NV – Racing Americana

Saturday March 13 2021

Nevada is a state I’d had planned two or three times before, but as I have come to expect from Democrat controlled areas of the US, cancelling tends to win out. I was thrilled to find a race not cancelled this leading weekend of Spring Break 2021. So I took a week off between jobs, and planned a nice trip out west with Becca.

We flew on Friday afternoon, and landed in Las Vegas, only to find the world’s longest line for the car rental shuttle. We moved to the world’s second longest line, and had a taxi take us to the rentals hub. We picked up our Mitsubishi Eclipse, and headed north to Boulder City, NV. This is the location of Hoover Dam, and where tomorrow’s half marathon was taking place.

We grabbed dinner en route to the hotel, at a little Mexican restaurant, Toto’s, and checked in to the Hoover Damn Lodge around 2100.

The race was The Las Vegas Six Tunnels to Hoover Dam Half Marathon, run on The Historic Railroad Tunnel Trail. Packet pick up was the next morning, in the hotel parking lot. After picking up my bag and chip timing bracelet, I finished getting ready in the room and headed down to the start line with Becca. Some of the 5K runners were already finished and on their way back up past us on the rocky path, as we traipsed down through the desert to the start line.

The race was staggered starts every 10 seconds and to be run whilst wearing a mask! Accordingly, I had researched among the student athletes I coach, who currently have to play in masks, and found that the surgical masks apparently cause the fewest breathing problems. So I packed some of those, and a plastic mouth/nose breathing support frame. I had done a two mile training run on Friday in a mask/plastic frame, and it was awful. Luckily by mile two to three or so, I noticed other people not wearing their face coverings, so followed suit and removed mine. A competitive race was not the time to make a political statement that impedes breathing.

I had chatted with a guy called Seth on the way to the start line, and we ran together for the first 8 or 9 miles, which was nice. We overtook a lot of people and set a good tempo. The first half of the course was all asphalt, and I kept wishing I’d worn my Vaporflys, but as the second half was trail, I think my choice of Nike Fly 3s ended up being a fair decision. The first few miles had a lot of uphill but after the first turn around, one one windy uphill section, we could let the brakes off, which was great. The race went back through the start staging area, then up into the gravel trail hills leading through the tunnels to the Dam. It was really cool running through these historic structures, carved into the mountainous desert landscape, and it was after going in the first couple, that I stretched away from Seth. But I felt good and caught some more half runners ahead, and a bunch of 10Kers, too. The turnaround at Hoover Dam was a soft gravel loop that went really quite steeply uphill before rejoining the trail through the tunnels, and it was tough going. I finished strong, and having taken in a Maurten gel at 4.5 & 9 miles, felt my lungs were good, just my legs were heavy. Probably due to my recently reduced (and pretty aimless) weekly mileage. My time was 1.31.16, which put me 4th overall, 1st in my age group. With the elevation, the masks, the climbing and the terrain, this wasn’t bad.

After the race, we checked out the National Parks visitors centre, headed back to the hotel to shower and pack up, then got on the road. We checked out the Hoover Dam, then hot-footed it to California – specifically, Death Valley National Park. There we did a little ‘hike’ to a scenic peak, and visited Bad Water Basin – the lowest and hottest point in the US, 282’ below sea level.

From one extreme to the other, our next destination was snowy Sequoia National Park at 8500’! We got back on the road and eventually drove as far as Tulare, CA, grabbing a quick In N Out Burger in Bakersfield on the way. We even made time before that to stop off at some natural hot springs in Remington. The Rangers actually threw us out of there after a while because it was dark, and the springs are only legally accessible sunrise-sunset, but it was quite an adventure. We hiked down the wrong way, bumping into another couple on the way, which was a crazy adventure in itself, but we found the proper route on the way back up after speaking to the rangers!

We stayed in a La Quinta in Tulare that night, and I explored the town with a six mile run the next morning, which seemed a lovely little place. We grabbed our bagged hotel breakfast (still no indoor dining in California), and drove the rest of the way to Sequoia. We drove through the beautiful foothills, orange trees all around, and made our way up the winding mountain road, picking up the required snow chains on the way, as the temperature dropped and snow increased along General’s Highway.

We hiked through the snow from the visitors centre out to Tunnel Log and some other magnificent sites, then followed footprints in the snow along the Soldier’s Trail, until we got back to the car. We then drove along to The General Sherman Tree, and explored Giant Forest Grove until sunset, meeting a really nice local guide named Paul (sequoiatours.com). He was out cross country skiing, and bumped into us at the Cattle Cabin. His wife is from Birmingham! We made a shortcut down through the deep hillside snow on the way back to the car, and drove up to Wuksachi Lodge to check in, grab pizza for dinner, and get some rest.

Maps –

Day One in Sequoia –

The next morning I ran 5.5 miles in the thick snow, before grabbing breakfast and heading back to Giant Forest Grove for another day of exploring in the snow.

Day Two In Sequoia –

It was very hard to follow the trails at times, because we were pretty much the only people out in the forest, few trails had any footprints, and the snow was so deep that most signs were covered up, too. The snow was falling so heavily that I noted on my morning run, that my fresh footprints on the closed road, were gone about ten minutes later (after the turn around if my out and back). Becca and I eventually found our way back to the car but had to push our way through some waist deep snow at times until we found the ridge trail we needed. Amazingly, the thick snow was so powdery and dry that we still weren’t wet.

We got back to the car eventually, and headed back to the lodge for dinner, showers and an early night.

Tuesday morning, we rose early and we’re on the road at 0700. We nearly crashed into the mountain pass walk on our way down through the ice and snow, but we made it out fine. The snow and ice clogged up the little Mitsubishi in any way it could, but it handled well, and we were safely on our way through warmer Californian climes. We stopped for lunch at a Mexican restaurant in Barstow and zoomed along through the baked dystopian valleys of California until we arrived at Joshua Tree National Park. We even found time to stop and try to help a jack-knifed truck and trailer, alas, unfortunately to no avail.

We hiked a couple of different trails in Joshua Tree, Hidden Valley and Barker Dam, visited a couple of other beautiful sites like the Cholla Cactus Garden, and got back on the road towards Desert Springs. We stayed in a lovely Natural Aquafier Spa Resort that night and explored its different baths, rooms and spas, before grabbing a Chinese takeaway for dinner. The next morning I ran six miles out into the desert, spad some more, then got on the road to zoom to LAX so we could fly home.

Joshua Tree –