Number 27 - Mayor’s Midnight Sun Marathon, Anchorage, AK
A couple of months ago one of my running friends said he signed up for the Anchorage marathon and was looking for someone to go along. Although it was not in my immediate plans, I said sure. Well, we left Phoenix Thursday at dusk, and arrived 5 hours later at dusk. We got the hotel around 1:00 am, still dusk. The next morning we went to check out the glacier at Portage, around an hour south of Anchorage. When getting to Portage we hiked up a trail that led to Byron Glacier. Instead of a colorless sheet of ice, it had a blue tint to it as a result of the ground up rock being imbedded into the ice; quite different than anything I have seen. We then took a tour boat to the foot of the Portage Glacier. This lake was formed from the runoff of the glacier which had a greenish/blue tint to it, again from the ground up rock. They said the boat was particularly designed to operate on this lake full of icebergs from the calving (chucks of the glacier falling into the water). Waterfalls all around pouring into the lake; it was a quite a sight. The visit south was capped off by seeing a moose and her calf next to the highway as we drove back to Anchorage.
Race day was overcast occasionally drizzling with temperatures in the 50’s; ideal conditions for running a marathon. There were about a thousand marathoners and an usually larger than normal crowd of “fifty state'ers”. While waiting for the start we saw three people with signs on the shirts that this was their fiftieth today. We talked to a few others; a middle aged woman was running her 400th today. She has been doing this about twice a month for the last twenty years, has run marathon on all continents and done the fifty state challenge three times. My 27th marathon seemed like nothing in comparison. We met several others who had run over forty and one guy who had run 250.
The course was reasonably flat in the beginning and then took off into the woods on a gravel road at about the eight mile mark. About five miles on this sometimes slippery and loose surface, would take a toll later. After the gravel road, the course took to the trails for a couple of miles before getting back on solid pavement. It was a beautiful route through the forest, not doing much of that these days living in Phoenix. The course then got back into the city of Anchorage, but instead of streets the course was on paved paths through city parks with many brooks and trees; really serene and refreshing settings eventually emptying out near a lake which led to the finish. Although I always try to hit a challenging target time, I knew this would not be a fast time due to the course, the extensive travel I have done lately and the subsequent lack of training. Those five miles on the gravel took there toll and by twenty-three I was done. I walked/ran the last three and finished in 4:15. In spite of the five miles of gravel road it was a beautiful course and a real pleasure.
My friend Lowell and I went to Humpy’s Alehouse afterwards and enjoyed the locals celebrating the solstice. Part of Humpy’s fame is hosting the “Man vs. Food” challenge. They have a menu item called the “Kodiak Arrest” and anyone who can eat it all gets the ultimate bragging rights (7 crab cakes, 1 foot of reindeer sausage, 3 lbs of Alaska king crab with sides and a wild berry crisp with ice cream). I passed on this one. We ran into many runners and swapped stories, four others joined us at our table. One person was flying to Kona to due her fiftieth next weekend. So don’t call me crazy; I know crazy.