This had been my 5th RnR race and prior to this, I had an excellent experience with the Competitor Group.
Expo – Parking was very difficult and wasn’t identified at all. The Sands convention center is connected to the Venetian casino, if you don’t know this you will drive right pass the parking entrance thinking you’re going to the hotel. The expo was seriously packed and there were lines weaving in and out of everything.
Start – I stayed at the Tropicana so getting to the start was very easy, however once there, there was no control over the corrals. I was in corral 6 and there were people in my corral that should have been back in corral 40. In prior races, RnR policed the corrals a lot better, they had no control at all.
Course – Besides the slow walkers and runners up front the course wasn’t to bad. Very flat, not fast because of over crowding. Very neat to run the strip and to see the hotels lit up, it was like taking a tour without the bus!
Finish – Very, very congested! The worse thing a marathoner or half marathoner can do after a race is completely stop. The photographers were blocking everyone so no one could move forward. Even the food after the race was bad. I grabbed a banana and didn’t even realize it wasn’t ripe. Once I couldn’t find my family so i walked back to my hotel by myself where I met them.
Bottom line, I will NOT do this race again, unless the cap the number of participants, 44,000 was way too many for them to handle.