Las Vegas Rock ‘N Roll Marathon, Part II

We currently have a sick child at home (k) and are crossing our fingers that it does not spread.  I do not mind being home all day when it is raining/cold, however, so that is one positive.

Back to our Vegas trip, the marathon was scheduled to start at 4:30 p.m.  Therefore, D was supposed to carbo-load in the morning, as opposed to the night before.  I had purchased two Spice Market (Planet Hollywood) brunch buffet passes from Groupon before, so that is where we went.

We were a little early for the brunch, so we started out with the breakfast items and paced ourselves for the brunch (more savory) items.  I thought the selection was good, and they had a lot of fruit and vegetables too (although not pictured here).

D mostly skipped dessert, but I had to sample some, of course.  The specialty was cupcakes, but the dulce de leche one I tried was not very good—too dry.  I did enjoy the crème brulee, though.

We took a post-brunch, pre-race nap.  Lunch was not necessary, of course. 

We walked the start area and D met up with his fellow Mazda runners.  

We had access to the VIP tent, which was nice.  Unfortunately, D did not have access to the VIP bathrooms.

The All-American Rejects put on a concert.

The race starts at the southern part of the Strip, and all traffic was diverted.

I tried to spot D, but I could not find him in the crowd of runners, which included several Elvis’, tutus and superheroes.

Since I had a few hours to wait, I went back to our hotel room and watched local news coverage of the race on tv.

I met up with D at the post-race VIP tent at Serendipity @ Caesar’s Palace.  D finished with a second-best time of 4:14:34!

I ate some Chinese chicken salad while I was waiting for him.  By the time D finished, there was only sandwich fixings and some pizza.  We also tried a shot of the famed Frozen Hot Chocolate. D wasn’t too hungry, and took the sandwich I had made for him back to the hotel.

After we returned to the hotel, I realized that I hadn’t taken a picture of D’s medal.  Here’s D’s “rock ‘n roll” pose.

On the way home the next morning, we stopped in Barstow to visit the newly opened Dunkin’ Donuts.  I hear people in California can’t wait for a DD to open, but I didn’t really see how they were special.  The famed coffee was just ok, too.  (BTW, don’t be deterred if you see a bunch of tour buses in the parking lot.  We were almost not going to go into Barstow Station when we saw four buses in the parking lot.  However, there wasn’t even a single person in line for DD!)