I gassed up the car and got on the road just early enough to get ahead of most of the weekend Vegas traffic. As soon as I rolled into the Vegas area, I drove straight to Cracker Barrel for some breakfast. I started things off with a cup of coffee and ordered Uncle Herschel's Favorite Breakfast with grilled chicken.
Coffee
Uncle Herschel's Favorite
After finishing breakfast and paying my bill, I drove up to The Orleans Hotel & Casino to catch a movie at the Century Orleans movie theater with my MoviePass. Since the box office wasn't opened yet, I used one of the kiosks to buy a ticket for Christopher Robin. While I usually love anything that Disney produces, this was not one of my favorites. That might also be because I was never a fan of Winnie-the-Pooh. There were a few parts that were amusing or funny, but there wasn't enough of it to make this a good movie.
Movie time!
After the movie, I drove over to the nearby Albertsons to buy some drinks for the weekend. I kept things simple and bought a can of Arizona green tea and a gallon of water. Next I drove across the way to the McDonald's to get a quick bite to eat. I used the mobile app to buy a Quarter Pounder with cheese for $1. That's a nice deal since the same deal is already $2 back at home!
Drinks
Quarter Pounder with cheese for $1
After getting my food, I headed over to WorldMark Las Vegas - Tropicana Ave. It was still a bit early for check-in, but I stopped in to see if my room was ready. Thankfully it was ready, so I took care of the check-in process. Once again they got me to commit to attending an owner update presentation with the promise of an American Express gift card for $75. I need to learn to say no to these people! The presentation would include a complimentary meal which required that I pay a $20 deposit in case I was a no show.
After I took care of that, I drove my car over to my room. It was blazing hot outside, so it was nice to get inside the well air-conditioned room. I liked this property a lot more than the Spencer St location. It looked like this place had just been recently refreshed, so all of the furnishings were brand spanking new! That better be the case with all of the maintenance fees that I have to pay each month as an owner!
After I got settled in, I walked back to the lobby to check out a DVD. Since I'm a Diamond Elite owner, I get 1 complimentary movie rental. After perusing their selection, I checked out Logan Lucky. It was a very entertaining and hilarious movie. It was like the hillbilly version of the Ocean's film series.
At about 6 pm, I headed over to the Silver Sevens Hotel & Casino to pick up my race packet. It was located at Tower Room #3348 on the third floor. There was a fellow runner at the door to the tower rooms and the elevators with a room key to open the door for us. I'm guessing the hotel has had problems with trespassers. The pick-up process only took about a couple of minutes. This year's race was a neon light green long sleeve shirt.
Long sleeve race shirt
Back of shirt
I dropped off my race packet back at my car and walked across the street to eat dinner at PF Chang's only because I still had some gift cards from years ago when the Rock n' Roll Series used to give those out to finishers. I ordered the usual chicken lettuce wraps, Cecilia's shrimp dumplings, and an iced tea. The lettuce wraps have always been decent, but man those dumplings were horrible. When it came time to settle the bill, I had my waiter check to see if the gift card was still valid. Unfortunately it came back with no value. Boo! I guess this will be my last visit. The food here was definitely not worth paying full price! He gave me 3 fortune cookies, 2 of which were repeats. :)
Chicken lettuce wraps and Cecilia's shrimp dumplings
My fortunes
No value on my gift card :(
On the way out, I caught part of the Dodgers game at the bar. I walked back across the street to Silver Sevens to charge my phone. I met up with my local Vegas friend who decided last minute to run the race. Once it came almost time to catch the bus to the start, I went back to my car to change into my running attire. We ended up on the Marathon Maniacs/Half Fanatics bus. We spent the majority of the bus ride catching up. We napped a little near the end as it was a pretty long bus ride.
Once we had arrived at the Black Mailbox, we got off of the bus to use one of the portapotties. I suppose we could've used the restroom on the bus, but we had friends that we wanted to see. Some of them was running the full marathon or the 51k ultra-marathon. It would seem that the majority of the people that I knew were running the half marathon. After taking the Marathon Maniacs/Half Fanatics pre-race group photo, my friend and I got back on the bus to head over to the starting line for the half marathon which was at about mile 7 of the marathon.
My Maniac friends
MM/HF pre-race photo
Sunday 8/26
Once we were dropped off, there was a little wait before the start of the half marathon. I totally didn't read the part in the final instructions that stated that the half marathon started at 12:30 am. I've only ever run the full marathon so I was used to starting at the stroke of midnight.
The legs felt okay during the first mile, but my breathing felt labored as the race was at around 5,000 ft elevation. After reaching the first mile marker, I had to pull over for a walk break to catch my breath. The next 5 miles would be a gradual incline and it was a rough one for me. It felt like dinner was trying to come up with many numerous uncomfortable burps. It was such a relief to finally reach the summit with the rest of the race at a steady decline. I tried to run as much as could without aggravating my left glute and hamstring. My friend caught me with a few miles to go. I was feeling pretty terrible and tried very hard to hang on to her. Then as if someone lit a fire under my ass, my legs started feeling really good especially during that last mile which ended up being my fastest mile. That was some mighty powerful runner's high!
Finish line
Finish: 2:16:04
Click here for my Garmin data.
After getting my medal, I waited for my friend as she wasn't that far behind me. We each grabbed a wet towel to clean ourselves up a bit before we took some pictures in front of the Little A'le'inn. The bus that was leaving for The Strip was near capacity and almost ready to leave, so we got on that bus. For me, the bus ride back always seemed much longer. I was glad that I had only run the half marathon this year. It was definitely the more enjoyable distance. I pitied all of the runners that we passed along the way.Relive 'Morning Aug 26th'
Finisher medal
Close up of medal
Finish at the Little A'le'inn
After we were dropped off and I had said goodbye to my friend, I went back to my car to change and head back to my hotel. I must have looked suspicious changing at my car as the hotel security truck drove by my car just as I was about to leave.
Back at my room, I got cleaned up and took a nap. When it came time, I walked down to the lobby to attend the owner presentation. Once again the complimentary meal didn't look appealing at all probably because I'm trying my best not to eat pork. I ended up eating a cup of fruit and drinking some water. The presentation was very informative, but afterwards the pressure sales pitch was very off-putting. It was just as last time with the rep not taking no for an answer, however this time I had to stick to my guns since I absolutely could not buy any more credits. I also thought it was pretty lame that the rep that sold me the credits last time not once stopped by to say hi. I was just another notch on her belt. Overall I feel that I'm getting good value out of my timeshare investment, but having to deal with some of the sales reps has been the only negative part of being an owner. Finally I was allowed to leave. I was then given my $20 deposit back as well as the $75 gift card that was promised.
Back at my room, I took another nap before meeting up with my friend at Sushi Takashi right when they opened at 5 pm. We both ended up getting their Sashimi Big Boat. They used a good variety of fish and other seafood. The presentation for the boat was good. They also gave us complimentary miso soup with salmon in it. Everything tasted good going down. Unfortunately I was sick a few hours later. It was bad enough that it had awoken me from my slumber for some extended toilet time. I checked with my friend and thankfully he wasn't sick. I guess that's the luck of the draw when you eat uncooked food. The only thing that I ate that my friend didn't was the free ice cream for checking-in on Yelp and the mint leaves. We both thought it had to be the free ice cream.
Post race food
Sashimi big boat
Free ice cream for Yelp check-in
Monday 8/27
Originally I was going to leave earlier to possibly drive straight into work, but once again I had some extended toilet time for my body to rid itself of whatever was left in my system. I decided it would be best to just take the day off. I pulled into the nearby Chevron gas station to fill up the tank before hitting the road. $3.46 a gallon seemed like such a bargain since I've gotten accustomed to paying about 40 cents a gallon more back at home.
Fill 'er up!
Instead of going into work, I drove out to Disneyland for a couple of rides. I took the monorail into Disneyland first to ride Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters. This ride is starting to show its age and wear, begging for a refresh. The paint on the cars have been fading, the guns aren't very accurate, the scores aren't showing up on the rider photos, the photos are super blurry, and a couple of the photo email transmission kiosks are down. Anyways I still managed to score high enough to get the 7th spot. I then walked over to Disney California Adventure to ride Toy Story Midway Mania. This is still my favorite interactive game ride, but it's so tiring having to pull the string so fast!
After hitting my two favorite rides, I headed back to my car. I drove over to The Olde Ship to catch the Spurs vs. Manchester United match. It was pretty cool to watch the soccer match while eating a Great British Breakfast at an English pub even though most of the people there was rooting for Man United. Their fans would go quiet once the Spurs started scoring in the second half, eventually winning 3 - 0 at Old Trafford.
Great British Breakfast #COYS
