All is Fair in Love and Running

Charting a new segment at the end of a race to the marriage capitol of the world. A bonus Speed Project recap!

On the route from LA to LV at mile 30 between train tracks and the highway is an unassuming delicatessen. An oasis of sorts, offering your typical roadside fair, handmade sandwiches, and extraordinary hospitality, the Kwik Market & Deli has become a treasured landmark for the Speed Project. Year after year the owners have opened their doors and parking lot to the parade of runners and RVs decorated with painter’s tape spelling out team names, headed towards the desert.

Our RV arrived just before 7am well ahead of our runners on the course still making their way out of Los Angeles. It was not yet crowded, but a DJ was already set up playing music from under a black tent in the parking lot. As an extra little incentive to be fast out of the city Nils had arranged for the first 100 sandwiches ordered at Kwik Market to be free.

Sasha, the TSP media team dancing, and Nils all in the Kwik Market parking lot (Film shot by Hannah)

A lot of things were different this year for The Speed Project. The meet-and-greet for teams, normally held at Hinanos bar by Venice Beach, was instead held at a gallery space with a cookout, DJ, and documentary screening. The old limo Nils and his HQ drove through the desert tracking runners was retired and replaced by a sleek all-black sprinter van. The mandatory safety meeting was held broken out in small groups instead of as a collective, where it was revealed this year’s race almost didn’t happen because of how much more popular and media-saturated the race had become. There were even new starting lines—a route from Salt Lake City was raced by at least one team in secret until it was revealed at the pool party, and they received special engraved keys along with their poker chips.

As much as the course from LA to LV itself has changed over the years as teams find faster and more efficient ways across the desert, three essential elements remain the same: the finish line in Vegas, the disco in Adelanto, and Kwik Market & Deli’s hospitality.

Scenes from the safety briefing, the Kwik Market Parking lot, and the Adelanto disco party. The gentleman in both the black hoody and the suit and tie are Nils Arend, the genius behind the Speed Project. Bottom left corner is Mona Laviñia Garcia who was part of the media team for TSP HQ and one of my greatest influences, a true champion of the spirit. (Film shots by Hannah)

After getting off the RV and our team made our way through the Kwik Market parking lot, I recognized someone wearing an iridescent golf visor. “I think that’s Alexi Pappas?” I said to Sasha while staring at the Olympian mingling outside the Kwik Market doorway. “Let’s go make friends,” I said, dragging Sasha over to meet her. As I awkwardly introduced Sasha and myself to the 10km Greek national record holder, Sasha’s husband Evan brought over a round of matcha shots to help break the ice. Little did we know Pappas was hosting the Speed Project’s hourly Instagram live video and would be doing an update soon.

Matcha shots with Nils & Alexi, and Alexi interviewing Sasha! (Film shot by Hannah)

The Speed Project’s media crew assembled around us, setting up a makeshift newscaster station made of cardboard boxes covered in “NO RULES” bumper stickers and “NO SPECTATORS” spray-painted tags. I was eager for Sasha to share her story since it was her first time at the race and because she had just announced a major career move, so I stepped aside to take some behind-the-scenes shots. “I will ask you one thing,” Alexi says a few minutes into their interview, “Have you been to Vegas?”