It’s an unsanctioned relay race from Santa Monica to Vegas, with much hullabaloo about “no spectators” and “it’s good for the runner to suffer”. Its packed with influencers broadcasting the whole thing nonstop to spectators on Instagram. And looking back now a year later, I remember it as a nice adventure rather than a hard marathon long run workout where I suffered: it’s good for the runner to run from LA to Las Vegas with friends.
I don’t know how it happened. I remember being added a group chat in the summer. A couple of friends, really plugged in to the running community, got the invite to participate… and yada yada yada that’s me on the far left of this photo below. This photo wasn’t clicked by me, but over the day and a half of this event I managed to take about half a dozen shots that I am happy with.
I don’t know how it happened. I remember being added a group chat in the summer. A couple of friends, really plugged in to the running community, got the invite to participate… and yada yada yada that’s me on the far left of this photo below. This photo wasn’t clicked by me, but over the day and a half of this event I managed to take about half a dozen shots that I am happy with.
Some 500+ people participated in this, in teams of 6 to 18 people; I recall meeting teams that flew in from Chicago, SF, NYC and Canada, Germany, Japan, and Korea. And I recall running past people who were running the whole 300 miles solo over 5-6 days 🤯 I ran in Santa Monica, in small towns in California where the dogs are not kept on a leash and chase you, in a desert I had read about in Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff, in some desert in Nevada I’d never heard about - but very popular choice of tattoo for everyone who got tattoos after the race (I remain tattoo-less) - and finally a bit in Vegas. In the end I left Vegas some $10 richer than I had arrived, thanks to the blackjack guidance of my very-skilled-at-blackjack-when-inebriated friend.
