R and J in the USA

November 17, 2024

We arrived at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway in the waning daylight of a late Sunday afternoon to the sound of engines revving and tires squealing and the sight of amateur drivers in souped-up street cars fishtailing around turns on the street course beside the main speedway.

We’ve done races in many neat settings on this trip. By rivers. In mountains. Through forests. In cities. In small towns. On college campuses. At a John Deere plant. In those cases, the course was defined by its surroundings. The PJ 5k in Las Vegas was our first race where the course itself was an attraction. The course was the Glittering Lights Las Vegas drive-thru holiday light show at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

When dusk fell shortly before race time, we were treated to a dazzling light display of holiday festivity. The race ran though that light display, following the course of the drive-thru light show counterclockwise around the exterior perimeter of the speedway stadium.

After running through a parking lot and along Speedway Boulevard clockwise around a third of the track complex, the course made a 180 degree turn and ran up a ramp onto the track concourse behind the apex of the track’s Turn 3/Turn 4 curve. We then entered the light display.

On the frontstretch side of the track, we ran through a tunnel of lights under the northeast grandstand, through a lane of lights behind the central grandstand, and through another tunnel of lights beneath the southwest grandstand. After exiting the second grandstand tunnel behind Turn 1 of the track, we went down a ramp and turned left onto a service road at Turn 2. The bedazzled service road paralleled the backstretch of the track then rejoined Speedway Boulevard, which led us around Turn 3 and Turn 4 of the track and back to where we began.

All the while we were surrounded by the lights of the display. There were light tunnels. Light lanes. There were Christmas themed light displays: Santas, sleighs, reindeer, trees, and various Christmasy characters. There were Las Vegas themed light displays: the famous Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada sign, the Vegas Golden Knights logo, and other city icons. And there were Christmas light promotions of businesses and organizations that helped sponsor it all.

By hundreds of displays with millions of lights we ran, completing one full circuit and then some of the speedway’s exterior, and catching glimpses of the track itself along the way. And to top off the Christmas cheer of the race, they served milk and cookies at the finish line.

The race was a benefit for the Las Vegas chapter of Speedway Children’s Charities. Since its inception in 1999, Speedway Children’s Charities’ Las Vegas chapter has granted more than $5 million to local children’s causes throughout Southern Nevada

This was not a chip-timed race, so we don’t know where we finished in the field. But even though we weren’t first at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, we weren’t last.

Detailed Race Report for Running Nerds

We had just run our Utah race the day before in St. George and we had both taken our available energy and put some decent effort into that run, so we were both looking at our Nevada run very much as what they called it, a fun run. 

Ryan’s calves were in decent shape, but he was feeling them a little bit, so he fully intended to run slow. He said to Julie just before the race what he knew she would love to hear. 

“You could probably beat me in this race if you wanted to, you know.”

Oh, how much she wanted to, but she knew it wasn’t in the cards for two reasons. One, she also knew she needed to run slow and, two, she had been eating terribly that day (her entire meals had been some Welch’s fruit snacks, half a bag of popcorn and a nice big healthy salad that she ate way too close to race time) and was already feeling a little dehydrated from the arid landscape. Walking towards the race, she had a feeling it wasn’t going to be a fast race for her.

The atmosphere was fun and, once the sun went down, the temperature was the perfect running temperature. As soon as the race started, we could tell that Ryan’s slow pace was going to be a faster slow pace than Julie’s and so we wished each other a good race and kissed goodbye until the finish line. 

We both jogged along absolutely loving the scenery and the fresh air and the distant views of the Vegas skyline. 

Ryan jogged the race at a comfortable pace where he was easily able to look around and take in the scene. He really enjoyed the lights and, in a couple of spots, being able to look in and see the race track itself. 

Julie had the same experience and was loving the breeze and the lights. She had the same goal as every race now, run with negative splits and keep up a reasonable heart rate. She was doing a great job, running a nice and easy pace for mile 1, clocking in at a 10:02 and then having no problem picking it up a touch for mile 2, with a nice 9:44. What she absolutely did not see coming was how much the heat and dryness was getting to her and how much her nutrition prior to the race was working against her. It has only happened one other time in her entire running career, but, near the end of mile 2, after a decent uphill at the end of the mile, Julie bonked. For those that don’t know, “bonking” is when an athlete runs out of the necessary nutritional ingredients internally and the system just stops working. Mile 3 was almost completely downhill. Julie usually can cruise down a hill in the sevens without effort. She had to stop at the beginning of mile 3 to grab some water which lost her a good minute – a minute that, usually, with as much downhill as there was, she would easily be able to catch up on as she cruised down the hill. Not this time. When bonking, things don’t work the way they usually do and Julie found herself hurting running downhill as much as she would be running uphill. No matter how much effort she put in, her body would not go faster. She finished mile 3 with a positive split of 9:52 and felt like absolute dog poopy when she crossed the finish line 

There had been one other thing. This was a “PJ” run, so folks were dressed up in their pajamas. Ryan had, intelligently, just worn regular running gear. Julie had done her best to join in the spirit, and wore her sweatpants – which she had never run in before. It turns out the extra few pounds of road-weight she’d gained thanks to a few too many successes finding gluten free treats, kettle corn, ice cream and whatever else had made whatever thigh gap Julie barely had when in her best shape completely disappear. For three miles she had pure thigh on thigh contact inside the sweaty sweatpants in a heat that we hadn’t had for so many races that she hadn’t thought to put on her “anti-chafe” cream like back in the day earlier in the trip. So, by the time she crossed the finish line, she was bonking AND chaffing. Not fun. 

Up until that 3rd mile, Julie had been loving the race and having the most fun time, which is exactly the race Ryan had the whole time. When Julie crossed the finish line, Ryan was there clapping and smiling and Julie gave him a high five and could barely muster up a smile through her bonking, chaffing face. 

“I’m headed back to the van.” knowing exactly what she needed to do and that she needed to do it stat. Ryan got it, kept on smiling and let her go. Julie headed back to the van, poured some powdered nutrition into a glass of water and downed it with glee. Within 20 minutes, she was feeling back to her normal self and delighting in memories of what had been 2 miles of her favorite run so far.