Vegas Ups the Ante: What’s a Marathon Without Elvis?

Marathon isn’t the first word that comes to mind in Las Vegas, unless it’s about a poker game or a night of partying. But organizers of the New Las Vegas Marathon are betting they’re onto something big with more than 11,000 runners signed up to start before dawn Sunday beneath flashy neon, glittering fireworks and the strains of Elvis Presley’s “Viva Las Vegas.”

Boxing legend Muhammad Ali is scheduled to join local dignitaries at the starting line on the Las Vegas Strip. And organizers promise at least 40 running Elvises, up to 26 couples married at a run-through wedding chapel, dozens of showgirls, Santa Claus and 16 venues with live entertainment to help keep runners’ legs moving for 26.2 fast, flat miles back to the casinos.

Most will finish with aches, blisters and a T-shirt instead of big cash prizes, though there’s a possibility that some runner will hit the $1.25 million jackpot by setting a world record.

“This is not the old Las Vegas Marathon,” said Jon “Al” Boka, who directed an underfunded and under-promoted race from 1983 until selling the rights to promoter Devine Racing, a Chicago company that also owns the Los Angeles and Salt Lake City marathons.

The 1,805 entrants who finished the 39th race last January faced stiff, chilly headwinds running from a desert hamlet 26 miles south of the city to finish unheralded at a county park well off the Strip. About 2,659 more completed a 13.1-mile half-marathon.

“There was no place to hide,” recalled Larry Barthlow, a Devine official who endured last year’s course before spending his summer recruiting elite runners for this weekend’s race. “It was the desert. The tallest thing out there was maybe the portajohns.”

Everyone knew if Las Vegas hoped to join the marathon big leagues -- to attract competitors who might otherwise go to Atlanta, Honolulu, Dallas, San Diego or Orlando, Fla. -- it had to feature the one thing no place else could offer.

“You get to run on the Las Vegas Strip!” said Andrew DiMeglio, 41, of Chicago, who will make Las Vegas his third marathon. “They’re shutting down the Strip. That’s cool.”

DiMeglio, a television network producer, picks his marathons for physical challenge and vacation potential. He and his nonrunning brother will spend time after the race at casino sports books where he might have a better chance of winning some money.

It’s a sure bet that meeting his goal of finishing the race in under 3 hours, 20 minutes and 59 seconds -- a marathoning milestone that would qualify him for the Boston Marathon -- will leave him well out of the running for the $302,000 prize purse.

That’s a more realistic goal for elite runners like Gilbert Koech, Stephen Kiogora, James Koskei, Laban Chege, all from Kenya, and Ethiopian Girma Tola. They’ll reap appearance fees and compete for a $50,000 first-place bonus, and also hope to beat marathon’s 2:04:55 world record set in September 2003 in Berlin.

This is the first Las Vegas race for most of the top runners entered this year, though Koech won Jan. 30 on the old desert highway course, with a time of 2:13:44.

“We understand it will be a very competitive race,” said Koskei, 35.

Kenya’s Margaret Okayo, Mexico’s Adriana Fernandez or Romania’s Nuta Olaru could challenge the women’s world record of 2:15:25 set by Paula Radcliffe of Great Britain in April 2003 in London. Ukrainian Olga Kovpotina, who set a Las Vegas women’s course record of 2:31:53 in January, won’t run this weekend.

Bill Burke, originator of the Los Angeles Marathon and Las Vegas race president for Devine Racing, said he expected a ratio of about four out-of-town racers for every local runner.

Burke wouldn’t say how much Devine was spending to promote the race, which will be televised live for the first time by the local CBS affiliate.

While Burke promises a spectacle, he says he has no idea how many spectators will show up from among about 1.7 million area residents.

“A marathon’s an inconvenience,” he said. “One of the big questions I’ve had as an event organizer is how the city of Las Vegas would react.”

One key hurdle was to persuade the always-open casinos to shut down Las Vegas Boulevard for a foot race, he said.

“We were scared to death of that,” Burke said.

But Devine has experience with races and deep enough pockets not to blink when it received a $600,000 bill for traffic-control equipment. That didn’t include the cost of police and public works overtime.

“What happened was the circus came to town,” Burke said. “They found we’ve been doing this in L.A. for 21 years. When our people met with the security officers of all the big hotels, they were cordial and offered their suggestions.”

One idea was to switch the date to December and start the race early on a Sunday morning, when the Strip isn’t exactly crowded with churchgoers. The new date puts running shoes and cowboy boots in town at the same time, with about 40,000 people expected for the annual National Finals Rodeo at the Thomas & Mack Center.

Starting instead of finishing on the Strip should keep disruption to a minimum for hotels, and Las Vegas Boulevard should be closed only for two hours.

Runners will pass through the downtown Fremont Street Experience pedestrian-casino mall at 10 kilometers, or 6.2 miles. Then, they’ll head into northwest Vegas neighborhoods.

For most of the last six miles, runners will be running straight toward the Strip skyline. It could be several hours before stragglers finish just off a side street parallel to the Strip.

Carl Wright, 62, will coax his training group of local female runners that includes a doctor, a police detective, homemakers and a casino cocktail server to keep a steady pace of 9-minute miles to reach their goal of finishing in under four hours.

The mechanical engineer who has run more than a dozen marathons recalled the old Las Vegas marathon course as “just so boring, running through the desert, not a lot to see.”

“Obviously, the Strip is the attraction,” said Burke. “We’ll have Las Vegas showgirls along the route, and the flat course, and the good weather.

“But when you cut through it all, it’s the Las Vegas Strip.”