All You Can Eat Triathlon

Lake Las Vegas Sprint Triathlon
700m swim / 17k bike / 5k run
Lake Las Vegas Resort, NV
April 25th, 2004

To answer your first question, it was a little bit hot, but the race happened so early in the morning that we avoided the worst of it. To answer your second question, it's a man-made lake just east of Henderson, about a half-hour drive from the Strip.

I got it into my deranged little head to do this race back in the fall. The distance looked manageable, the setting luscious, and the opportunity to race in the decadance capital of the Western world unparalleled. I hadnıt been to Vegas since about 1990, when the Luxor was just a weird framework of a sphinx and a pyramid in a patch of undeveloped scrub. No Mandalay Bay, no Bellagio, no Venetian, no Paris Las Vegas, no five-star foodie restaurants. Clearly it was time to check it out. I made it the second stop on my Self-Promotional, Self-Indulgent, and, alas, Self-Funded Slow Fat Triathlete North American Tour.

The logistics of traveling to triathlons are complicated at the best of times. You need a lot of stuff, and races start at very inconvenient hours. So I decided to make this even more exciting by road-tripping with my family in a rented minivan. I just read this morning that the last Oldsmobile model year was 2004 -- no more new Oldsmobiles after that. Having just driven 1200-plus miles in an Oldsmobile Silhouette, all I can say about the demise of this venerable brand is donıt let the door hit ya on the way out. This was without doubt the most annoying vehicle I have ever had the misfortune to rent, and Iıve rented a few. Its only redeeming feature was a pretty big cargo area in the back, which allowed my bike, its greasy bits wrapped in plastic bags, to share space with other luggage, a box of books, and 2 1/2 gallons of water.

My folks and I drove all day Thursday, moving breezily past our little encounter with the CHP on I-5, to our rented house in Henderson, ate a big Italian dinner, and met up with my friend Indigo, who drove up from Orange County just for the heck of it. Friday we spent sightseeing, dropping in at bookstores and seeing if they were stocking Slow Fat Triathlete, and picking up my race packet. Oh, and eating lunch at the Bellagio buffet. I could write five pages just about that.

Saturday I planned to pick Tim up at the airport at noon and then head over to the Lake Las Vegas resort to do what I could do schmooze-wise at registration. I figured I'd miss an hour or so of it, but whatcha gonna do? I wanted to pick up my husband. We didn't know the airport, though, and it turned out there's more than one obvious place to pick up arriving passengers. That's not what it seems like though, when you're either the arriving passenger or the driver. To each of those parties, it seems like there's only one obvious place. So that took an extra hour. Then we were hungry, because it was later than we'd planned. So we had to eat at the house. By the time we got up to Lake Las Vegas, it was 3:30, and registration ended at 4. I asked Eddie the race director about the post-race party/awards ceremony, figuring that would be my last chance to put the word out about the book to the Las Vegas triathlon community. "Well, most people donıt really stick around for it," Eddie replied, which I had kind of been fearing because the awards ceremony was going to be about three hours after most racers would finish.

Not that it would be a hardship to stick around Lake Las Vegas for a few hours. The theme of the place is "fake Italian village meets swanky golf resort," and given how weird and fake all of Las Vegas is, this comes out looking fairly attractive, almost organic in comparison. There's a Ritz-Carlton and a Hyatt and a bunch of little boutiques and cafes and of course a Starbucks, all built to look sort of Mediterranean. There are flowers everywhere and narrow winding streets. Even the Montelago Casino looks kind of nice. Tim had an idea that maybe these new "tasteful" Italianate casinos could benefit from a new ³tasteful² style of slot machine. Like they could have faux wood or marble housings, and instead of having 7's and cherries and bars they could show Michelangelo's David and a view of Piazza San Marco or the Vatican or whatever. Three Davids equals 50 credits, three Vaticans wins you a thousand. And instead of cheesy bells and sound effects they could play a Verdi aria when you win. I think we have to pursue this business venture.

We drank our frappuccinos and wandered around the "village" before heading home for a quick rest, recharging the batteries for an evening visit to the Strip and the Border Grill at Mandalay Bay. The Border Grill serves a California interpretation of food you might eat at a restaurant in Mexico, rather than the burrito-enchilada-nacho variety. The women who started it are the "Too Hot Tamales" of the eponymous Food Network show, renowned for their funky, spicy, true-to-the-spirit interpretations of Latin American food. The place is boxy and multi-level, painted in fruit salad colors and illustrated with modernist caricatures of people, things, food, whatever. It's a visual blast. Our room and the terrace outside were jam-packed with four separate bachelorette parties, which made it extra festive and attracted the strolling musicians for an extra long and participatory set of Gypsy Kings, Mexican traditional numbers and the inevitable "La Bamba."

I went for the special barbequed pork rib tacos, cute little things filled with the shredded rib meat and garnished with an extra few ribs on the side. The sauce was sweet and spicy and unlike any barbeque I had ever tasted in North America. A perfect pre-race meal? Perhaps not, but that is the great thing about doing races just for fun and self-promotion. Tim ordered the classic Border Grill marinated skirt steak, Indigo had the giant shrimp stuffed with crabmeat and wrapped in bacon, which doesn't sound very Mexican, but I have eaten it in Mexico, so who knows? Mom had beef taquitos and Dad, a pork fan, had the carnitas tacos. I had to pass on the excellent margaritas, my concession to pre-race virtue, but indulged in extreme carbo-loading with a brownie sundae. Tim and Dad had warm apple empanadas; Mom went for the Aztec chocolate cake, which had so much chocolate-borne caffeine that it kept her up all night.

The folks and I went home early, and I was race-ready and in bed by 10 pm, though my own chocolate indulgence kept me awake for a while.

And finally it was race day. Usually in California, if I'm up at 5 in the morning for a race, I have to put some serious fleece and long pants on until right before I put on my wetsuit. On this day I just put on my race suit and a long-sleeved T-shirt and I was ready to go. A banana and a pre-race energy drink served as breakfast, and I woke Indi up at the last possible minute, which was a good thing, since she'd been out till 2 a.m. taking pictures. Unlike me, Indigo does not seem to get grumpy when she's tired, which is another good thing. For me. I'm afraid I inflicted tired grumpiness on most everyone around me at some point during this trip.

The sunrise over the raw desert mountains was a treat; even the flat bowl of Vegas proper was softened by the morning light, and when we got up to the lake, it was just gorgeous. Indigo whipped out the camera (it's a brand-new Nikon digital SLR, so she wanted to play with it all the time) and started taking pictures of me putting on sunscreen and checking my tire pressure.

The transition area was up on a hill overlooking the tiny, immacculate, artificial beach at the Reflection Bay Golf Club. I should have deduced from the steepness of that hill what I was in for the rest of the morning. Contrary to my usual habit, I hadn't scouted either the bike or the run course at all, but the road into the resort did sort of indicate that there would be hills.

As it happened, the only place on the course that there were no hills was actually in the water. That at least seemed pretty flat. And the temperature of the water was nice, and it wasn't too murky, either. As the 7:35 sprint race start approached, I was feeling pretty good. I'd warmed up in the water, stretched out my balky shoulder and all my other balky parts, and I was delighted to learn that the 40 and over women were going to be in the first wave of the sprint race. I don't know why more races don't do this. I have heard claims that it's safer to have the slow, old people go last, so that the young fast people don't swim over them. I'm not really buying that for a lot of courses. The swim's often in a nice big lake or ocean or bay, with plenty of room for passing. But this is a rant for another time or place, preferably a public forum.

When the horn sounded, we ran headlong across the lawn and into the lake. We were doing a counterclockwise loop around four buoys, and it was reasonably easy to see them even with the morning glare, and even though I had foolishly left my nice clean unscratched race goggles back at the house, so I had to swim with my old beat-up pair. The swim seemed longer than 700 meters, but I hadnıt been in the pool much with my shoulder acting up over a few weeks. Towards the end of the swim I kept veering to the right as I was able to pull harder with my good left arm than my sore right one. It wasnıt so much that it was hurting, but it just felt weak.

I felt kind of weak overall as I stumbled up the hill to T1. It was just so darn steep! I was a little wobbly in the transition, too, slower than usual to get my bike shoes on and get out on the road. But it was great to see Indi and Tim and Mom and Dad waving and cheering-- always good for a burst of energy.

Once I hit the road, I felt fine. At first. We headed up a slight grade to a traffic circle, then headed left up a hill, a little steep but not too long. At the crest of the hill, though, some moron in a Lexus coupe pulled out of his gated condo complex and turned left, right into the middle of the race. There were cyclists on either side of the road, orange cones everywhere, and really no room for this idiot. I had been under the impression that this stretch of the road was closed to cars, probably because I had just ridden past a big sign that said "Road Closed." But either nobody told the condo-dwellers, or Mr. Lexus was out there commando. Going down the back side of the hill, I had to ride my brakes to avoid hitting the car, wasting precious momentum and building up a hefty surge of adrenaline from the fear and anger. When we got to the bottom and the Lexus pulled to a confused stop, I admit that I yelled at him. Loudly. The adrenaline got me about halfway up the next hill before I started to notice that this one was also steep.

The turnaround was at the top of the second hill, and the Lexus-free cruise back down was extremely satisfying. But what goes down must, it seems, climb back up, and the next uphill seemed to go on for a long time. I noticed my speeds on these little uphills were well down into the single digits, which kind of makes for a slow race. Then back down to the traffic circle -- slowly, because you have to be in control to make the circle at the bottom -- and around and back up the hill again, more slowly this time. And that was what the course was. Up, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, and down. The longest 10.4 miles I have ever ridden. I was straining my legs about as far as I was ready to strain them, and I was just crawling along. I did get up over 40 on some of the downhills, but they didn't last long enough. The Olympic distance race got to do this four times, but I was delighted to do only two laps.

Back into transition, and this time I was a little quicker getting myself ready to go (it helps not having to get a whole wetsuit off, of course). After that bike course, I was almost looking forward to running. The run exit was a little sketchy -- out the back of the transition area, across some scrubby dirt, up a little rise and on to the sidewalk. Not really well marked, but I could follow the people in front of me. High five to mom and to Tim, and another adrenaline episode when a mother allowed her toddler to dash into my path. It's nice to have spectators, but it's scary to have a two-year old rush at your ankles when youıre too tired to be agile.

After the traffic circle, we turned off onto a dirt road that is presumably going to be another golf course or luxury hotel some day. Right now it's just a lunar landscape, baked, rutted, rocky,dusty, with one rolling little hill after another. Right away I could tell this would clock out as a slow, slow run. "Good practice for Wildflower!" I repeated chirpily to myself as I pumped my arms to get up the hills and worked to keep my feet under me on the downhills. The run turnaround was hidden down in a canyon so steep I could barely get down the trail, and getting back up, even with a gulp of Gatorade, was absurd. I walked it, gasping. It took a major effort of will to start running again when the grade levelled off a little. By this time, around 9 a.m., the sun was starting to heat things up, and my throat was feeling raspy from the dry air and dust. Up ahead of me, a woman in a blue and white tri suit seemed to be walking every time I looked at her, but I still couldn't catch her. I made it my mission to pick her off, but it took me a long time, as I had to walk a few steps on the steeper part of every uphill too. Finally, on the second to last hill on the dirt road, I got her. I tore down the little downslope as fast as I could stagger, not wanting her to get inspired and catch me again.

It was a small victory, but it was satisfying. Earlier on the run I had passed a 12-year-old boy who seemed to be struggling, but he flew by me later, hot on the heels of an 11-year-old. Good practice for Wildflower, I thoughtŠ

Back onto the pavement and an easy downhill to the finish. I picked up my pace and lifted my knees a little with every stride to try and look slightly faster for the race photos. (It didn't work. It never really does.) Tim and Indigo and Dad were there cheering me in, and Eddie the race director stood at the finish line encouraging every finisher. "ThatŠ wasŠ the hardestŠ sprintŠ courseŠ ever," I panted.

With the temperature rising by the minute, my post-race plan seemed obvious. Get in the water. So I lounged in the lake for a few minutes, kicking my legs around gently to let the blood circulate around, chatting with the 12-year-old who had passed me. "The run's not really his strength," his dad said. "He's not built for it." "Well, he came flying by me pretty fast," I answered. I felt kind of bad for the kid. He wasn't an Italian greyhound, but he wasn't a fatty by any means. I hope his dad doesn't get into his head so that he thinks of himself as slower and fatter than he is.

But soon breakfast was uppermost in my mind. I changed into my fresh new race t-shirt and clean shorts, and we headed to the Montelago for a Vegas-y brunch in the fake Italian village. It was so quiet and the air was so clear and bright that coming around some corners it seemed like an episode of "The Prisoner." But it was lively in the cafe, where we ate eggs Benedict and pastries and drank mimosas and Bellinis and coffee and juice. Then back to the house for the obligatory post-race siesta. We had one more pass through the Strip that evening, where I got so hungry and dizzy walking through Caesarıs Palace that we wer e forced to stop and eat at the nearest restaurant, which happened to be Spago. Oh well!

So it was a good trip overall, even if it was a bust from the book-promoting angle. I placed fourth in my age group, which is my best finish ever in absolute terms. I managed to lose only eight dollars gambling, and we ate some memorable meals. I saw the glittery new Vegas with its marble and neon thinly overlaying the cheese of the old Vegas. It was fun, but it was exhausting, and I was glad to get home.