My sweet, sweet grandmother still sends me money for my birthday. I can't get her to stop even though I'm a grown-ass woman but if it makes her feel good then I guess I have to feel good. This year I put that money towards a first class upgrade on my flight to Vegas. I've flown first class on a few flights before and, you know, I just like the way it feels. It agrees with me. It compliments the valium nicely. Flight attendants are so nice to you! Everyone lounging in their wide seats with their fleece blankies while all the poor stiffs shuffle by, longing in their eyes, trying to spot an empty overhead to jackknife their carry-on into. The novelty of it distracts me from my normal routine of crying and rending my garments on take-off. Something I think my fellow passengers appreciate. Thanks, Grandma.
I get to Vegas early Saturday morning, my sister picks me up and we head over to the Mandalay Bay to pick up my race packet. I get to smell the Mandalay Bay Smell. I don't know what it is. Toxic air freshener, most likely. But the Mandalay Bay and The Bellagio pipe in this pleasingly artificial flower/leather sofa smell into their casinos. And rather than hating it, I absolutely love it and it reminds me of Vegas. I've never smelled it anywhere else. We walk 10 miles through the convention center crap and the expo crap, grabbed my number and my T-shirt from Salt-n-Pepa. I'm not kidding. They were the most enthusiastic trio of volunteers I've ever witnessed. From Texas. Not that that explains anything. But they were obviously soaking up the Vegas experience and hitting the sauce. Marla Gibbs said she'd see me at the finish and then Jackee chimes in, "Yeah girl, I'll be there with my spray bottle squirting vodka in your eyes". WTF? Maybe that was her version of 'break a leg'. I don't know. They were high.
The rest of my day is spent being mellow. We made a trip to the gym and I ran a few miles. Ate pasta. Went to bed around 8 PM.
(cue Rocky's Theme)
4 am rolls around and I bound out of bed, pound a glass of raw eggs and do some pull-ups in my bedroom doorway.
Or.
Hesitantly make myself eat a yogurt and a piece of toast; my brother-in-laws previous nights' tale of Grete Waitz's craptastic NYC marathon finish on repeat in my head.
It is FREEZING at the start. I actually take shelter in the Port-a- Potty to get out of the cold. There is nothing worse than waiting around at the beginning of a race. Even more so when it's 38 degrees. My teeth were chattering. If it wasn't for the menthol-cool stylings of Robin Leach as race announcer, I would have simply perished. Robin Leach? Yes. He's still around. He's some gossip guru in Vegas now. I couldn't see him just heard his voice. I couldn't see much. I had to dash from the car to the start because we were stuck in some pre-race traffic jam. I followed the crowd and took my place in the street. There was talk of starting corrals and whatnot but I couldn't see anything but massive people. The ones next to me didn't look like elite athletes what with their 100% cotton shirts, earmuffs, tool belts with 40 GU's locked and loaded - do you need that many? Seriously? And the others to my left, full makeup, fake boobs barely tethered by only the merest suggestion of pink sports bras. I figured this place was as good as any.
And we're off!
And we're not going anywhere.
It took me about 10 minutes to reach the starting line but I enjoyed the fireworks display and getting black trash bags wrapped around my ankles. If you didn't watch where you were shuffling, you would have fallen face first in piles of discarded sweatshirts. Goodwill has nothing on what's left along the first 3 miles of a marathon. Such a waste!
I'm feeling good at the start. As I predicted, the excitement of running along the strip was a huge distraction. I ran the first 6 miles and it felt like I had been running 15 minutes. The pack never really thinned out and you had to watch where you were going but other than that there was a lot to take in. Seeing Vegas at that hour was interesting. The sun is coming up, there were a lot of spectators. There were also quite a few hookers. Now, I know Vegas has plenty-O-hookers, sure. Usually they're blending in with the other chicks that dress like hookers just because they're in 'Vegas, Baby!' And what might be a legit soccer mom from Waukesha, WI could easily be confused with your garden variety chippie because both have 3 inches of buttcheek hanging out of their PINK short shorts. These however were definitely the streetwalker variety. How else to explain walking down Las Vegas Boulevard solo, barefoot, pumps in one hand, cigarette in the other at 6 am. Whole different slice of life. The juxtaposition of our pack of runners, high on life, with her at the end of her long night was somewhat deflating. Run from the guilt! That's my new motivation!
I ate a few Shotbloks at mile 9 even though I didn't necessarily need them. I carried them all this way, I might as well use them. I called my sister a few times from the route to tell her where I was and when I would be at the finish. I felt so stupid talking on the phone & running, like, "Watch me - this race is SO EASY I'm checking my voicemail". On the other hand, it was very useful otherwise who the hell knows how I would have found her. I'd do it again.
About 2 miles from the finish, the police cars pull through with their sirens and make us all move to the left. The motorcade escorts the female leader past us with TV cameras and everything. She's totally trucking. Not even breaking a sweat, wearing the teeniest of briefs and singlet. It dawned on me that she was finishing her marathon ahead of me finishing my half. My head twirled for a moment. Then it was time to turn on the afterburner. Shelley Style. It's been well-documented on this website that my running gait resembles that of a geriatric overly concerned with low-impact, low to the ground, Stealth Jogging. No matter how fast I'm going, how much energy I think is being expended. At a full sprint, I still think I'd look like I had a load in my shorts I was determined to deliver ever so delicately to the finish line. I attribute this partly to my larger chest, learning over the years to try and keep that up and down movement to a minimum. Partly, I'm just retarded. It doesn't FEEL like I'm running this way in my head and that's the important thing; I choose my own reality. When I say I 'turned on the afterburner', that means I boosted my speed so slightly as to be undetectable and turned on "It's a Long Way to the Top" by AC/DC on my iPod. Yeah. Eat my dust.
Coming into the finishing gate was awesome. I felt super. Not super enough to run another 13.1 miles like others were doing at that moment (good, god) but better than I expected. I didn't see Shannon and Mike but they caught me on video. I passed on the mylar cape but grabbed a banana, walked to the car, got home and took a four hour nap.
Total thanks to my sister and Mikey for their awesome support. They made me feel like a real rock star. Kinda like this guy.
