I took the day off from work and left the house at about 6 am. I rolled up to the Tesla Supercharger in Barstow at just before 7:30 am. I had thought about checking out the faster charging station at the newer Tanger Way location which was just south of the outlets, but this one was much closer to all of the food options. After plugging the car in for a charge, I made the short, but cold walk over to the nearby Starbucks. The mobile app showed that they were only taking drive through orders, so I'll have to order via the old fashion way and talk to someone. After using the restroom, I got in line to order an Americano.
Barstow, CA
Gender neutral restroom
Americano grande
With the long range battery, I had enough charge to easily make it all the way into Vegas without having to stop in Baker or Primm. I got off the freeway and stopped in at the Cracker Barrel for breakfast. I got my usual Country boy breakfast with sirloin, hash brown casserole and grits. Not sure where my waitress went the whole time after taking my order and bringing me my food, but she didn't give me my biscuits and gravy. She did show up to give me my bill. Oh well, that just means she only gets the standard 20% tip. These days, after just having gone through a couple years of COVID, I try to give a little more whenever the service has been good. Unfortunately, this morning's service did not qualify.
Country boy breakfast
Medium
I hopped back in the car and drove over to the Tesla Supercharger station just off of the Strip and next to the LINQ hotel to charge the car before the final stretch up to St George. Once I plugged the car in, I walked over to the LINQ Promenade to check things out as I rarely venture out this close to the Strip. Before heading back to my car, I stopped in at the Flamingo to use their restroom.
Las Vegas, NV, The LINQ
This way to the LINQ Promenade
The Strip
The final stretch took me into St George, Utah. I pulled up to the St George Running Center at just after 2 pm which was the time that packet pick up was to begin. Near the entrance, they had a sign that showed that the pick up location was in their training room at the back of the store. Once I gave them my bib number and they verified that the information on the bib matched, they attached the disposable timing chip to the back of the bib and gave me a cotton race t-shirt.
St George Running Center
Race shirt
After that, I drove over to the nearby Days Inn to get checked in. This was one of the few places that I've stayed at where the normal check-in time was at 2 pm. Most places want you to wait until 3 or 4 pm. The guy at the front desk was friendly, but he definitely wanted to move at his own pace as I was unsuccessful at trying to speed up the process. I was about 2 steps ahead of him. Once we got the paperwork squared away and he gave me my room key, I went up to my room #318 which was in the back corner. It was a pretty nice suite for a Days Inn. I left my bags in the car as I still needed to go back out to pick up dinner.
Cat Noir
After taking a quick nap, I went back out at about 4:30 pm and drove over to the nearby McDonald's to pick up my usual pre-marathon meal. There weren't any good deals on the mobile app, so I cashed in my reward points for a quarter pounder with cheese. I added a McDouble since I will be running a marathon tomorrow. After finishing my meal, I laid out my flat runner before taking a shower.
Flat runner
Later that evening, I ended up watching a movie called The Lincoln Lawyer. Matthew McConaughey is one of my favorite actors. His acting performances have always been good even in some bad movies. This was no exception. The movie had just enough twists and turns to make it an entertaining movie. That was followed up with the usual Friday Night SmackDown! Have I already mentioned that I really dislike the old, tired, and untalented Roman Reigns and the Bloodline? The only thing I like about them are the USOS tag team, but even though they are the current RAW and SmackDown tag team champs, they have been relegated to being Roman's henchmen in preserving his title reign way longer than it should've been.
The Lincoln Lawyer
WWE Friday Night SmackDown!
Saturday 1/28
Apparently, I slept through all of my alarms. Later I would find out that I somehow turned down the alarm volume down to zero! Luckily, I had heard or felt the phone vibrate and had pre-packed my bags the night before. I woke up with just enough time to get ready and head to Archie Gubler park to catch a 5:30 am shuttle ride to the start area.
Once we arrived at the start area and had gotten off of the bus, we headed over to the small cache of portapotties and got in line. Once we took care of that, we headed over to the picnic tables to get some heat from the fire pits and to listen to some of the last minute instructions. Unfortunately, it was getting quite smoky around those tables. Eventually as it got closer to the 7 am start, the race director put out the fires and told us to head towards the start line.
Waiting by the fire pits
Robert
I started with my friend from the back of the pack. We jogged the first 2 miles at about 10 minutes per mile. I was going to stay at that pace, but that was just a warm up for my friend. For the most part, it felt fine until the altitude started bothering me. I was hoping to run at a consistent pace at least through the first 20 miles, but unfortunately, the pace just kept slowing down. We were treated to some picturesque views during the first half of the course. Pictures that I took during the race did not do it justice! It was also nice since there weren't very many cars out on the road yet.
Start line
Just a little over 5k into the race
Running the second half wasn't quite as enjoyable as the first half. It was a bad combination of the road shoulder being very narrow and some of the cars not giving a shit that you were running on the side of the road. Somewhere during the early part of the second half, a part of the sole on my left shoe came off. I knew I should've reapplied some Shoe GOO adhesive last night! Good thing it was barely noticeable and didn't affected my stride. As I neared mile 22, I saw that there was a sign on the side of the road indicating that they were selling tamales for $2 each. They were accepting cash and Venmo. I guess that's a good reason for me to carry cash or sign up for Venmo. Thankfully, during the final miles, we were able to run on the sidewalk. However, it a long steady climb up Red Mountain Blvd until we reached the right turn on Center St. Knowing that I had less than 2 miles left, I was starting to empty the tank. Unfortunately, along with a few other runners, I missed the right turn at Puerto Dr. No one at that aid station bothered to let anyone of us know that we were headed off course! As Center Dr turned into Snow Canyon Parkway, I realized that we had definitely gone off course. I pulled up the course map that I had saved in my Google Drive to figure out where we went off course. I made sure to let the runners around me know to turn around. I ended up adding almost 2 extra miles. This was the first time that I got lost during a road race. Normally that happens during a trail race.
Just a little past the halfway point
Gunlock Rd and W Old Hwy 91
Near Shot Gun Alley Climbing trailhead
Just after reaching mile 18
Tamales for $2 each!
Finish line pic from Robert
Finish: 5:37:13
Click here for my Garmin data.
My body was definitely low on electrolytes as I finally crossed the finish line. My legs were cramping up and I was slurring my speech a bit. I went over to the post race food table and grabbed a couple of FatBoy Junior ice cream sandwiches. While enjoying the post race treats, I overheard that they would be able to adjust my finishing time if I let the race director know about what had happened. Nah, that's quite okay. I would've finished around 5:15ish... just a slightly different level of mediocrity. :) I stuck around until Karen came through the finish line. Then I went to my car and got my stuff in order before heading over to the portapotties to take a piss before hitting the road.
Finish line medal
Finisher medal
FatBoy Junior x2
Post race food
Time to retire this pair!
Before driving down to Vegas, I wanted to get food at the Cracker Barrel. However, first I needed to charge up the car at the nearby Tesla Supercharger. Once the car was done charging, I made the short drive over to the nearby Cracker Barrel for a late lunch. After looking at their lunch offerings, I ended up ordering my usual Country boy breakfast with sirloin, fried okra, grits, and coffee. My waitress did not forget the biscuits and gravy, so I was quite full when I was done with everything. This was one of the few Cracker Barrels where I've seen okra as one of the available sides. I love okra.
St George, UT
Country boy breakfast
As I rolled into the Vegas area. There were more signs letting drivers know that the freeway was closed between Flamingo Rd and Russell Rd. The freeway was set up to merge all the lanes towards the freeway exit. Instead of waiting to get off at Flamingo Rd, I got off one exit early at Spring Mountain Rd. I was going to turn right onto the Las Vegas Blvd Strip. However, I ended up turning onto Mel Tormé Way and got onto the Strip via Siren's Cove Blvd. It was slow going while making that short drive down to my hotel which was just south of the airport. Once I got past the last of the major casinos at Tropicana Ave, the traffic started to flow.
I arrived at the Baymont Las Vegas South Strip at about 4:30 pm. The front parking area was already pretty full. During check-in, I noticed that the employee checking me in had a Cowboys lanyard around his neck. I offered him some commiserations as their kicker inexplicably had the weird case of the yips having missed 4 consecutive PATs! I was given a studio suite #211 which was pretty nice. Once I got settled into my room and took a nice hot shower, I found myself just being too tired to go back out for food. Thank goodness I ate so much food before I left St George. Plus I was a bit wary with leaving my stuff in the room after the front desk guy stopped by my room to check that I was the correct person in the room even though he was the one that had just checked me in not too long ago!
Unfortunately, my neighbors in the room next to me were a loud couple. They checked in at about 11 pm, but shortly thereafter, they went back out.
Sunday 1/29
Unfortunately, my neighbors returned at about 3 am and were noisy as heck, waking me up from my slumber. I thought that they might have sex and call it a night, but they were talking which became arguing, cursing and swearing. I ignored it as much as I could and eventually got up at 5 am. I put on the FA Cup match between Brighton and Liverpool. Since the walls were paper thin, I'm sure that they heard me getting up and about with my morning routine. Shortly after that, I stopped hearing anything from them.
Before checking out and dropping off the key cards at the front desk, I was going to grab a banana from the breakfast area. However, there were too many people in the way, so I decided to just head out.
I thought about heading back up to the Strip to charge up the car at the LINQ for a much lower price per kW. However, instead of backtracking, I figured that I had enough charge to make it down to the Tesla Supercharger station in Primm. Turned out that it was just enough to cover the distance. I don't remember it being such an uphill climb out to Primm when I used to drive gas powered cars. Per the usual, while waiting for the car to finish charging, I walked over to the McDonald's to get some breakfast. I ordered a Sausage McMuffin with egg for $2 using the mobile app deal and added a small coffee. I noticed that they had closed and barricaded the back door, forcing people to use the main side door. I also noticed that there was no longer any free McDonald's WiFi. I'm going to guess that those 2 changes happened to prevent people from loitering inside the dining area and/or taking part in some shady activity. After finishing my meal, I used their restroom before heading back to my car.
Primm, NV
The next stretch of driving took me down to the Tesla Supercharger in Barstow. Once again I opted for the slower charging site instead of the newer Tanger Way location because I thought that I wanted something to eat or drink. It was too early for lunch and both Starbucks and Dunkin' apps were showing that they were only taking drive-thru orders. I opted to just wait in the car for it to finish charging.
Barstow, CA
The rest of the drive went fairly smoothly until I came up to the Cajon Pass. It was slightly foggy and drizzling, but there was still plenty of visibility. Of course, those overly cautious drivers can't be bothered to get out of the fast lane.
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