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Carol Anderson
2016 REVEL Mt Charleston Half Marathon
Published: May 9, 2016, 10:58 a.m. 
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Overall Rating
4/5 Stars
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Describe your race day.
Nervous energy to start the day - first half marathon! Good weather conditions. My favorite memory was making it across the finish line with my best friend / maid of honor.
Seemed to be very well organized, but I don't have much to compare this to other than spectating St. George Marathon and LV Rock N Roll a bunch of times. Easy pick-up at the expo, nice buses, friendly volunteers, helpful to have the gloves / beanie / blanket at the start.
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Did you PR?
I set a PR because this was my first half marathon. I said that I would be good with under 3:00, happy with under 2:45, and ecstatic anywhere close to 2:30. Hard to set more detailed expectations when you have no idea how your body is going to react to this distance for the first time. I finished in 2:34, but I had a long wait at the restrooms near mile 4. Couldn't have been happier!
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How would you describe the course?
The scenery was beautiful. I have a thing for Joshua trees. The elevation helped me to get off to a fast start without feeling that I was expending much effort, but it didn't feel like it was too much of an elevation change.
It seemed a bit tight with respect to the amount of road space that we were given at the start of the race coming down Mt. Charleston, especially in the vicinity of the aid stations as people were stopping. The Elkhorn overpass was BRUTAL, but I think that may be because I wasn't expecting it and I have a huge fear of bridges / heights.
I had a bit of a safety concern where there were cops intermittently letting traffic through (I think at Elkhorn and Cimarron). One of the fast marathoners was speeding by us (we were running the half marathon), and it looked dangerously close as to whether traffic was going to be stopped as he was running through that intersection.
This why I gave this race a 4/5 instead of a 5/5.
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Tell us about your training.
As a first timer, I didn't quite know what to expect, so I tried to follow a training program that I found online. It was very helpful, but mid-way through my training I noticed some lingering shin pain. My friend told me that I probably needed more recovery time after the longer runs, and that I should give myself an extra day or so to rest. Listen to your body! Also, don't beat yourself up over missing something on the schedule from time to time. Next time I plan to better monitor my pace, as that was something that I didn't focus on a lot during training - I just wanted to build enough endurance to be able to finish comfortably. Strengthen those quads!
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What advice would you give future runners?
It is really tempting to start off too fast, especially when you factor in the downhill component. The pace in my first 8 miles was 1:30 - 1:45 faster than what I thought I would run, and there were several times when my race partner told me to ease off a little bit. It is ok to go a bit faster than your normal pace, but be conscious of how much faster you are going.
Wear layers and shed them as you go. There is always a pretty significant difference between Mt. Charleston temps and LV temps. We've had a pretty mild May so far, so we lucked out with the temps at the finish.
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What fun things did you do in the area before or after the race?
I am a local, so I didn't do anything particularly special. We did host a post-brunch race at my house for my running friends who traveled from out of town. We had runners from Missouri, Iowa, North Carolina, California, and Colorado in our group.
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