If you'd like to see photos from my recent NV adventure,click here.
And no comments about how flattering the green suit is. No you can't borrow it. Get your own!!
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Photos from the ET midnight marathon
If you'd like to see photos from my recent NV adventure,click here.
And no comments about how flattering the green suit is. No you can't borrow it. Get your own!!
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
ET Midnight Marathon
My friend Mary called me a few months ago and said she was going out to Nevada to do the ET Midnight Marathon with a bunch of her running friends. I have wanted to do this race ever since I first heard about it, so I jumped at the chance and signed up. I then started my normal recruiting process. The more the merrier, right? Two of my unsuspecting co-workers, Chris and Craig decided they wanted to come out and run this crazy race with us. They’re experienced runners, but still spent the next few months asking “What have you talked me into?” Each time, I just smiled.
The name of the race gives you a hint of the theme of the event. It’s run on the Extraterrestrial Highway at Area 51 which is in the middle of nowhere about 2 hours outside of Las Vegas. Area 51 is speculated to be the hotbed of alien activity here on earth, and there’s a government installation there that is reportedly, but not officially the main HQ for all things related to “the visitors”. From what I could tell, there is nothing out there but cows, dirt and the mysterious black mailbox….that is actually white…which is where the event starts. There’s a 10K, a half and full marathon and a 51K, so this crazy experience has something for pretty much any runner. The race starts at midnight, because, of course, your chances of encountering alien life-forms increases dramatically at night. (at least that’s what I read in the latest issue of Star magazine.) Who would do this crazy race you ask? Well, in my years of running and working in the endurance sports industry I’ve learned that there is a niche group of runners that eat this kind of thing up. I just happen to be one of them. I call us “tourist runners”. They could be fast, slow, young, old, rich or poor, male or female. The one unifying characteristic is that they all love the experience. These are the people who run a marathon in Antarctica, who run the Bay to Breakers 12K in the buff (or crazy costume), and who forgo the drinking and debauchery that normally accompanies a trip to Vegas in order to be well rested for a long run in the middle of the night.
Mary and Bruce are two friends I met on my 2007 marathon excursion to Antarctica. Mary was ground zero for the viral spread of recruitment of the 11 runners who met in Vegas for this adventure. When they arrived in Vegas on Friday, they intended to run the half marathon. Five minutes after we sat down for our first beer in the hotel lobby bar that night, they had changed their distance of choice to the 51K. To hear them tell it, there was a lot of peer pressure involved, but I don’t recall even mentioning it. They just started thinking about the longer distance, and wanted to do it. They’d come all the way out here, they might as well eat the whole enchilada! I was very pleased with their decision because I wasn’t looking forward to running this race alone. I was planning to do the race in costume, so I was assured a lot of interesting comments and conversations along the way, but longer distance is a whole lot more fun with a friend.
We relaxed on Saturday, chilled at the pool, took a few naps and ate our big pre-race meal at lunch time. All day I kept reminding myself that we’d be starting at midnight and kept laughing at how odd this race experience was going to be. No pre-race Cheerios, no race first thing in the morning. The normal pre-race ritual was completely disrupted. We were entering alien territory…..literally! This is what I live for.
Packet pickup was well organized and quick. We left our hotel at 7:45pm to meet the busses for the 2+ hour bus ride out to the black mailbox (that’s white.) It was fun to watch people getting on the buses in their assorted alien themed accessories. Some had t-shirts, some had funny hats, and there were a lot of people with antennae-looking headbands with fun things at the ends. The energy on the bus was palpable and light hearted. People were obviously excited to be getting the journey underway.
We arrive at the black (white) mailbox around 10:50pm. There weren’t as many costumes as I expected, but the illumination from all the glow sticks could probably be seen from space! I really enjoy running at night because it’s so peaceful, but also because it looks really funny when all you can see is little glowing tubes in various shapes and places bouncing down the road.
The start was very well organized. Joyce (the race director) had explained everything very clearly in the pre-race e-mail and on the website, and everything went exactly as it had been laid out. The half marathon and the 10K started in a different place a little later than the full and 51K, so there was some very well choreographed loading and unloading of busses, and the transportation of bags to the finish line was seamless and simple for us runners. The volunteers were super friendly, and knew the answers to anything you needed to know. All that was left to stress about was the run.
We visited the porto-potties, filled up our water bottles and got excited for the race. Mary made some great outfits for Bruce and herself. They both had illuminite shirts that had a funky reflective pattern to them. Mary had a tutu with glow sticks all around the outside. Bruce had some silver reflective mesh I Dream of Genie looking pants with glow sticks all down the side. I of course had my full body green alien suit and my springy light-up eyeball antennae. We were quite a sight and posed for a lot of pictures.
Mary was feeling pretty crummy from the bus ride out, so she made the wise decision to jump down to the half marathon. Bruce and I made our game plan for the race; take it nice and slow, 5:1 run/walk, and laugh a lot. Craig and Chris had their own plans. We were ready to go. At about 10 minutes to midnight, we were ushered to the road. Joyce said a few thank yous and congratulations, and at midnight on the dot, yelled “GO”. We were off.
There’s not much to say about the actual race. The Extraterrestrial Highway is straight as can be, and there aren’t many (any?) turn offs, so no need for course marshals or directions along the way. The moon was very bright, but you still couldn’t see much of the scenery. The sky was huge and you could see millions of stars. We also saw lots of shooting stars too which was really cool. Something this city girl doesn’t get to enjoy very often. The first 13 miles is a hill; 1 long gradual incline from 4500ft to 5600 ft. Around mile 10 someone joked “come on guys, this is the last hill!” Three miles later, we started downhill, and did that for the next 13 miles. The uphill was so gradual that it really wasn’t too bad, but it did wear on you after 13 miles. I felt like a new woman from mile 13 to 16. The gradual downhill was fabulous!
The aid stations were about 3 miles apart, so we all had been told to bring water bottles. The aid stations were well lit and stocked with friendly and helpful volunteers. (and a few brightly colored blow-up aliens!) Around 2:30am, when I was starting to feel the effects of being up all night, one generous volunteer even gave me a small cup of his Pepsi which hit the spot. We reminded each other to hydrate, took our GU or Clif Bloks at the right times, and felt great the whole time! Bruce’s company was fantastic and we had a great time talking and laughing and cheering on the other runners.
We passed the finish line at the Little Ale’Inn at mile 20. (get it?….Alee-Inn?) The Inn serves as the finish line for the marathon, 51K and the half marathon(which started at our mile 7 at 12:30), the start and finish line for the 10K (not sure when that started) and the site of the free breakfast that all runners get when they’re done running. The full marathon proceeded past the Ale’Inn about 3 miles, then turned around and came back to the finish. We 51K-ers went an extra 6 before we turned back. Normally I hate passing the finish line mid-race, but for this race for whatever reason, it was ok. The little bit of cheering from the people who had already finished was really energizing, and we felt great setting out for the last 12 miles of the race.
Now that we were on the final out-and-back, we started passing runners going the opposite direction which I always enjoy. We cheered for each and every one and almost everyone seemed in very good shape, or at least good spirits. We saw Chris and Craig, and they were chugging along, on course to reach their goals, which they did! Chris finished his first marathon, and Craig ran the 51K under 5 hours and took 1st in his age group and 5th overall. The award he got for the age group win is really cute and unique; a granite plaque in the shape of Nevada with a hand painted alien and spaceship.
The sun started coming up around 5:30. Our surroundings turned out to be quite beautiful, with small desert brush and mountains all around. The sunrise was very colorful, and the moon stayed out for a while as well. It was a really cool experience that made us glad that we weren’t fast runners, so we could still be out here running when the sun came up. We also had fun speculating about what the folks in Vegas were doing at that moment. We were pretty sure we’d made the healthiest and most rewarding choice.
We finished in 6:38:17, a time we were very pleased with. Correction: Bruce finished in 6:38:17 and I officially finished 1 second later. 51 kilometers neck and neck, and he beat me in the end, but I still walked away with 2nd in my age group. (it was a small race!) We hugged, met up with Mary, Craig and Chris, rested, rinsed, had some breakfast, took some more pictures and caught the last bus back to civilization. The legs were pretty stiff and jumpy during the ride on the bus, but with the help of my Under Armour Recharge compression suit, I knew I was giving my muscles what they needed to recover from the run and the potentially damaging stationary 2 hours. I alternated between sleep and chatty endorphin-induced excitement and finally, we were back in Vegas.
We all agreed that we had a fantastic time. We were thrilled to have experienced this unusual and fun event together, and are already planning our next running adventure. Bay to Breakers in the buff anyone?? (Careful, I’m apparently pretty persuasive!)
The name of the race gives you a hint of the theme of the event. It’s run on the Extraterrestrial Highway at Area 51 which is in the middle of nowhere about 2 hours outside of Las Vegas. Area 51 is speculated to be the hotbed of alien activity here on earth, and there’s a government installation there that is reportedly, but not officially the main HQ for all things related to “the visitors”. From what I could tell, there is nothing out there but cows, dirt and the mysterious black mailbox….that is actually white…which is where the event starts. There’s a 10K, a half and full marathon and a 51K, so this crazy experience has something for pretty much any runner. The race starts at midnight, because, of course, your chances of encountering alien life-forms increases dramatically at night. (at least that’s what I read in the latest issue of Star magazine.) Who would do this crazy race you ask? Well, in my years of running and working in the endurance sports industry I’ve learned that there is a niche group of runners that eat this kind of thing up. I just happen to be one of them. I call us “tourist runners”. They could be fast, slow, young, old, rich or poor, male or female. The one unifying characteristic is that they all love the experience. These are the people who run a marathon in Antarctica, who run the Bay to Breakers 12K in the buff (or crazy costume), and who forgo the drinking and debauchery that normally accompanies a trip to Vegas in order to be well rested for a long run in the middle of the night.
Mary and Bruce are two friends I met on my 2007 marathon excursion to Antarctica. Mary was ground zero for the viral spread of recruitment of the 11 runners who met in Vegas for this adventure. When they arrived in Vegas on Friday, they intended to run the half marathon. Five minutes after we sat down for our first beer in the hotel lobby bar that night, they had changed their distance of choice to the 51K. To hear them tell it, there was a lot of peer pressure involved, but I don’t recall even mentioning it. They just started thinking about the longer distance, and wanted to do it. They’d come all the way out here, they might as well eat the whole enchilada! I was very pleased with their decision because I wasn’t looking forward to running this race alone. I was planning to do the race in costume, so I was assured a lot of interesting comments and conversations along the way, but longer distance is a whole lot more fun with a friend.
We relaxed on Saturday, chilled at the pool, took a few naps and ate our big pre-race meal at lunch time. All day I kept reminding myself that we’d be starting at midnight and kept laughing at how odd this race experience was going to be. No pre-race Cheerios, no race first thing in the morning. The normal pre-race ritual was completely disrupted. We were entering alien territory…..literally! This is what I live for.
Packet pickup was well organized and quick. We left our hotel at 7:45pm to meet the busses for the 2+ hour bus ride out to the black mailbox (that’s white.) It was fun to watch people getting on the buses in their assorted alien themed accessories. Some had t-shirts, some had funny hats, and there were a lot of people with antennae-looking headbands with fun things at the ends. The energy on the bus was palpable and light hearted. People were obviously excited to be getting the journey underway.
We arrive at the black (white) mailbox around 10:50pm. There weren’t as many costumes as I expected, but the illumination from all the glow sticks could probably be seen from space! I really enjoy running at night because it’s so peaceful, but also because it looks really funny when all you can see is little glowing tubes in various shapes and places bouncing down the road.
The start was very well organized. Joyce (the race director) had explained everything very clearly in the pre-race e-mail and on the website, and everything went exactly as it had been laid out. The half marathon and the 10K started in a different place a little later than the full and 51K, so there was some very well choreographed loading and unloading of busses, and the transportation of bags to the finish line was seamless and simple for us runners. The volunteers were super friendly, and knew the answers to anything you needed to know. All that was left to stress about was the run.
We visited the porto-potties, filled up our water bottles and got excited for the race. Mary made some great outfits for Bruce and herself. They both had illuminite shirts that had a funky reflective pattern to them. Mary had a tutu with glow sticks all around the outside. Bruce had some silver reflective mesh I Dream of Genie looking pants with glow sticks all down the side. I of course had my full body green alien suit and my springy light-up eyeball antennae. We were quite a sight and posed for a lot of pictures.
Mary was feeling pretty crummy from the bus ride out, so she made the wise decision to jump down to the half marathon. Bruce and I made our game plan for the race; take it nice and slow, 5:1 run/walk, and laugh a lot. Craig and Chris had their own plans. We were ready to go. At about 10 minutes to midnight, we were ushered to the road. Joyce said a few thank yous and congratulations, and at midnight on the dot, yelled “GO”. We were off.
There’s not much to say about the actual race. The Extraterrestrial Highway is straight as can be, and there aren’t many (any?) turn offs, so no need for course marshals or directions along the way. The moon was very bright, but you still couldn’t see much of the scenery. The sky was huge and you could see millions of stars. We also saw lots of shooting stars too which was really cool. Something this city girl doesn’t get to enjoy very often. The first 13 miles is a hill; 1 long gradual incline from 4500ft to 5600 ft. Around mile 10 someone joked “come on guys, this is the last hill!” Three miles later, we started downhill, and did that for the next 13 miles. The uphill was so gradual that it really wasn’t too bad, but it did wear on you after 13 miles. I felt like a new woman from mile 13 to 16. The gradual downhill was fabulous!
The aid stations were about 3 miles apart, so we all had been told to bring water bottles. The aid stations were well lit and stocked with friendly and helpful volunteers. (and a few brightly colored blow-up aliens!) Around 2:30am, when I was starting to feel the effects of being up all night, one generous volunteer even gave me a small cup of his Pepsi which hit the spot. We reminded each other to hydrate, took our GU or Clif Bloks at the right times, and felt great the whole time! Bruce’s company was fantastic and we had a great time talking and laughing and cheering on the other runners.
We passed the finish line at the Little Ale’Inn at mile 20. (get it?….Alee-Inn?) The Inn serves as the finish line for the marathon, 51K and the half marathon(which started at our mile 7 at 12:30), the start and finish line for the 10K (not sure when that started) and the site of the free breakfast that all runners get when they’re done running. The full marathon proceeded past the Ale’Inn about 3 miles, then turned around and came back to the finish. We 51K-ers went an extra 6 before we turned back. Normally I hate passing the finish line mid-race, but for this race for whatever reason, it was ok. The little bit of cheering from the people who had already finished was really energizing, and we felt great setting out for the last 12 miles of the race.
Now that we were on the final out-and-back, we started passing runners going the opposite direction which I always enjoy. We cheered for each and every one and almost everyone seemed in very good shape, or at least good spirits. We saw Chris and Craig, and they were chugging along, on course to reach their goals, which they did! Chris finished his first marathon, and Craig ran the 51K under 5 hours and took 1st in his age group and 5th overall. The award he got for the age group win is really cute and unique; a granite plaque in the shape of Nevada with a hand painted alien and spaceship.
The sun started coming up around 5:30. Our surroundings turned out to be quite beautiful, with small desert brush and mountains all around. The sunrise was very colorful, and the moon stayed out for a while as well. It was a really cool experience that made us glad that we weren’t fast runners, so we could still be out here running when the sun came up. We also had fun speculating about what the folks in Vegas were doing at that moment. We were pretty sure we’d made the healthiest and most rewarding choice.
We finished in 6:38:17, a time we were very pleased with. Correction: Bruce finished in 6:38:17 and I officially finished 1 second later. 51 kilometers neck and neck, and he beat me in the end, but I still walked away with 2nd in my age group. (it was a small race!) We hugged, met up with Mary, Craig and Chris, rested, rinsed, had some breakfast, took some more pictures and caught the last bus back to civilization. The legs were pretty stiff and jumpy during the ride on the bus, but with the help of my Under Armour Recharge compression suit, I knew I was giving my muscles what they needed to recover from the run and the potentially damaging stationary 2 hours. I alternated between sleep and chatty endorphin-induced excitement and finally, we were back in Vegas.
We all agreed that we had a fantastic time. We were thrilled to have experienced this unusual and fun event together, and are already planning our next running adventure. Bay to Breakers in the buff anyone?? (Careful, I’m apparently pretty persuasive!)
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Next up: the ET midnight marathon
The adventure continues!
On Friday evening at 7pm, I'll hop on a plane with my full body green frog suit (which will soon become an alien suit) to head to Vegas to meet some old buddies from the Ioffe (the ship we were on in Antarctica in 2007) to run the ET midnight marathon. I'm so excited about this! I've been wanting to do this race since I first heard about it. It's going to be great in many ways. Here are a few
- meeting up with old friends.
- I've recruited some friends from work to go as well.
- meeting up with these crazy friends in VEGAS!!
- running a marathon....correction, a 51K with them.
- running a 51K that starts at midnight!
- running a 51K that starts at some mysterious black mailbox at Area 51 in the middle of the desert in Nevada!
To recap, I'm dressing up in a silly costume to run a 51K with old friends in the middle of the desert where the highest number of alien sightings has taken place.
Seriously folks. This could be the adventure of a lifetime! Yes, I got to go to Iraq, and that was an unbelievable adventure, but getting abducted by aliens? SERIOUSLY! That would be something to write home about. I wonder how much it costs to mail a postcard from outerspace??!
(excuse the sweaty view....I was running a half marathon when this picture was taken!)
On Friday evening at 7pm, I'll hop on a plane with my full body green frog suit (which will soon become an alien suit) to head to Vegas to meet some old buddies from the Ioffe (the ship we were on in Antarctica in 2007) to run the ET midnight marathon. I'm so excited about this! I've been wanting to do this race since I first heard about it. It's going to be great in many ways. Here are a few
- meeting up with old friends.
- I've recruited some friends from work to go as well.
- meeting up with these crazy friends in VEGAS!!
- running a marathon....correction, a 51K with them.
- running a 51K that starts at midnight!
- running a 51K that starts at some mysterious black mailbox at Area 51 in the middle of the desert in Nevada!
To recap, I'm dressing up in a silly costume to run a 51K with old friends in the middle of the desert where the highest number of alien sightings has taken place.
Seriously folks. This could be the adventure of a lifetime! Yes, I got to go to Iraq, and that was an unbelievable adventure, but getting abducted by aliens? SERIOUSLY! That would be something to write home about. I wonder how much it costs to mail a postcard from outerspace??!
(excuse the sweaty view....I was running a half marathon when this picture was taken!)
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