vegas and a damn race

So Scot had to go to Las Vegas for work for like 3 weeks this month.  He gets back in the nick of time for the Princess Half, and good for him he's been able to do some running out there!  I went to visit for a few days (call it an early Valentine present) so we spent zero dollars in the casinos (they're yucky and smokey and kinda sad) and instead went to see "Jersey Boys"- which was fantastic- and did a LOT of walking around the Strip.  Like, 22,000+ steps a day.  That's like 14 miles.  A day.  And guess what?  While we were wandering around the atrium in the Bellagio, I saw a woman wearing the orange Goofy Challenge shirt and carrying the Marathon Weekend Dooney bag!  I had to stop her and chat- runners are such randomly friendly people!

Anyway, we also went to the Valley Of Fire state park for sunrise and got some awesome photos!  More walking.  Hiking.  Scrambling up and down rocks.  It was great!  

 Arch Rock

Scot hiking up the White Domes

 Petroglyphs, aka ancient Indian rock carvings

 This is the perch we watched the sun rise on

 Pretty incredible views!

Balanced Rock 

 Elephant Rock

Best-looking couple in the park that day, right here!  (Uh, also the only people in the park that day.  We were there by 5:45 am after over an hour drive and we were done and leaving by 10:30 am)

I'd signed up for a virtual Track Shack run last month- the Lady Track Shack 5K.  It has an awesome finisher's medal AND you got a tutu!  I brought these items plus the race shirt to Las Vegas to get my race in.  Scot and I did a 7 mile run around the hotel area, and I for sure earned that medal!  
Did not give a crap that I was running around Las Vegas in a tutu.  Probably not the weirdest sight people there have ever seen. 

The altitude didn't really bother me!  I drank a ton of water though, it's so dry out there!

 View from the top of the Eiffel Tower at the Paris Hotel & Casino

Bellagio fountains

A pretty cool thing we also did was go up in the Stratosphere tower.  Apparently, it's ridiculously expensive to go up to the observation deck (where they have rides that swing you out over the edge and a zip line so you can jump OFF THE TOWER.  So many nopes!)  We took a different elevator to the cocktail lounge on the 107th floor, had some half price drinks and appetizers, then went up to the observation deck at no charge.  All that for less than 2 tickets to just go up and look.  And check out this view!  I played with the color a little bit but this was pretty much what we got to look at:

Sunset.

When I got back to Orlando, I did a little more work on our Magic Bands, getting them all prettied up for the race next weekend:

Tonight I stopped by my local Fleet Feet after work for the kickoff party for the Best Damn Race Orlando in a couple weeks.  Turns out, (unbeknownst to me!) I'd won a Facebook comment contest from their page back in October, and I finally connected with the right person to redeem my $25 gift card!  So I bought socks.  If you run, you can understand my joy over 2 new pairs of Balegas.  They had a 5 mile group run tonight and although I didn't know anyone there I was able to immediately strike up conversations with the runners in RunDisney shirts!  We can find each other anywhere!  I was in my Goofy Challenge shirt, there was a woman in a Dopey shirt and a man in a 1/2 Marathon shirt.  I also saw a girl with a Marathon Weekend Dooney bag that was a great conversation starter.  Love my Disney peeps!

By the way, I kicked ass on my run: 5 miles, 43 minutes!  AND I was able to hold a conversation with one of the girls in the group for the last 2 miles.  Definitely getting there :)