Dave Naffziger's Blog

I ran the Las Vegas marathon on Sunday with Jeff and 207 other people dressed as Elvis.

We apparently broke the record for number of runners dressed as Elvis (this is tracked?). The marathon organizers recruited people to dress as Elvis and provided a number of Elvis-specific events including a separate starting carrel, pasta dinner and get together the day before.

All of the Elvii stopped at Mile 5 for a while to witness couples getting married at a run-through wedding chapel. This 20-30 min stop made chip times meaningless, but from Mile 6 on we ran a 3:43 pace.

The costume was so cheaply constructed that it was pretty easy to run in although I made a few safety pin modifications to keep my pants up, I barely noticed the costume was there (other than the glasses that wouldn’t stay up).

The race was well supported and organized this year (although the bag drop apparently sucked). According to reports, the marathon was poorly run in prior years.

However, this race confirmed my opinion that Marathons at vacation destinations are weak. Runners were secondary (or worse) at both the Las Vegas and Disney World marathons. The entire goals of the organizers seem to be to get the runners out of the way of the tourists as soon as possible. This means 6 am starts and shitty finishes.

While the Vegas marathon started out on the strip, it finished with two miles along a service road behind the casinos (construction areas and parking lots).

Compare this to Boston, London and other major marathons where you finish in the center of the city, running down the most scenic roads in the city.