Amazing Vegas!!!

Wow!! What a way to end a great year of racing! I am overwhelmed by what a fantastic weekend we had in Vegas! In the first place, it meant so much to me that my whole family was there to support me. Coming to a race is usually a pretty boring event for them...let's face it, if they are lucky, they might see me start or MAYBE once on course, then they mostly just sit around at the finish line and wait for me to show up. Not that I love to subject them to that kind of boredom, but knowing they're waiting for me at the finish line really makes a race special for me.

Then, well, it was VEGAS!! Running along the strip is totally surreal!! There you are, running past the Mirage, the Tropicana, the adult video stores...yes, parts of the run are through a bit of a seedy part of the strip...but it really was an amazing experience. The streets and pedestrian bridges are FILLED with people cheering. In fact, I think that Vegas might've had the most spectators I've ever experienced. Of course, there were also a few elderly ladies with their ziplock baggies of pennies who decided to play Frogger across a sea of runners as they attempted to get to their favorite slots. That was interesting. And there was the pirate with the parrot on his shoulder who squawed out dirty comments to the runners as we went by. The parrot, not the pirate. And the hundreds of people running dressed as Elvis. Like I said, surreal!

Another high point of the weekend was meeting Meb Keflezighi at the race expo on Saturday. Oh. My. Gosh! What an inspirational guy. The nicest guy you'd ever want to meet, too. He took time to chat with me and wish me good luck. I figured I had to have a great race after being wished good luck by an Olympic Silver medal marathoner! (He showed me his Olympic medal and his NY Marathon medal, too!! Let me hold them! Yes, I was geeking out!)

Dogged as I have been by hip and knee problems in the last few months, I was thrilled with my race and set a new PR! If all that isn't enough, I got to see Meb again at the finish line and he congratulated me! The whole weekend was a dream for me. Thank you to everyone who helped and supported me in getting there. I'm going to take some time to rest and think up how in the world I'm ever going to top this amazing weekend and this amazing year of running!