7 deadly sins of a 5K in Vegas

I'm finally back on track, and my first week giving the Weight Watcher's Points Plus program a true try- I lost 4.5lbs.  WOOOO!  I'm so happy to be back in control.

I also have been off of pop for a whole week!  The first day was super hard- you could have taken my pulse in my brain stem...but since then it's been all good!

Running- not running as much as my schedule says to for the half marathon, but still running, swimming, and doing cross training.  Now that I'm back on track with my food, I'm back on track with my exercising a lot better as well.

Ran some 5k's over the last 2 months- one in Las Vegas while I was out there for my veterinary conference, and one in Clare, MI for St. Pattie's day.


------------------------------------------------Las Vegas 5K Recap-----------------------------------------------

In a word?  Terrible. Worst race I've ever ran.  So many reasons....I'm going to list them.  No particular order for this list of horrors:

1. We were bussed from our hotel to the 5K (the run was sponsored by the veterinary conference).  Our bus got lost.  For 45 minutes.  Just driving around a subdivision in the middle of freaking nowhere.  At one point, the person sitting next to me expressed concern that they were driving us to the desert to kill us.  I started to believe that theory.

2. It wasn't actually in Las Vegas.  Yeah- it was in Henderson, NV...which is why we got lost in a subdivision. 

3. The race wasn't organized well....at all.  When we were about to start, the race director said "We don't really have the run marked, so we are going to play follow the leader.  The first person will follow this biker, and then the rest will follow the person in front of you!"  You know what a slow person doesn't want to hear??  That they will need to follow somebody.  I'm not used to seeing people around me.

4.  It didn't matter that we had to follow each other....there was no chance of getting lost.  The course went out about 0.5 mile, then turned around and went back past the start line about 500 meters, then went out like 1.25 miles, then went back about 1.25 miles.  I HATE out and back courses.  They are boring as hell.  However, you know what's worse??  Out and back and out and back courses.  Didn't know those existed.

5. The scenery.  Now, I was disappointed we weren't running in Vegas, like near the strip or something.  But, hey, the logistics of that is hard.  I get it.  So, we are in Henderson...in a subdivision.  Meh, subdivision runs aren't horrible.  There are houses and stuff to look at.  It would have been cool to run in the subdivision.  But no...we ran on a bike path next to a drainage ditch.  Drainage ditch for the ENTIRE time.   Picture of said scenery:

It looks prettier than it actually was.  I should have gotten the houses in with it and everything, and the litter that was strewn about...but by this point in the race I was delirious and thought "I need a GOOD pic for the blog"....and this was the best I could do.

6. Leg cramping.  The whole was back the second time, my right calf was cramped.  I limp-ran the way back.

7. The swag.  The swag looked pretty cool at first- you got a nice reuseable bag, a deck of cards (this being Vegas...sort of), a pen, and a long sleeved shirt.  Oh, and of course, there was the literature on the latest blood analyzers from Heska...but this being a Heska sponsored run at a veterinary conference, I'm gonna let that slide.  HOWEVER, as we were waiting for awards, they told us that if we wanted another bag, we could swing by the Heska booth at the convention center...where they were handing them out to anyone who stopped by the booth.  Really?  Really???  So I ran this race for nothing?  I mean, you aren't going to get the long sleeved t shirt, but it wasn't that great anyway...just see through white with some purple letters that said something about a 5K.

So....I guess I will call that the list of 7 deadly sins of a 5K in Vegas.


--------------------------------------------St. Pattie's Day 5K Recap-------------------------------------------

It was fun.  Ran it with my friend Ashley, and for the first time, with both Nipper and Teddy.    My skirts that I made were a hit- everyone loved them!  Below is the picture of Ashley and I after running:

And that's where I'll end! Now to go catch up on  what the rest of you have been doing.