This isn't sweat; my fat cells are crying.

It was a blistering 37 degrees when we started the race yesterday.  Mojo, I and ~27,000 other crazy souls watched the sun rise, tried desperately to keep warm (or rather, get warm) and wondered why it was taking so freaking long to get to the start line.

I officially started my fourth Las Vegas Half Marathon with less than 3 hours of sleep and a late night / early morning trying to find a missing friend, a $80 cab ride, calls to Las Vegas Highway Patrol and Las Vegas Police (both super nice, BTW) and finally, a found Jean. 

Mojo and I ran together early in the race.  By mile 2, I lost him as he stopped for a photo op and I stopped to shed a layer. 

The first 8 miles were great -- I was running a consistent pace and feeling good.  A bit after mile 8, my hips started to ache and I struggled to keep pace.  By mile 10, my hips were hurting and I had to slow down significantly.  By mile 11, I could see Mandalay Bay (finish line) and were being passed by walkers as I shuffled along.  I told myself that I was having an awesome race and I will finish by "running" it, even if I ran slower than most of the walkers.  :-)

I finished in a solid 2:41:53 / 12.21 mile pace!  I averaged ~11:50 mile for the first 10 miles and slowed down those last 3 painful miles.  Even with the slowdown, I averaged 30 seconds faster per mile than last year.  WOOT! 

Mojo finished his first half marathon (he's already thinking about his second one in Feb.) like a champ; check out his race writeup and pics at http://dennis.mojado.org/woot-123.  I am proud of him (I remember him whining about finishing 3 miles!) and am so glad we had the chance to train together this year. 

Lolita and Rich did the Half as well; both rocking it and had joined us for a post-race feeding.  Jean (finally found) graciously treated us to an amazing dinner at Shabuyi (at MGM Grand) Sunday night.  Leland booked us deliciously painful massages.  All in all, another fabulous end to the year.

There were a lot of great t-shirts on the course but this is my all-time favorite now:  This isn't sweat.  My fat cells are crying.

Enough said.