Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Vegas baby, VEGAS!

OK OK OK, so this is probably not your typical blog about vegas. I didn't hit any strip clubs, nor did i get shitfaced drunk. in fact, the only time i step foot into a casino was because i had to in order to get to see rock of ages (more to come later).

i had my first taste of red rocks earlier this spring, it was great. my sister from another mister couldn't make it out so we talked about doing a fall trip. i've been needing to tick off nevada for my 50 states marathon, so i figured i would combine the two. luckily, vegas marathon happened to be in november, which is perfect fall climbing season.

my training for vegas was pretty spotty. i had about 5 weeks after ironman choo to recover and train. the recovery happened, the training itself.. meh. i had a 20ish mile week, a high 20's week then a 38 miler week followed by a 2 week taper. i had originally wanted to run a 3:20 or lower but i knew that wasn't going to happen race day. again, we'll get there.

i got into vegas early, around 10am. deirdre, one of kristie's friends from SF was getting in at 10:30ish so i waited for her at the lounge. we kind of had a little goof moment, taking the tram to terminal 1, only to realize we were not actually leaving the airport, then when we tried to order an uber it took us a good 20 minutes to find it. it was as if mccarran airport didn't want the coolest 1.5 asians to leave.

we were both pretty hungry (ok, i'm always hungry) so we decided to find this ramen shop where we decided to eat and wait for kristie and johnny to get in. we ended up waiting for quite some time, the shop closed and kicked us out (perhaps we should have eaten more, or more slowly) so we sat outside like bums until our friends showed up.

the croo on frogland

the original plan was to do some single pitch climbing on friday since the marathon was saturday (or so i thought), but we decided to go after it and do some multi pitch climbing. frogland is a classic 5.8 climb that i had done in the past but not lead any of the pitches. i wanted to get back and try to lead a few pitches and it was something kristie was stoked about. we got up early (not early enough) and headed there with dierdre and jacob. there were 3 parties ahead of us, but we decided to wait and eventually all got on the climb by 11. mannnnnn, was my lead head gone. i got lots of work to do. maybe the injured wrist kept me worried, maybe not. i'm not sure. but i'm glad i got some lead climbing in on my trip. the climbing was good, we had some rope stuckage the last pitch which slowed things down. hiked out as the sun set and got to the car in the dark. i was toast. only had 1 liter of water and 2 bar (340 calories). we got back to the house, picked up johnny and headed out to goyemon for awesome all you can eat sushi.

jacob destroyed after all the sushi... we ate all the things. 

i was pretty pooped the next morning. i was dropped off, got my bib etc but realized on the way home that the marathon was sunday, not saturday. by that time it was past noon and everyone was out climbing. i decided to take it easy, chill in the hot tub, have some beers and just relax. i ended up eating ramen and meeting up with dana as his teammates had 2 extra tickets to rock of ages at the rio.

dana and i met up with folks, had komex (korean mexican fusion) and headed over to the rio where we met some folks. i would recommend rock of ages, it was a funny show, had some good songs and the seats were pretty good. the next morning folks slept in a bit, i didn't want to spend another day sitting around doing nothing, so i opted to head out to kraft boulders with thomas and beau, with ryan and cat joining a bit later. we worked some warmup problems, i snagged both classics on potato chips and then got 6 or 7 burns on the pearl, which is an awesome boulder problem that starts with a 3 finger pocket that you have to crank on to get to a pinch while cranking on a toe, only to bump to a super super shitty 3 finger slope, to bump off to a rail. it was extremely painful, it did not go, it was in the sun all day.

i was getting tired so i decided to head back to the house and chill and get ready for the marathon. after some resting, i took a lyft to the race, but the traffic was poop. i ended up being almost 2 miles from the race and had to walk there drop off my bag and then make my way to the front of the line. it was really awesome walking down the strip, no cars on the road, a pretty cool experience.

the whole strip, all to the runners!

the marathon was... well, it was interesting. the first 6ish miles were on the strip. afterwards it took us into old vegas and into vegas and took over a billion turns, in and out of industrial parks and regular parks before it looped back onto the strip. i put down an expected time of 3:20 so i could start in corral 2. but next time i run a rnr marathon, i'm going to lie hardcore so i can start in corral 1. i was extremely annoyed when i saw a lot of folks with high corral numbers make their way up front. the first 4 miles of the race was a complete cluster fuck. races really need to at least threat disqualification when slow runners get up front and bog up the race. what's the point of going out at 8 min miles for the first 4 miles when you run 11 minute miles to finish the race. either way, i kept a solid pace for the whole race. by mile 6ish the 3:30 pace group passed me. i'm not one to run in groups as i prefer to run my own pace but for some reason they seemed like a fun group, the pacer was enthusiastic, so i decided to join then. we ran together for a little over 6 miles, he was not the best pacer. at times 8:20 pace, at others 7:05ish pace. i figured the surges back and forth would hurt my later so i kept at my even pace and just yoyo'ed with them. by mile 10 i decided to just stay with the group. mile 12.5ish came and the 2 people i was running with kind of started to pull ahead of the group. that was when the pacer yelled "ugh" and grabbed his leg, i asked if he was ok, but he told me to keep going. i looked around and it was pretty obvious the 3:30 folks were a little lost. i could tell that folks were thinking "oh fuck, now what". i looked around and a few folks were with me so i said i would hold the pace. i pushed it a bit to catch up to 2 others who were in our group. by the time i caught them, the 6-7 folks with me withered down to 4. we stuck together from 13-18 miles. by then the 2 picked it up a notch. it was clear they were a little competitive with each other, it was pretty cool to watch, but i had a feeling they were going to pay for it. about a mile into it they were about 100 yards ahead, i looked at the 2 guys i was running with and told them that i would bridge the gap. i could see that they were losing steam a bit, so i picked up the pace steadily until i caught the two. i stayed with them until 22 and the 3 of us started to work a bit harder since we both knew we were really close to the 3:30 marker (or so we thought). i was the first to break, probably at mile 24. but i found a 2nd win and caught them again only to have to pee and get passed. i dug in another time, caught one of the runners and tried to chase the other down but decided that i wanted to enjoy the rest of my trip and just jogged it in. 

it was a pretty cool finish line, with all the buildings lit up, with all the people watching and cheering. it was a bit lame to watch all the folks finishing the half in 3:35, most of them walking the last mile.... i mean, not because they didn't train or whatever, it was more so that there were sooooo many people on the course, you couldn't run if you tried to. i ended up doing a 5k cooldown walk/jog and took a lyft home to join folks in the hot tub for beers.

the next morning i decided to sleep in. thomas and i hit up the crag afterwards but it took a good 90 minutes to find everyone. i got on one climb and realized i was too tired to climb, so i just hung around, took photos and chatted people up. 

later that night we hit up lotus of siam. it was amazing food. we ate all the things, and all of the things of all of the things. even the white people ate all of the things, i was impressed with my new friends. 

red snapper by: myself, deirdre, aaron, jacob, and ayaka


red snapper by: thomas, kristie, martin, and johnny
don't worry, we helped them finish their red snapper. we also ate both pad thais, soft shell crab noodles, pot of soup, pineapple fried rice, papaya salad, stuffed chicken wings, shrimp salad, pork belly, and then had some bubble tea. i'm pretty sure the bubble tea was what pushed me over the edge. we got back, redid hot tub and beers, and everyone crashed early. 

tuesday morning involved some cleanup and we all departed the house. kristie and johnny hit up the strip to explore. the rest of us decided to boulder, and boulder we did. i ate all kinds of crap and didn't scend any of my projects. but i was happy to be in nature, among new and old friends. 

i think someone is tired.....

the croo checking out potato chip boulder

how the hell does this girl climb in those?

pork chop boulder, super fun problem

the pearl v5, my new favorite project

sick shot


martin on monkey bars traverse

jacob, finishing the climb

this is why bouldering is better than ropes... ha ha

of course, we finished the trip with ramen and i hit up the lounge for a few hours with jacob, deirdre, and ayaka whilst i waited for my flight to board. 

all in all, i didn't get nearly the amount of alpine climbing i wanted to get done, i didn't get on any of the hard sport problems in the sport crags, nor did i scend anything higher than v3. but considering i didn't climb for 3 weeks and i'm still nursing tears in my dominant wrist.... well, i'll take it.

super stoked that i made new friends, ticked off nevada, got to see kristie and johnny (and brooke! who we bumped into leaving the 2nd pull out), and got to eat at lotus of siam.

as for vegas marathon: if you think running 7 miles out of 26.2 on the strip is worth it, do it. otherwise, there are likely better marathons in nevada. it's one of those bucket list items that only kinda sorta live up to it.










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