As a place to run I thought Vegas would be easy, I took a look at Google maps and decided that a quick run up and down the strip from my hotel at the bottom up until the hotels thinned then back again would be about 3 miles, 4 tops. How wrong I was on both fronts!
Its a great place to run though, the pavements are really smooth (so smooth that I'm sure with just a light drizzle they would turn in to a death trap!) and easy to run on and there is absolutely loads to look at along the way. I went out at 6:30 ish just as the sun was coming up and Vegas is a very different place then, sure you see the odd card on the floor promoting "Girls to you!" or similar and the occasional drunk wobbling along the strip making their way home after a night of gambling but it is very different that early to even just a couple of hours later.
Mostly, the only people you see are other runners, lots of other runners and workers. People cleaning, gardening, maintaining and repairing, it all happens before people turn up. Amazing really.
Anyway, I digress. The point is its actually not the easy run I was expecting, the strip is much, much longer than I thought and crossing the road is not as easy as it is over here. On my runs around Maidstone a quick glance in both directions to make sure its safe then a quick dart across is all it takes but over there the roads, 8-10 lanes wide, have foot bridges over them that you have to use because its not just illegal not to its also impossible not to.
Trying to cross the road without the foot bridges will almost certainly leave you run over and in prison! Remember too that these bridges have to be pretty high, I would say you could fit an average UK house under one of them just so the massive American trucks can rumble underneath.
Not only that but even in October at 6:30 its still 30 + degrees.
Hard work but I'd go back in a shot, if only to run there again.
www.justgiving.com/PhilipPowellMarathon
No comments:
Post a Comment