VOW AMONG RUNNERS

It was 3:30 a.m. Sunday, just 21/2 hours before the start of the Las Vegas Marathon, and the yawning Rev. Jamie Firzlaff was still trying to get her time down.

With her husband, Jim, coaxing their 4-year-old son, Trent, out of bed, Firzlaff had to handle the stopwatch herself as she went through yet another time trial.

A blinking Santa Claus decoration in the family room of her Summerlin home provided only a faint light as Firzlaff came down the homestretch.

"As you travel through life together," she intoned, her arms reaching outward as she paused for dramatic effect, "whether it's running a marathon or through daily life, always remember that the true measure of success and the true avenue to joy and peace is through the love that the Lord has given you to share."

At 3:33 a.m., though the long-blond-haired preacher would never quite put it this way, it was Miller Time.

"I can marry 50 couples during the marathon in three minutes or less, just like the race organizers want me to do," Firzlaff said, smiling at the prospect of a personal best time for a mass wedding.

If the third running of the 26.2 mile Las Vegas Marathon, which included a separate half-marathon race that Firzlaff also ran, proved anything Sunday, it is that anything is possible.

With runners, walkers and wheelchair participants concerned that the chilly rain of Friday and Saturday's wind gusts of nearly 40 mph would reappear at race time, the more than 17,000 competitors were greeted at the starting line outside Mandalay Bay by calm winds, 59 percent humidity and temperatures in the high-30s.

The near-perfect racing weather was made better only by fireworks, and a stunning performance three miles into the race by the Blue Man Group.

For the first time, the winner of the women's division, Russian Silviya Skvortsova, ran off with the big bucks. Though Kenyan Christopher Cheboiboch had a better time in winning the men's division, 2:16:49, to Skvortsova's 2:29:01, he went back to Africa with $25,000 less than the female winner.

Both the male and female winners receive $20,000, but Skvortsova won what was known this year as the Megabucks Challenge. Cheboiboch couldn't overcome the 18 minute, 3 second head start given the women, so Skvortsova won the $25,000 Megabucks bonus.

There were so many Elvises (or "Elvi," if you prefer) running the race that one Elvis, 49-year-old Brian Harrifeld, of Lincoln, Neb., seemed stunned: "I didn't think it was possible to see so many Elvises in one place."

One Elvis he saw, Bernie Williams of Ontario, Canada, renewed his vows to Marilyn Monroe, or rather Alison Williams, during Firzlaff's 2 minute and 59.34-second ceremony for runners at A Special Memory Wedding Chapel.

"I can't believe how great this is," said Harrifeld, a postal worker who was watching the mass ceremony. "There is nothing better than being an Elvis. You get to experience so much."

Even Robert Salas, of Showgirl Video on Las Vegas Boulevard, stayed positive about the street closures that were keeping much of his store's clientele away from staring at the peep shows and live nude models on site.

"What we've found in the past," he said, "is that after the runners see our place from the outside, they come back afterward. They work up an appetite."

As well-planned and as well-staffed as the marathon was -- with drummers, dancers, cheerleaders and singers all along the course helping to take the minds of marathoners off the road ahead -- it still was possible for some runners to get lost.

Julian Myers, 89, a Californian who said he always "runs" the full 26.2 miles in races across the country, ended up on the half-marathon course near downtown. He didn't get angry as he retraced his steps but rather tried to convince the half-marathoners to start running.

"If you run at least three miles a day and have a purpose in life to help others, you can live to a 100," said the former Hollywood publicist who took a slow-but-steady tortoise approach to a race filled with hares.

Sarah Raitter, who won the women's half-marathon, said she almost continued on the full marathon course because a turn wasn't clearly identifiable at the seven-mile mark.

"I happened to be lucky because a gentleman in front of me asked a volunteer which way to go and I just followed him," she said. Raitter's husband, Bill, missed the turn and ended up running on the full marathon course.

Mostafa Sheta wanted to go the full distance, even though he was pushing his four infants in a quad-seat stroller. He came to the conclusion it was only possible if he was practical.

"We'll have pit stops to change diapers," he explained before the start of the race.

He pushed his brood the full distance, finishing in less than five hours.

Claudia Sheta, seated in front of the stroller, finished first, followed by sisters Alexandria and Brianna and brother Brandon. The father who knows best ended up last in the outing.

Runners even showed that it was possible to dance during a race. As Saida Brown handed out water to runners, one marathoner, hearing Michael Jackson's song "Billie Jean" being played over loudpeakers, shimmied and moonwalked over to Brown in his best Michael Jackson impression. Onlookers whooped and hollered their approval.

Fifty friends and family members of Brian Ludwig and Christine Smith, print journalists from Peoria, Ill., hollered their approval as Firzlaff married the couple.

He wore a top hat and she wore a veil during the race. She also decorated her water bottle with flowers so it would look like a bouquet.

The woman who sent them down the road as man and wife said the group wedding joins her list of memorable days on the job.

"It's hard to compare them," Firzlaff said. "But it's always hard to forget the time I married a couple at our chapel's drive-through window and they brought me a McDonald's hamburger."

Review-Journal writers Sonya Padgett, Patrick Everson and Bart Davis contributed to this report.