Kate Gosselin Runs Sin City

Kate, minus her 8, ran along the Las Vegas Strip

She's famous for the reality television show Jon and Kate Plus 8, and then Kate Plus 8, that showed her raising a family of multiples. She's famous for the subsequent book deals and appearances that landed in her lap after becoming a reality TV star. She's famous for a shaggy, spiky haircut that was a popular Halloween costume one year. She's famous for dancing with Tony Dovolani on Dancing with the Stars. And now Kate Gosselin is hitting the headlines once again for running, and finishing, the Zappos.com Rock 'n' Roll Las Vegas Marathon, a race that took over the Strip on Sunday night.

Her time? She finished her first 26.2-miler in 4:59:21, which rounds out to a pace of about 11:25 per mile. Not bad considering she looks half-frozen in the picture People.com published and that a majority of the race was run after the sun went down.

But "killing it" as Gosselin was quoted in People? I'm not so sure about that. She ran her first marathon faster than Katie Holmes (5:29:58 at the New York City Marathon), Ali Landry (5:41:41 at the Boston Marathon) and Valerie Bertinelli (5:14:37 at the Boston Marathon). But she didn't beat Oprah, who ran her first and only marathon in 1994, finishing with a time of 4:29:15, and there are plenty of other famous women who've run faster, too. Yes, a marathon is commendable, but watch what you say in that post-race euphoric state especially when the race technically had a time cutoff of 4 hours and 30 minutes, and you finished 29 minutes beyond that. Just sayin'.


I can't help but wonder if Gosselin received some sort of appearance fee for participating, or if her entire weekend in Vegas was comped, flight, hotel and all. I can understand the running as stress relief and an easy way to stay in shape, but "media stunt" keeps entering my thought process. Gosselin's announcement to run the race only happened a month ago (or when I read about it), and she expressed that she wanted to keep the lifestyle her eight kids had grown accustomed to thanks to her TLC show, even after it was cancelled earlier this year. If there was no appearance fee, which might be against race regulations for all I know, then maybe she'll be writing yet another book, except this time it'll be about her marathon experience and encouraging other mothers to hop aboard. I can think of other motivation books I'd rather read like Run Like a Mother, Hot Sweaty Mamas, or Kara Goucher's Running for Women.


Photo grabbed from http2007 from flickr.