I ran the full marathon this year in Las Vegas. Since this was a destination race, you have the feel that you are an “athlete” because you are traveling out of state for an event. Since this event had one price for both the half and full marathon, I decided to run the full.
The Pre-Race festivities were good. It was held at the Convention Center and it was well organized. The SWAG bag was good as well. I would recommend to get there early because it was very crowded when my group of friends had left.
The course, in theory, was a decent choice. For the first half of the marathon, you run through the industrial district of Las Vegas, and the second half is run up the strip from Mandalay Bay to Fremont Street, and back to Mandalay Bay. Although the course itself was a decent choice, the problem, especially for marathoners was the merge of half marathoners and marathoners at Mile 13 (since the half marathon course is the second half of the marathon course). The full marathon started at 4:00 pm, and the last wave start of the half marathon was at approximately 5:50 pm. I ran my half marathon split at just over 2 hours. So that put me in back on the strip (and into the half marathon course) at around 6:05 pm. This was the point where the walkers were on the course. I am for everyone completing a half marathon and what not, but the walkers consumed the entire course, and the marathoners had dodge in between the walkers. This is poorly executed on the part of the Competitor group, who organizes this race.
On top of the course issues, it has been well documented (Search the Zappos.com Las Vegas Marathon on Marathonguide.com) that people were sickened by the water given out on the course. Apparently, the water stations ran out of water during the race and gave the runners water from the fire hydrants and put them into train cans! Obviously, the water carried a bug that sickened the runners. On top of that, many of the water stations were abandoned by the volunteers during the race, leaving the runners with no water options. In my case, there was no water at a station near Mile 19. Due to this, I nearly passed out at Mile 19 due to dehydration. Luckily, I was able to get water from a fellow runner, to make it to the next water station. This is unacceptable on Competitor’s part, and based just on this, I will not compete in this race in the future.
There were massive problems that the end of the race as well. After crossing the finish line, I received a medal (although many runners did not receive a medal at all!), and was funneled through the Mandalay Bay Convention Center. It was great to be back inside because it was cold outside. But the problem was that the runners were in a stand still line for almost an hour to get back into the casino and the hotel itself. Again, this is poor and unacceptable on the part of the Competitor Group. Imagine trying to funnel 44,000 runners through that part of the Convention Center. This is my review, but there reviews on MarathonGuide.com that are much more harsh than mine.
Overall, I would recommend against running this marathon. I personally, would never do it again.
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