they were probably expecting families for breakfast) and limped inside, finding seats at the bar and comfort in the liquid they served us.

Sufficiently intoxicated, we finally headed back to the top of Mount Charleston – the place where we started the morning in the hotel, then returned for the start of the race, and then… it was too much to consider. How many times had this road been traveled in one day? It was a beautiful drive, despite the fact that we didn’t want to do it again.

We had never been so happy to arrive at an unfamiliar hotel room. We closed the curtains, collapsed into bed and didn’t move for hours and hours.

When we finally emerged into the land of the living, we went in search of food. The Retreat on Charleston Peak is the perfect antisocial lodging option in the middle of the Nevada wilderness. While it’s less than forty miles from the city, it seems a world away from the incessant noise and lights of the Strip. It’s not ancient (built in 1984) but it has a unique vintage charm – the interior appears stuck in the 1990s. The rooms resemble a sleeping spot for gnomes, complete with low ceilings and thick green carpet. The restaurant and bar are surrounded, paneled, decorated, and plastered with wood, like an old ski lodge plopped in the middle of Alice and Wonderland. We explored the lodge and it’s weird air conditioning system, before finding a spot at the bar. A rest with drinks next to floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Humbolt-Toiyabe National Forest was a nice antidote to exhaustion.

After a snack and some drinks, we needed to walk. Muscles damaged by downhill battering could not remain still. We set out on a hike from the back porch of the hotel, thinking we could do some exploring while stretching our nonfunctioning legs.

Not far from the hotel, we found this mangled propellor stuck on a pedestal, a small piece of a bigger story. In 1955, a transport plane left Burbank, California and headed toward a undisclosed airstrip in the Nevada wilderness, about 90 miles north of the Las Vegas Valley. Their mission was to test a new high flying spy plane equipped with long-range cameras. The mission failed – the pilot became disoriented while traveling through a crosswind in a blizzard, hit a peak above Kyle Canyon and the plane from Burbank plowed into the top of the mountain, killing everyone onboard. The remains of the crash are still on the top of the mountain, visible through a permanent telescope installed near the memorial here. The propeller was finally brought down off the mountain, the story of the secret mission de-classified after many years, and the memorial was constructed.

What we thought might be a quick walk around the property turned into a two mile hike, up the mountain behind the inn and back down. The early evening sunlight provided a beautiful backdrop, the weather was perfect and crowds nonexistent. So we kept going.

After the long hike, there was dinner (and beverages) in the hotel restaurant, with a chance taken on grilled salmon at a landlocked hotel in the middle of the desert, followed by an early bedtime.

Sunday 2018 04 29

When the sun came up on Sunday, the damage from the downhill was worse – was that possible? Somehow, we not only crawled out of bed and found breakfast, but we took another walk. We reasoned that not walking would be worse for muscles, and headed out down the road near the hotel in the opposite direction of yesterday’s trek. It was a quick hike – our time was limited with an early afternoon flight on the schedule.

The morning started with many layers, but as the sun rose higher in the sky, the air gradually got warmer and the layers became unnecessary.

After a reasonably short hike (with a little bit of climbing) we packed up our things and headed out of the introvert’s wonderland, back to the city of annoying extroverts.

One minor stop on the way back. We spotted this beautiful racer snake slithering across the middle of a deserted road. At about 5 feet long, we hopped out to watch him slide across the road from a short distance away …

Trip conclusion and resolutions:

• Retreat at Mt Charleston: Perfect, need to visit again
  • Drinks and food: Decent, drinks better than food
• Hiking: Excellent, and more to explore
  • Fremont Street: Entertaining, requires beverages
• Downhill Marathon: The first and most likely the last