Tag Archives: Running

Good running news

October 28, 2009 8:47 am

Here’s some good news about the Rock and Roll Las Vegas Marathon from the LVRJ:

In the 10-plus months since it was announced that Competitor Group was taking over the Las Vegas Marathon, there have been several new additions to the race

A new name — the Rock 'n' Roll Las Vegas Marathon — that falls into line with the widely successful brand Competitor has spread around the country.

A new course that will include more of the Strip than ever, with the half-marathon contested almost entirely on Las Vegas Boulevard.

Now, nearly six weeks before the Dec. 6 race day, it’s clear the event will draw new numbers, as well. General manager Adam Zocks said registration topped the 20,000 mark last week.

“We have jumped right over the 20,000 plateau, and we’re probably pushing 21,000 right now,” Zocks said Tuesday afternoon. “Obviously, we’re very excited about the way things are progressing and about how many participants we’ll have on hand Dec. 6. I think we’ll have 25,000 when all is said and done.”

The previous event record was approximately 17,000 in 2007, when Devine Racing oversaw the event. Zocks was pleased to have overtaken that total, but he wasn’t surprised.

“No, not really. We’ve been on this type of pace most of the year, since we announced the event and the new course,” he said. “The one thing we definitely have in our favor is the Rock ‘n’ Roll brand. We have runners who follow the Rock ‘n’ Roll brand from one event to the next.

“We tell them we’re coming to Las Vegas, we’ve got a half-marathon course like no other, and the marathon course is unique, too. With the spectacle of Las Vegas, the draw is there.”

via Runners flocking to Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon – Sports – ReviewJournal.com.

I’m excited about running in the race this year. Well, I’m always excited, but this year feels different already. The marathon has been pretty bare bones for the past few years, and with the new owners I’m sure that the runners will have plenty of fun stuff to do in addition to running 13.1 or 26.2 miles.

If you want to register for the race or look into volunteering, check out the official race website.

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Rock and Roll Las Vegas Deal

May 7, 2009 12:44 pm

I got this is my email the other day–if you are thinking about running the RnR LV Marathon this December, this might be the time to sign up:

ROCKIN’ Summer Deal

Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon enthusiasts unite Join us for the Inaugural Rock ‘n’ Roll Las Vegas Marathon & Half Marathon – the REAL DEAL you‘ve been waiting for.

SAVE $10

Enter Code: TDEAL

Offer Expires May 15, 2009

+FREE T-Shirt

For First 50 Registrants

Register Now

Elite Racing Events.

I’m really looking forward to the race. If you live in Las Vegas, you can get a jump on your training by running with Las Vegas in Motion this and every subsequent Sunday.

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Rock n Roll Las Vegas Marathon is coming

February 5, 2009 1:45 pm

Promising a new course that nevertheless begins and ends where the old one did, Elite Racing has just announced the 2009 Rock n Roll Las Vegas Marathon:

The Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon Series Hits the Streets of Vegas

The rockin’ mix of running and music will be all aces along the Las Vegas strip.

Register Today

You’ll Get:

A Flat, Fast Course

Live Music While you Run

An Ultimate Tour of Las Vegas

A Rockin Good Time

Rock n Roll Las Vegas.

It’s going to be run on Sunday, December 6. It should be way more exciting than this year’s race. I see that zappos.com is back on board, which is good. More sponsor bucks usually translates into more stuff on the course.

I’ll be posting a notice about training groups, probably sometime around May or early June. If you can run a mile, you can probably run a marathon after a few months of preparation. The key is to not get too ambitious about your time and to stay disciplined. With all the music on the course we won’t have the usual mind-numbing boredom of the Carey/Smoke Ranch-Torrey Pines legs, either.

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Las Vegas Marathon news

December 1, 2008 4:48 pm

It’s apparently official: Devine Racing will be out of the Las Vegas Marathon after this Sunday’s run. From the LV Sun:

Devine will not manage the race after this year. A company that operates successful marathons across the country is taking over. San Diego-based Competitor Group Inc. thinks it can eventually draw as many as 30,000 runners to the course, with its starting line on the Strip.

The 2009 race will be renamed the Rock ’n’ Roll Las Vegas Marathon, joining a lineup of nine marathons the Competitor Group will hold next year across the country.

In those races, the company features unique courses — near the Alamo in San Antonio, through Music Row in Nashville and along the ocean in Virginia Beach — coupled with rock bands lining the roads and big concerts at the end.

Peter Englehart, chief executive officer of the Competitor Group, acknowledged the formula will need some tinkering in the next year for it to work in Las Vegas.

“We usually do a big headliner rock concert,” Englehart said. “But in Las Vegas there’s concerts every night.”

Not to mention the Cirque shows, the comedians, the magicians and the ever-present allure of the casinos.

Competitor Group’s record gives the Las Vegas running community good reason for hope.

Las Vegas Marathon on a new course – Las Vegas Sun.

It’ll be great to have some new leadership at the event. I’m going to be running in the race this year, and with all of the uncertainty about the event it seems almost anti-climactic. I’m sure it’ll be fun, but it sounds like it will be a bare-bones race this year.

I’ve got no doubts that a marathon can work in Las Vegas, but running a marathon has got to be the most anti-Vegas thing in the world. It’s not about decadence or instant gratification–quite the opposite, in fact.

In more good news, the rodeo is in town! Which means the scent of animal dung swirling around campus. Of course it also means lots of thrilling roping and riding and millions of dollars in consumer spending, but I’m just giving you my perspective.

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Marathon done!

December 2, 2007 9:19 pm

The 2007 Las Vegas Marathon is over, and it was a great run. We had ideal weather–cool, slight cloud cover, with not much wind–and it was a pretty good run. I managed to run get run over by any Elvi, which is harder than you might think.

Running with the pace group was great, and we finished right on target at 4:15, which is always good.

I’ve got an 8-hour teaching gig tomorrow (Monday) so short of MGM Mirage buying Harrah’s Entertainment and then announcing that it’s turning its casinos into roller rinks, I won’t be posting anything.

One last note–running down the Strip, in front of the Caesars fountains I yelled out, “EVEL KNIEVEL FOREVER!” The world lost a real original on Friday. I interview Evel back in May for a book I’m working on, and he was a great, classy guy. He talked about his life and the fact that he didn’t have that much time left, and didn’t seem to have any regrets. They should really dim the lights at Caesars, at the very least, to remember a guy who helped to put the place on the map.

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Marathon publicity

October 22, 2007 1:44 pm

It’s not that often that I read something in a major East Coast paper promoting the cause of running in Las Vegas, so I’ve got to link to this Bill Ordine piece in the Inquirer:

I have a daily ritual when I’m in Las Vegas that’s probably a little different than that of most visitors.

About 7 a.m., I run the Strip. Well, jog actually – a modest four-mile jaunt from Caesars Palace to south of Mandalay Bay and back. With the Strip nearly deserted at that hour, I’ve always enjoyed having what’s usually one of the busiest ribbons of concrete in the world mostly to myself.

But I’d hardly be alone on Dec. 2, when thousands of runners will flood the Strip amid fireworks and fanfare in one of the fastest-growing events in the country. The Las Vegas Marathon will start in the predawn darkness on Las Vegas Boulevard and follow a 26-mile, counterclockwise loop through Sin City.

Last year, the combined marathon and half-marathon drew more than 16,700 runners, up from nearly 11,000 in 2005, when just the full marathon was held. Before that, the race – now in its 40th year – never drew more than 2,000 runners, say the organizers who took over two years ago.

The breakthrough came as the new promoters recast the race as a “destination marathon,” sort of a fun jaunt that would attract not-so-serious runners as well as hard-core marathoners. More than three-quarters of the people who show up are from out of town, with many combining the run with a vacation. At the same time as the marathon, the half-marathon goes up the Strip to downtown and back. The day before, there’s a children’s run.

And, of course, there’s plenty of attendant Vegas flash.

Gaming Traveler | Las Vegas the place to run, play | Philadelphia Inquirer | 10/21/2007

The marathon is going to be a lot of fun–as frequent readers know (or don’t), I’m running it for the 3rd time this December. If you’re in Vegas on Sundays, come out and train with the Las Vegas Roadrunners. We’ve got a 22-mile training run this Sunday that’s sure to be a blast.

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Running in moonlight

August 27, 2007 12:45 pm

Well, I didn’t get stepped on by a cow or abducted by aliens, so I’m back after running the E.T. Full Moon Midnight (1/2) Marathon Saturday night/Sunday morning. I really liked the race, and I’ll do it again next year.

I decided to pay $25 for the bus trip out to Rachel, which was a great idea, since I didn’t have to worry about finding the place and, in theory, would be able to sleep on the way back. We started running the 1/2 marathon at 12:20, and it was a truly surreal experience. For a while, I was with a big pack of people with headlamps, but when I broke away from them and looked back, it was a bit freaky: imagine yourself running down a desert road in the middle of the night, seeing a bunch of people with headlamps chasing you. Very sci-fi.

Even when I was by myself (which was pretty much everything after mile 7 or so), I didn’t need a flashlight because the moon was so bright.

I can’t really verbalize what it felt like running by moonlight, in the middle of a desert…probably the best way is that it’s closest I’ll ever get to running on Mars (yes, I know there’s no air on Mars). So even though we didn’t see any aliens, it really felt extra-terrestrial.

The course was uphill for the first seven miles or so, which was a little more than I expected, and I definitely felt the altitude (it’s around 5000 feet). But this was a really fun race, and quite a novel experience for me. If I lived out in the desert, I’d do a lot more running at night. Schedule permitting, I’ll run this one again next year.

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Full moon + ETs = fun run

August 22, 2007 1:20 pm

This run sounds like fun–I’m doing it this Saturday/Sunday. It’s the ET Full Moon Midnight Marathon, 1/2, 10K:

Running along the fringe of the mysterious Area 51, this stretch of highway (375) has an overwhelming number of reported UFO sightings. So much so, that in 1996 the federal government officially named highway 375 the Extraterrestrial Highway. Not only is the ET Highway full of alien fun, it traverses some gorgeous scenery as well. At roughly 4000-5600 foot elevation, the high desert abounds with joshua trees and other vegetation unique to the area. This road is also “open range”, so don’t be surprised if you’re passing cows on course!

www.calicoracing.com

We get into a bus at the Atrium Suites at 8:30, arrive in Rachel 2.5 hours later, and start running the half-marathon at 12:30. Running a half-marathon in the dark (you’re supposed to bring a flashlight) is a first for me, so I’m excited.

If I don’t post anything on Monday, I either got abducted by aliens or stepped on by an irate cow.

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LV Marathon training starts

May 25, 2007 10:40 am

If you want to run the Las Vegas Marathon or Half-Marathon this year and are looking for a way to get in shape (long) before the December 2 race, you should wake up early this Sunday and head down to the 215 and Stephanie for the first Roadrunner’s training run. From their website:

Who: You and 500 of your best friends from southern Nevada
What: 2007 Las Vegas Roadrunners
Where: In the parking lot of the Stephanie Promenade, a strip shopping center on the northwest corner of Stephanie and American Pacific in Henderson
When: Sunday, May 27, 2007, 7:00 a.m.
Why: Because we can, we will and we do love to succeed

Las Vegas RoadRunners

I guarantee you’ll know at least one person there: I’ve helping to lead the 4:15 pace group. No, that doesn’t mean our average mile time is 4:15; it means that we’re shooting to finish the race in four hours and fifteen minutes. It’s a great way to get into or stay in shape, and there are pace groups for every speed level from six hours to 3:30. There’s a program for the half-marathon, too, which is a more manageable distance that anyone in reasonable health and without knee/foot/hip issues can do with a little preparation. It’s a great training program, and quite worth it.

Don’t let the fact that you’ve never run before hold you back. A few years ago I decided I wanted to run a marathon and, despite never having seriously run before, was able to do it. On race day you’ll get to run straight down the Las Vegas Strip, which is a great experience.

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Running alone is bad?

March 13, 2006 5:47 pm

Science is great. You have an idea, you write for a grant, and then you get to test the idea. Sometimes, you get a big breakthrough. Other times, people misrepresent your conclusions. Take, for example, this story, which suggests that running alone is hazardous to your health. From Forbes:

Many runners contend that jogging alone offers the opportunity to enjoy nature or appreciate an urban landscape, while giving the brain and the body a beneficial workout.

But new research with rats suggests that running solo might not offer the perceived benefits and, in fact, may actually be bad for runners when combined with social isolation.

The scientists behind the study report that mice forced to live and run by themselves have less brain cell growth than those that get to run with other rats.

The implications for humans aren’t clear.

But the study does show “that the social environment plays an important role in determining how a basic function like physical activity affects the brain and body,” said Bruce S. McEwen, a professor of neuroendocrinology at The Rockefeller University in New York City, who’s familiar with the study findings.

Running Alone May Offer Diminished Rewards

Based on the headline, you might think that scientists had found some hard evidence that humans who run by themselves are prone to a specific injury or disease. Instead, the study showed that rats who not only run alone, but live in complete isolation, have less brain cell growth. Could it be that those area of the brain keyed to social interaction don’t develop? Maybe. But it seems sensationalist to jump from this study to the premise that people who don’t live in isolation are hurting themselves by running alone.

The study’s co-author, Elizabeth Gould, made a great point:

For one thing, “rats are highly motivated to run. If you give them access to a running wheel, they will run without fail. This is a universally motivating behavior. This is not true for humans — many humans are not motivated to exercise.”

That might be an understatement.

The potential brain-numbing effects of running alone is just one more thing for me to think about when I run in the Six Tunnels Half-Marathon this Saturday. Great.

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