Revel Mt. Charleston Marathon

Apr 27, 2019 · 1 min read
running

The Revel Mt. Charleston Marathon starts at 9,500 feet in the Spring Mountains outside Las Vegas and drops nearly 5,000 feet to the desert floor. It was about 35 degrees with snow at the top and close to 80 by the finish once the sun came up.

My dad tried to get me to skip the race. I had been in Vegas doing as one does in Vegas and got about three hours of sleep. I was having none of it.

I got up at 4 AM and made it to the start line.

Running into the finish

The first 19 miles went well. Then the heat, the altitude swing, and the previous night’s decisions caught up to me all at once. I hit the wall hard around mile 20 and the last 10K was pure survival.

Post-finish medal

Med tent

I finished in 4:01:39. Then I laid on the ground for a while. Then the med tent. Morgan had to wheel me through the hotel lobby in a wheelchair.

The wheelchair ride through the hotel lobby

The aftermath

A lot of things could have been better about this one. But I finished.

Distance: 26.2 miles Time: 4:01:39 Avg Pace: 9:07/mi Elevation Loss: ~5,000 ft (net downhill) Start Elevation: 9,543 ft Finish Elevation: 4,732 ft Avg HR: 157 bpm

Marathon Las-Vegas
Austin Semmel
Authors
Austin Semmel
Army Officer | PhD, Operations Research
Army officer and operations researcher at the United States Military Academy. I hold a Doctor of Philosophy in Operations Research from NC State University. Using daily flight data from AH-64 Apache units, my dissertation characterized the latent decision structures and trade-offs that drive operational readiness. I developed interpretable, data-driven modeling frameworks that translate complex system behaviors into decision support tools for resource-constrained environments. I teach probability, statistics, and mathematical modeling to cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point.