Runder Women

Latest Workouts:

Glow Run 2012-
10/7/12 - Freemont Street Experience

Saturday: 6.12mi/1:34 - Red Rocks in NV - 5800 ft.
Sunday: 3.15mi/29:26 - Glow Run 2012, Las Vegas

The miles may not be piled up this week, but the fun certainly has. Running with a life-long friend, no matter how rough the terrain or crazy the environment, is incredibly enjoyable.

KC and I flew to Vegas last weekend to celebrate our 12-year wedding anniversary. This trip has become a staple in our lives. He likes the gambling. I like the shows. We both like the food and the people watching. Bonus for both of us - we have childhood friends who live in the area so we get to spend time with a couple of our favorite people!

This trip was way more active than previous trips for me. My BFF Angel took up hiking and rock climbing when she and her husband were stationed in Vegas three years ago. I'm too clumsy to do either of those things, so past trips have mostly included shopping, spas, eating, drinking, clubbing and recovery (pretty much in that order). In the last year, Angel has taken up running - trail running to be more specific - and is training for the Moab Half-Marathon in early November. Our time together this past weekend included a serious 6 miler at Red Rocks and a very fun race/rave in downtown Las Vegas.

Saturday's trail run was tough. I'm not going to lie. The first two miles were great. A little downhill. A little uphill. The footing was somewhat challenging in places but totally do-able. The next two miles were serious. All up hill. Incredibly rocky footing and big elevation increases that made me feel like I had a black lung. Needless to say - we dropped the pace to a quick walk/hike in the middle of the trek. Miles five and six got us back to fabulous trail running with narrow, but good footing that led us down into a wash and back up to the top of the trail. It was a bright 85 degrees, brilliant sunshine, awesome breeze and NO humidity. I could get used to that combo.

Saturday's trail run - the down hill section!

Sunday night we joined a few thousand other runners, walkers and partiers in the old part of Las Vegas for the first ever Vegas Glow Run. Now, I have plenty to say about the race organizers and none of it is good. So I'm following that old advice (if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all) and just focusing on the fun we had. This race was un-timed and you were supposed to dress in costume - something Vegas folks are really good at. Our costume of choice - Wonder Woman.

This was Angel's first official race and she did great despite all the crazies, drunks, walkers, dancers, strippers and what not we encountered along the course. I played pacer and we decided we'd run an 11 minute mile since Angel trains run/walk, but wanted to run 90% of this race instead of 60%. For the record, I was a horrible pacer. In an effort to make some room for us, I took us off at a 9:30 pace, but we never dropped under a 10:30 and Angel did a great job. I pushed her and she killed it. Her first 5k and she finished in under 30 min!

I'll do a post about the details of our costumes another time, but we were awarded $25 gift cards from race sponsor, Zappos, for our creativity. If we end up on some weird Wonder Woman fetish site it will not shock us with the number of photographs we posed for.We celebrated Angel's awesome finish at the After Glow Rave until the wee hours of the morning. The evening was memorable for sure, but you know what they say - what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas!