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12-06-10, 08:41 PM
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2Tone Vegas Trip Report #17 – Getting old and Running long (TL/DR, obv.)
PART 1
I turn 40 tomorrow. No better way to celebrate than with a Vegas trip, right? I flew down Friday morning, and met up with my younger brother, who came in from New York City. He’s a good guy – since we are on opposite coasts, we don’t see each other enough. He’s an occasional small stakes blackjack player, and has no interest in poker. He’s spent very little time in Vegas, and though it is not really his scene, he was excited to be there. We headed over from the Imperial Palace (balla, I know) to the Wynn, where we enjoyed their buffet, and did the tourist thing for a while. I passed by the poker room, which looked to have plenty of games going, but I didn’t sit in. We hotel hopped for a while, before stopping at the Mirage, where I sat in a very soft 3/6 game, and made about $30. My brother made twice that playing blackjack. We were off to a good start. Next stop was Planet Hollywood for the $70 7 p.m. tourney, which I’ve played before. 22 runners including alternates, blinds start high and double every twenty minutes, so there isn’t much play. Top four positions pay. I doubled up on the second hand when I call a 3xBB raise with jacks, and hit a set on the flop. He had Aces, and check-raised me all in. Better to be lucky than good. I pretty much cruised from there until we were down to six players, and blinds were ridiculous. With Ace-3 hearts, I raised 2x the BB, which didn’t quite commit me. The tables chip leader came over the top. He’s aggressive, with a wide range. A very short stack called all in, and it is back around to me. If I fold, and short stack loses, I’m the table’s new short stack, and at high risk of bubbling. If I win the side pot, I’m in pretty good shape. I call. Big stack has QJ spades, baby stack has K-10. River completes Big Stack’s flush, and I’m out. Right play? After the tourney, I reconnected with my brother, and we were offered free tickets to the Sin City Comedy Revue at the Miracle Mile theater. Sure, why not. The show had some laughs, but it’s nothing to go out of your way for. From there, it was over to Aria to check out Haze, their nightclub. We had a fun time. My brother, who still has a full head of hair and no wedding ring, attracted the attention of a cougar, which he emphatically did not want. I was amused. The DJ was pretty good, and at one point, the go-go dancers did a burlesque show above the dance floor in a giant champagne glass. I didn’t get back to my room until after 2 a.m. That meant I wasn’t feeling great when on Saturday morning we woke up early and went down to the Town Square mall to participate in a 5k race dressed in Santa suits. It was a complete zoo, with something like 10,000 people, all dressed as St. Nick. Officiating were Robin Leach (Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous) and Oscar Goodman (Mayor of Las Vegas, former big-time mob lawyer). It was not much of a race (it wasn’t timed, and it was kind of unclear where exactly the starting line was), but it was a lot of fun, and for a good cause. That afternoon I played some more at the Mirage, and won a decent amount, before entering their $80 bounty tournament, which had a surprisingly good structure. That made it all the more unfortunate when I made a terrible call of a massive overbet early in the second round, which crippled me. I definitely hope to play this one again. My brother went off to explore. As for me, it was imperative I get some sleep. I needed to be in bed and asleep by midnight, and sleep never comes easy for me in Vegas. Should I take an Excedrin PM? Or should I give the rest of my cash to a Filipino stripper with a tight body who barely spoke English? Easy choice. I made it back to the room by around midnight. PART 2 Next morning I was up at 6 a.m. and ready to run the Las Vegas Rock ‘n Roll Half Marathon! No time for a shower, so I rode the early morning monorail to MGM smelling of cigarettes and cheap perfume. I assume most runners at the Boston marathon don’t start the race that way. From the MGM, I walked the remaining distance to the start line down by the Mandalay Bay. The crowd was enormous -- over 27,000 runners, divided into 32 corrals sorted by start time. With my estimated finish time of 2 hours 10 minutes, I was supposed to be right in the middle, corral #16. But the crowd was so large I was only able to make it to #18, meaning I would need to pass a whole lot of people to reach my target time. The energy right before the race was amazing. A Cher impersonator sang the national anthem, the starting gun fired, and the first group of elite runners was off. It took another 25 minutes for our group to make it to the start line. The first few miles, straight down the strip heading north, were a blast. Hundreds of people were up early to cheer us on. The Mirage had their volcano firing away, the Venetian invited couples to take a quick break for a run-in wedding ceremony, and Wynn showed us on the massive jumbotron. I was chugging along at a pretty good rate, but had to do a lot of bobbing and weaving to maintain my pace. Past the Sahara, we continued down past the seedy motels and pawn shops of the northern end of Las Vegas Boulevard. Dino’s, a classic old-time Vegas dive bar, had set up a table offering runners cups of beer. I chose Gatorade instead. After a couple blocks down the famous Fremont Street, we turned off to on to some of the side streets, and the crowds and bands thinned out considerably. By mile nine I was dragging. My right knee, which has been a problem for years, was bothering me, and the weather was getting warmer. My pace slowed. I was very happy when we turned back on to strip for the final few miles, this time heading south. I saw the 4:15 full marathon pace runner up ahead, and I passed him by the time we got to mile 11 at Caesars Palace. The final two miles were great. When we set off a couple hours earlier, there had been hundreds of people cheering. Now it was thousands. I could see Mandalay Bay dead ahead, and pushed hard. I flagged a little after mile 12, but by then we were almost there. With my finish line only a half mile away, the full marathoners veered off to do twice the distance I was doing – those guys are amazing athletes. I crossed the finish line in 2 hours and two minutes, weeping from a combination of excitement and exhaustion. Things were well organized at the finish line, with plenty of food and water, photo opportunities, medical crews, etc. At the other end of the lot was a huge stage, where Brett Michaels gave a free concert, which I skipped. The long walk back to the Monorail was tough, but after a hot shower long enough to drain what’s left of Lake Mead, I was doing OK. My brother and I went to Planet Hollywood for a large Sunday brunch, which had me feeling better still. I flew home Sunday afternoon. It seemed half of the passengers were wearing finisher medals. Today back home, I’m little sore, but hope to do it again next year.
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