A manmade lake in the middle of the desert

WORKOUT -

Ran on hotel TM -

7.0 miles/60 mins

1.0 incline

easy, relaxed pace

The results from the relay aren’t up yet, and we don’t know our place yet so I don’t want to make any claims that “We’re the best in the world!” yet… I mean, we are, of course, but I want to make it official.

After the relay we checked into the Ravella, the host hotel. 

It was nice that it was so close and we didn’t have to mess around with parking or driving the van anywhere (with hundreds of teams, parking and traffic was a little cray).

The finish line party right across the river.

We rented two rooms that connected so we could all hang out like one big slumber party.  And then when we got mad at the other room, we could just shut the door and lock them out.

The rooms were big but a little worn and dated.  You can read about the history of Lake Las Vegas here; I find it really fascinating.  Especially that the casino there is owned by an Alaskan Natives corporation where we fish.  weird.

Mr. Boeddeker’s original vision was to re-create a Lake Como-like, Mediterranean enclave 17 miles from the Las Vegas strip. Multi-million dollar residences would be built along the lake, there would be fine hotels, excellent food, substantial golf courses. It was a vision that had legs, and Mr. Boeddeker’s unusual expertise — his University education combined civil engineering and ( of all things) theology — pulled it off, for awhile.

 

He was one of the few developers who could simultaneously envision a 320 acre lake in the middle of a desert and know how to create it from a practical engineering standpoint. In the grand home of great developer visions, this was one of the most expansive. The dark side of such a vision, and one that Mr. Boeddeker would have surely acknowledged were he still alive, was the importance of a recession-resistant economy needful to the overall health of the concept.

^source

After getting a couple pizzas to eat in the room, we all pretty much fell asleep mid-sentence and mid-chew.  Funny how running 30+ miles in 26 hours will do that to you.

This morning I woke up at the uncool hour of 6am and since I felt decent and was awake, I checked out the hotel gym:

{The view from the gym in the hotel spa}

It was a really nice, spacious gym.  I ran on the treadmill for an hour while watching the news.  I started very conservatively at 6.5 and slowly increased until I hit 7 miles.

I feel good post-relay other than my calves being really tight. My heartstrings are getting pretty tight waiting for the results to come out…. come on, Ragnar!

Tagged as: hotel gyms, hotels, Ragnar, vegas baby