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June 10, 2017
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Marathon 57, State #50 (Age 49)
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Skagway, Alaska
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4:22:31
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23 years, 7 months, and 18 days. Talk about a long time in making! This is the time it took for me to run a 26.2 mile marathon in all 50 US states. I think all the way back in 2012 I put together a 5 year plan to finish my last 12 state marathons by summer 2018 or about my 50th birthday. It's funny looking back at that plan because it's no where close to how to how I imagined it would end although even the 2012 plan did save Alaska for last. Finishing 12 months ahead of schedule was going to require some ingenuity and sacrifice seeing that 5 of my remaining states were in the Northeast, or in other words, very far from home here in Southern California.
When I discovered in 2013 that that there was an opportunity to run back to back marathons on the same weekend in neighboring states (Connecticut / Rhode Island & New Hampshire / Maine) this could help move my completion date forward...provided my legs and body could take the punishment for me to survive! I remembered in 2003 I once did two marathons in the same weekend in (Delaware & New Jersey) so that gave me a little hope I could probably pull it off again, albeit I was over 10 years older the 2nd and 3rd time around. This would require only 3 trips to the Northeast instead of 5 which also saved a few dollars on airfare/travel expense.
In my race to the 50th state, I ended up running 2 marathons in 2013 (Montana, New Mexico), 3 marathons in 2014 (North Dakota, Connecticut, and Rhode Island), 5 marathons in 2015 (one of these was Los Angeles which I didn't have to run but wanted to have run my home town marathon the others were South Carolina, Wyoming, New Hampshire, and Maine), 2 marathons in 2016 (Vermont, Wisconsin), and then finally only Alaska was left in 2017.
2nd Video featuring me!
The description goes on to describe the course as follows, "an amazing race that takes place in the wilderness of Alaska. This 26.2 mile run climbs multiple hills as it traces its way through pristine Southeast Alaskan fjord coastline, through a glacially-carved valley, an enchanting Sitka Spruce wood, over the Taiya River trestle bridge, past numerous trickling streams, up West Creek Valley, before finally reaching a forest opening with a spectacular view of West Creek Glacier and breathtaking mountain peaks and alpine scenery." Who would not enjoy that?
First was trying to sell "going to a tiny little town in Alaska" to my family and friends which I expected was not going to be very easy. Just the logistics of getting to Skagway was going to be a challenge because it could take a couple days of travel just to get there. Next was figuring out how long to stay, where to stay, and the best dates for travel to maximize what we can see in a such a narrow window.
So far it looks as my good travel companion George would be up for the challenge and helped me piece together our plan. The race is on Saturday the 10th so we would fly into Juneau 1 week early and take in the sites of the surrounding (Southern Leg) of our visit, then after the race make our way to Anchorage (Northern Leg) where we wanted to visit Denali National Park.
With any marathon there is always that thing called "training" that is required, something that I've always been a believer of under training vs over training. One good thing about under training is that generally it helps the body keep injury free. On the other hand, my friend George's training plan may be more typical which he puts in a lot more running miles. Two weeks before race day I was trying to funnel some his energy. While I wasn't going to run 18 or 20 miles, a long bike seemed like it could fit into a three day Memorial Day weekend.
I
was looking over my race results and my last nine races were all over 4
hours, the only exception was Myrtle Beach in February 2015. Not that
is a bad thing, I suppose 1x was an ultra, 2x were bloody hot, 2x
(twice) were back to back in the same weekend, so I suppose the last one
in Wisconsin I can say is the one I'm least proud. Maybe I've
gone through the motions and haven't trained very hard as may be evident by
comparing my weekly millage to George's.
Alaska
is supposed to be "hard" so I guess I'm more about having fun than
concerned with my finish time. I supposed it's not hard to believe a
majority of the runners are from Alaska, but there should be a few from
the lower 49. I also looked an finish times and 3:19 to 5:00 seems to
be the two extremes so I'm guessing if we are in decent shape, depending
on the weather and the course difficulty, there is a good chance I thought I could finish somewhere between 3:58 and 4:25.
I've
been training more, well that is running more, and cutting calories and believe it or not went from
an all time high of 191 and the last couple weeks have kept in the
176-179 range. I had hoped to make it down to 175 by race day, but I
don't think I can make it there and race week will be less concerned
with cutting calories. This should make carrying this bag of bones at
least a little easier!
So
back to channeling George's energy. I made plans with a friend to ride a route 75 miles
to the beach and back, a nearly a 5 hour ride along a bike path, no cars
to worry about, just few homeless camps to go through, but most of the
route is urban along a river trail. We were supposed to ride at 9 a.m.
and 7 a.m. I get a text, "not feeling good, have to cancel." I was
excited for the ride and had packed my bike the night before so I was
ready for the challenge, a little different than the canyons I ride
every weekend. The canyons are half really hard climbing and half just
flying back down the mountain. With a beach ride the highest grade is
1% so it's solid pedaling all the way there and all the way back. It
ends up I do some work around the house and before I know it it's
already getting close to 4pm. With a sunset at 8pm and a 5 hour ride
I'm already looking at the last 1 hour home in the dark so I packed a
LED light. Starting out it was warm, nearly 90 degrees and downhill
all the way to the beach tho with the head wind you would never know
it.
I'm
reading a book "Eat and Run" by Scott Jurek and in Chapter 16 after he
wins 7 years in a row 1999-2005 he tells a store of him pacing a runner
from Seattle in 2006 named Brian Morrison in the Western States 100.
This is the grand daddy of 100 mile races, and home of the famous golden
belt buckle. Long story short, he is leading the race by 12 minutes
and collapses 3 times on the track and because he received outside
assistance to cross the finish line, he was disqualified. I think
because he was so dehydrated his sense of judgement was impaired and his
body stopped when he thought he was at the finish line and couldn't
take another step. I guess the morale of the story is that as endurance athletes we focus on a goal and push our body just enough to reach that goal. I
was thinking about Brian Morrison and of his determination when I was biking last
night and wanted to finish what I had started.
I could have called a Lift or Uber at any point along the way for a ride home, this
first crossed my mind when I was getting to the beach. My afternoon had
started nearly 90 degrees, and by the time I reached the beach it had
dropped and was barely 60 degrees. I was a little cold and first
thought I don't want to overdue it and catch a cold by being chilled,
but turning around the wind at first was at my back so it immediately
felt a little warmer. It was only 6:30 so if sunset was at 8pm I would
have to bike the last 5-7 miles in the dark. The wind did not cooperate
and now all the way home was not only uphill, but also cross wind so
the whole way home was not easy. I was so hungry and legs were burning
but I kept going. I even saw a McDonald's sign about 10 miles from my
car and thought about pulling in for a snack, but was focused on
training and getting to "the finish line". After all there isn't going to be McDonalds in the heart of the Alaskan wilderness to stop on race day. I wanted my ride to simulate race day so kept going.
The last 7 miles were in
pitch black, so it's a good thing I had packed my light. The last 5
miles I turned off my ipod and just rode through the desert landscape
under the moonlight and tried to parallel my ride to what my run would
be like in two weeks. My time was 4:39 minutes which is probably
equivalent to what I may do race day. It was nearly 9 pm and my only
hope was that Chipotle was still open. I got to the line at the
restaurant and my legs were shaking and I could barely stand in one place. My legs were
screaming, similar to what it feels like the moments after you stop
running a 26.2 mile run. I wondered if I had overdone it, but then at
the same time I feel like I needed to do this to complete my training.
Now that I completed this ride I would have to say it's safe to let the tapering before race day begin.
So as for training in 2017 I've been pleased with the miles I've been able to log and legs and body are feeling great! My
cycling was pretty consistent with prior years, but I think I ran more
than past marathon training. Still hard for me to commit to long training runs so my longest was 13 miles on April 30th. Most of my runs were 5-9 miles each.
I've actually really enjoyed running this year more than ever,
Parisa's swim schedule every night worked perfect that she was in the
water for 1.5 hours which gave me the luxury to run and shower any day I
could get home early enough to take her to the pool. It may be a
little more tough to stay motivated without a new goal on the horizon,
I'll have to work on the plan for what is next!
Month Run (miles, # days running) Bike (miles, number of days biking)
January 39,8 164,4
February 71,13 113,4
March 83,14 229,6
April 90, 15 203,6
May 100, 17 205, 5
While this quest of mine to finish all 50 states is huge I want to put a shout out to two people that I look up and share something special about them. In 2014 I met runner at my New Mexico marathon, he was 68 then
and inspired me to do the double marathons in the NE because he had just
done them a week before kicking my ass in Albuquerque. I dropped him a
note to him a few days ago and learned he finished recently his 400th marathon which means
he's run 64 more marathons since 2014 in the same time I've only run 11
marathons and has completed all 50 states 7 times and did this between 68 and 72 years age. Amazing. I'm not
worthy!
Another friend of mine attempted Vineman, 70.3 mile Ironman, in May and had to abandon the bike at mile 7 because he was so cold and cramping up. Funny story, since he dropped out he went to the start line to cheer for a friend, ends up something happened and all T2 bags were messed up and bikers coming in couldn't find their shoes. Somehow he ended up offering his shoes to a complete stranger who run 13.1 miles in them else he would have had to abandon his race, believe it or not he saw the guy finish and gave him a big sweaty hug and he got his (soiled) shoes back! Two great guys!
Another friend of mine attempted Vineman, 70.3 mile Ironman, in May and had to abandon the bike at mile 7 because he was so cold and cramping up. Funny story, since he dropped out he went to the start line to cheer for a friend, ends up something happened and all T2 bags were messed up and bikers coming in couldn't find their shoes. Somehow he ended up offering his shoes to a complete stranger who run 13.1 miles in them else he would have had to abandon his race, believe it or not he saw the guy finish and gave him a big sweaty hug and he got his (soiled) shoes back! Two great guys!
So no story would be complete without a little challenge. As you may or may not know there is actually a 50 State Marathon club which recognizes the runners that have completed this same quest. An interesting statistic when I ran my first marathon in 1993 only 13 runners had completed a marathon in all 50 states, so the the club was comprised of only a very small group of finishers. I heard others talking about it so there were quite a few people already on their way to also complete the task. As of the end of May 2017 there were a total of 1,262 finishers of all 50 states which is still an elite crowd.
To qualify the marathons that are eligible have to fit the clubs rules. A simple rule for example, if a marathon crosses a state border, you can only count it as one state unless you run the marathon more than once. Well about a month before my June race I re-read the rules and discovered one of the rules stated that there must be at least 10 finishers of the marathon. Well, the race I chose in Skagway is a very small marathon. Only a few months prior to race day I learned there were only 6 runners registered including 2 of them myself and my friend George. Being a hard marathon, a DNF doesn't count so it would be nice to have a little padding of a few more runners so I don't end up running such a great race in such a far away destination and it doesn't count. One option if there are not 10 finishers is there is another much larger race in Anchorage 7 days later, so worse case scenario I'll have to run a week later to get an official qualified race for my final state. Hoping I'm not going to have to do this, but the fall back plan was built into our travel plan just in case I needed to run the following Sunday!
To qualify the marathons that are eligible have to fit the clubs rules. A simple rule for example, if a marathon crosses a state border, you can only count it as one state unless you run the marathon more than once. Well about a month before my June race I re-read the rules and discovered one of the rules stated that there must be at least 10 finishers of the marathon. Well, the race I chose in Skagway is a very small marathon. Only a few months prior to race day I learned there were only 6 runners registered including 2 of them myself and my friend George. Being a hard marathon, a DNF doesn't count so it would be nice to have a little padding of a few more runners so I don't end up running such a great race in such a far away destination and it doesn't count. One option if there are not 10 finishers is there is another much larger race in Anchorage 7 days later, so worse case scenario I'll have to run a week later to get an official qualified race for my final state. Hoping I'm not going to have to do this, but the fall back plan was built into our travel plan just in case I needed to run the following Sunday!
Here begins the story of my 50th state adventure (one week before race day).
Most of my marathon destination trips with only a couple
exceptions have been simply long weekends.
Alaska, my final state in my quest for all 50 I saved for last and it has
morphed into a two week adventure departing Los Angeles seven days before race
day and goes and another seven days after race day with hopes to take in as
much as possible in the state known as the “Final Frontier”.
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| Sub-Sup Records - Sea-Tac Airport |
Parisa and I left home bright and early and fly first to
Seattle for our connection to Juneau.
We were blessed for a glimpse of a few of the peaks surrounding
including Mt. Rainer sticking up their heads proudly way above the clouds. We didn't have a long stop in Sea-Tac but I did take a couple minutes to walk through the Sub-Pop record store in the airport! Seattle was about half way and the second
half of our flight took us into the small Juneau airport, about as opposite as
could be from where we took off at LAX!
Juneau couldn’t more opposite either with less than 50 miles of road and
certainly a much less hectic rush hour.
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| After a long day of travel, Juneua at last |
We had high hopes of seeing bears on our trip so the whole
way along the six mile drive to downtown we had our eyes peeled. No bears to be seen but Bald Eagles were a
dime a dozen, almost everywhere we looked we could see them flying or perched
in the trees. Our travel companion
George called to let us know he was able to get an earlier flight so we only
had a short time to walk across the street to the peer across from our hotel for a quick bite to eat before
making a trip back to the airport to pick him up.
All three of us headed back to downtown Juneau and walked around only a
few blocks before we learned of a route “to the end of the road” where bears
were sure to be found. We drove the 37
mile stretch of road along the coast and took in all kinds of beautiful views
but no bears this time around.
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| Arrived Juenau |
Our first planned adventure was to get up Sunday morning and
go visit the Mendehall Glacier. We made a
quick stop for some groceries for our breakfast and lunch and were off to the
visitor center for it’s morning opening at 9 a.m. The Glacier was breath taking, however, the
visitor center was a long way away from the Glacier itself so we followed a
trail to a grand waterfall off the cliff to the right called Nugget Waterfall.
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| Nugget Falls |
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| Perfect lunch spot with Vista of Mendehall Valley |
It wasn’t and easy hike but we slowing made our way on a
really fun trail all the way to the base of the glacier. We found an excellent vista on the trail on
the way to the foot of the Glacier and had our lunch before heading onward to our final
destination. We came in from a
high ravine which gave us our first great views from close up of this mammoth chunk of
ice. We were excited to get close and
made our way down to land directly in front.
We saw numerous groups upon the glacier so hoped we could find a path also to
climb on top.
Our first experience was
to wander through the spectacular ice cave that lead to the other side and
where we found path to begin our climb onto the Glacier. We only made it a short distance on the ice
when we realized we were ill equipped without crampons to explore much so had
to quickly turn around, but not before a few pictures.
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| As seen from West Mendenhall Glacier Trail |
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| Ice Caves - Mendenahall Glacier |
We joined with another couple on the way back and found a
much simpler trail back to the trailhead.
What was interesting was there were rock piles about every half mile with
a sign of the year the Glacier had been at that particular point, so basically
we were hiking on the path the Glacier had retreated from over the past 10-200
years. Of of the stories I remember that I often joke about is that returning to our car hiking with this couple, there came a ridge we had to climb down on all fours, and I was scheping my Canon DSLR and zoom lens around my neck. I was very slow because I was trying to protect the camera from flipping around and being smashed into some rocks. The young girl thought I was moving slow because I was "old", and turned around to reach her hand back to help me down the cliff. I had to laugh because I was in the shape of my life, just because of my camera I lagged behind but she didn't know that.
Sunday was one of the few days we could sleep in, so after a slow start, we finally got rolling in the morning we drove around the north side of Douglas
Island which is connected to Juneau by a bridge and again attempted the “end of
the road drive” in hope for bears, but again no luck. Sunday afternoon we explored more of
downtown Juneau including taking the Mt. Roger’s Tram to the top for a great
view of the valley below. We also learned
there was a tasting tour at the Alaskan Brewery Company so like the say “When in
Rome”, we had to check it out!
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| Mt Rogers Tram above Juneau |
For the next part of our adventure Monday we flew out of
Juneau on a smaller sea plane to Gustavus, the home of Glacier Bay National
Park for two nights at the Lodge and a boat Tour of Glacier Bay. Our flight while at first was a let down
when we learned we would not be taking off and landing out of/into the water as
we’ve seen downtown Juneau, but the 22 minute flight over the bay and a few islands
was also pretty exciting as Parisa had never flown on a small plane
before.
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| First Flight for Parisa on a small plane (Juneau to Gustavus) |
The even smaller unmanned airport was even more of a shock
having just departed from LAX a couple days ago and we were surprised to see
there was a shuttle already waiting for us and a 10 mile ride to the
lodge. We learned there was a short half mile hike to a crashed plane that is always a
favorite, so after checking in we took the next shuttle to the trailhead. We had been hoping to see a bear and finally we had our first sighting right next to the side of the road eating grass and flowers. The bear nonchalantly walked right across the road in front of us and then into the woods on the other side of the road.
Our trail was not too far from where we saw the bear so were were happy that wall had our bear bells on our packs! The hike was fun and interesting to see the plane scattered across the forest floor, however not nearly as exciting as our trip back to the lodge. The shuttle that dropped us off had gone to town and picked up a new passenger who when I spotted a porcupine along side of the road he said he would go catch it for us. All of a sudden he jumped out of the van and chased the porcupine into the woods but just in time so we could see he put his boot on the animal and a few seconds later grabbed it by it’s tail and brought it back to the van for us to see! Wow!
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| First Bear Sighting - Glacier Bay National Park |
Our trail was not too far from where we saw the bear so were were happy that wall had our bear bells on our packs! The hike was fun and interesting to see the plane scattered across the forest floor, however not nearly as exciting as our trip back to the lodge. The shuttle that dropped us off had gone to town and picked up a new passenger who when I spotted a porcupine along side of the road he said he would go catch it for us. All of a sudden he jumped out of the van and chased the porcupine into the woods but just in time so we could see he put his boot on the animal and a few seconds later grabbed it by it’s tail and brought it back to the van for us to see! Wow!
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| Margorie Glaier |
The small hike didn’t satisfy us so when we returned to the lodge we found another trail we could access the trailhead from the lodge. This hike was about 4 miles round trip and basically flat through the rain forest. The forest reminded me of our many hikes in
the Seattle area years ago, but was pretty fun and uneventful (ie. No
bears). We had dinner in the lodge
and were off to bed for our early departure to see the many Glaciers upon our
boat tour of the Glacier Bay National Park in the morning. A park
ranger greeted us at the boat ramp and was full of information about our
surroundings and would be our guide for the day. The first thing we learned was the tidal
change every day could be as much as 23 feet, so we were standing on a floating
dock. When we departed tide was low and
upon return it was high so we could really see the difference.
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| Glacial Ice Berg |
Our boat tour was a long 8 hour day, but we saw more than we
ever expected to see including seals, birds, porpoises, whales, bears, wolves,
and mountain goats. The boat was very
friendly in that you could sit indoor on either the upper or lower decks and
then for pictures we could walk outside. The boat tour is a story in itself. Parisa volunteered to be an assistant to the ranger and completed her manual and took her oath to become a Jr. Ranger.
We saw numerous glaciers and the whole day from start to finish was
unforgettable not to mention was also my 49th birthday.
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| Happy Birthday to me! |
Upon return we decided for a change from the dinning room at the lodge so hopped a shuttle to the small
town of Gustavus to see if either of the small shops downtown were worth
having a bite to eat. One of the places
was a small whole foods and organic grocery which made fresh sandwiches and we lucked out it was taco day and there
was a burrito on the special that hit the spot! Parisa surprised me with a homemade birthday
card and a pint of my favorite Ben & Jerry’s Ice cream! I had so many pictures I wanted to share from the boat tour of Glacier Bay tho the only wi-fi was at the lodge and the lodge was closed for the night so I decided to sit on the front porch where I could still get the wi-fi signal. I sat outside in the still dark night and later learned a black bear like the one we saw the day before frequents the grounds of the lodge at night. Luckily I didn't run into him but later there will be more to this story.
Thursday was a transition day to get us back to Juneau. As far as marathon training, for this adventure leaving an entire week early my training schedule had been non-existent. Granted, we had hiked over 12 miles, but still not the same as a run so laced up my running shoes. Now for the first time in seven days I did a short trail run, even talked my trusty companion George into headed out for a whopping 2 mile run which was more just a sight seeing jaunt around a short trail loop that we hadn’t had a chance to see. We stumbled up on a pretty pond so after the run I grabbed Parisa and we added another mile to our morning walking back to the pond and back before checking out of the lodge.
Parisa made a friend on the boat the day before, ends up her family was on a five month vacation and she had already racked up around 46 junior ranger badges. We would fly the same plane back to Juneau together. Since Gustavus is so isolated,
basically by water or air are the only two ways in, so we went back to the
landing strip and had another short, and very beautiful, flight back to
Juneau. We checked into a hotel across
from the airport, so we could walk.
The hotel had a free shuttle service so one last trip to downtown Juneau and
early to bed for our early morning trip up to Skagway on the Alaskan Marine
Highway System. Parisa was especially excited this day because
our last minute surprise guests for the next part of our trip would arrive and
are checking into the same hotel and riding the Ferry with us in the
morning. Parisa tried so hard to stay
up, but never got to see her cousin Anthony and uncle John till early the next
day.
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| Flight between Gustavus and Juneau |
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| Ferry to Skagway from Juneau |
It really wasn’t feeling much like a marathon trip until our
first sights of Skagway. Gustavus was
way different from Juenau as was Skagway way different from both the of the previous towns we had visited. This was the first town that was
actually reachable by road. Juneau
and Skagway were only accessible by boat or plane. I was a little concerned with a 6 hour boat
ride the day before one of my “biggest” (ok, last marathon) and being sea sick,
but thanks to some motion sickness prevention as well as mostly calm seas I
quickly found my legs when we landed and felt fine. We pulled into
the dock and our hotel was only blocks away from the Ferry terminal so once
again we schlepped our luggage along with us all the way to the hotel on
foot. Since Skagway is a on the cruise
line route, while it wasn’t a particularly big city, there were lots of
shopping and restaurants of the few blocks of downtown.
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| First view of Skagway at end of Channel |
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| Arrived Skagway! |
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| Renting Mountain Bike for the Marathon Ride-a-long |
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| Packet Pickup |
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| Number #50 |
Now the only thing left was to get some dinner and a good
night of rest. Parisa and Anthony
finally returned and I learned they rode the first half of the marathon course
and that it was beautiful, but hilly. I
sort of knew that! Parisa trying to
keep up with John and Anthony on the bike I think they destroyed her. She’s like, “dad, don’t let me ride with them
for the marathon, I’d rather follow you by myself.” No problem, how exciting would it be for
both her and I to run/ride together…in Alaska for state #50! I had leftover spaghetti but we walked back to the restaurant for some
fresh meatballs to toss on top. I’d
never seen my girl scarf down a plate of food so fast!
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| Skagway Mountains overlooking the town |
There was a small grocery store across the
street so picked up the basics: OJ, bagel, banana, Gatorade, and Red Bull. Now back to the hotel to get some
sleep. Alarm again seemed to come to
early. Back in the day there was this
nervousness about race day, but as a seasoned veteran at this marathon stuff it
was business as usual. Clothes out the
night before and basically in the morning roll out of bed, eat, restroom break,
and walk to the start line. I’m starting
to like these small towns, commute sure beats Los Angeles!
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| Marathon Morning |
George was up and ready to roll so we
headed to the start. I had told him
about my race day outfit and that it was going to be something else, but even
though he was expecting something he was surprised to see me in red, white, and
blue head to toe. I got a few strange
looks from some town folk as we made our way to the start by the ferry
terminal. I was greeted again with
cheers and did my mandatory check in with the officials. There was a Mountain Hardware
expedition tent at the start which was provided a break from the wind off the channel and were I saw Kristin
again. She introduced me to the
gentleman that wanted to interview me.
While it was excited to be interviewed, I didn’t lose sight that I
needed a bathroom stop before the gun went off and that was more important that
the interview so I put him on hold for a quick pit stop.
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| With Christelle, running her 48th State! |
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| George & I at start line of Skagway Marathon |
We shared a few pleasantries and was surprised that I was
actually videotaped as part of the interview.
Only a few basic pieces of information were exchanged. I was hoping he was going to ask more
questions, so after a brief discussion it was time to line up. A little shocked, one other runner had the
same shorts as me, but he didn’t have the top or socks to match! I also ran into another woman doing 50
states, this was state #48 for her, I think she only had Hawaii and one other
state left on her list. Now only minutes
before the start still there was no Parisa, Anthony or John, who were still
having breakfast, but not to fear they arrived with seconds to spare. A few kisses and hugs and the race was on. The starting line was a whopping 22
runners. All fears of not having at
least 10 finishers and having to run again next week in Anchorage were gone,
all that was left was enjoying the day.
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| Around mile 5, a nice downhill on pavement before the gravel road started |
I had planned on running the whole race with George, but he was
holding back and starting conservative and told me to go on without him. With only 22 runners it wouldn't take long for the field to spread out especially since we start at sea level the race starts immediately climbing and after leaving town at mile two the first real hill climb begins. It didn’t take long to warm up and within a
mile I shed my wind breaker so was left with shorts and my red, white and blue
stars and striped tank top over top of a long sleeve running shirt which was
comfortable for the rest of the run.
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| Running along the Taiya Inlet |
I’m a firm believer of not trying anything new on race day however broke
my own rule. First I didn’t wear my
lucky socks which I think were with me for 45 of my 50 states. Second, my Garmin GPS watch that I train
with I left at home instead brought a different model that I typically use for
hiking which I think has a stronger GPS so I hopefully didn’t risk losing a
signal. My training watch only has one
run mode, however my trail watch has categories of “run” as well as “trail
run”. Trail run was the default mode
when I turned it on and seemed appropriate so that’s what I choose. It was
only seconds into the race I realized that all my screens to show me the data
that I had programmed for “run” mode where completely different from “trail
run” mode. Ok, no problem, I can deal
with only one screen, I just wanted to see my heart rate, nothing else would
matter so I could see my exertion level all day. Damn if “trail mode”, every single screen I
could toggle and not one of them had heart rate info. Oh well, I wasn’t about to restart the time so
I sucked it up and figured I know my body enough that I can probably gauge how
hard I’m working but would it have been ever nice not to have made that rookie
mistake.
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| Yes, mostly scenic like this the whole way! |
Leaving town I figured was going to be the end of crowd
participation, however, who doesn’t show up in a car following my, and filming,
was the guy that had interviewed me.
Ok, this is cool! He knew the
course and kept showing up to film me running across bridges, down trails, and
in places I would have not expected to see anyone. The course took a turn and headed
uphill. It was a long and relentless
hill. Had I trained in Ohio this hill
would have been torture, but training in California hills are part of my daily
training runs, so I just shorted my stride and kept putting one foot in front of
the other. Parisa was awesome, she
would pedal ahead and pull over to get pictures of me every couple miles. I could tell she was working hard to bike up
this hill and pulled over and stripped down to just a tee shirt.
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| My Trusty Companion for all 26.2 Miles |
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| Running on Dirt Section of Marathon Course |
The course went from paved road, to a long stretch of gravel
road, and then eventually to an narrow almost trail but wide enough as it was
also used as some kind of road to nowhere.
The course was so beautiful and every twist in the road it seemed as if
there was another perfect Kodak moment.
Parisa got some great shots along
the way as well as I carried my iPod touch and broke it out a few times for
some shots along the route as well as at the start and finish line. There
were only water stops every other mile, but since it was an out and back most
of the stops I got to see two times.
Having Parisa along she was always she helped to keep me hydrated as there
was always plenty of water in my bottle.
She did a great job keeping up with me, I was going slow enough so it was a
big break for her compared to a day ealier as she had tried to keep up with John and Anthony the day before, but I
could feel that the hard work the day before was wearing down on her. After all she's never mountain biked before, probably only rode 25 miles 1 time before, and between the hills and the terrain this route was nothing less than challenging.
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| Still looking Strong |
We got to the near single track and it went straight up,
plus was very large gravel chucks which wasn’t particularly easy to run (or
bike on). This hill was ruthless and I
think was the first time I had to take a few walk breaks, but I started to pulled away
from Parisa as she couldn't bike up this section. I knew she could easily
catch me on the first downhill but the hill kept on going. I was a bit scared as we were deep in the woods by now, but fortunately they had a couple ATV's driving back and forth on this section hopefully to scare any bears away! I finally started seeing runners coming back
from the turn around so I could gage how far ahead they were (or how far behind
I was). When I made it to the turn
around myself now I was able to see now who I was in front of. In a field of 22 there weren't many runners left. Parisa was still rolling and really tired
and thirsty when I passed her as I ran down the hill, so I encouraged her if she wanted to do the whole course just
around the next corner was the turn around as well she could refill her water
bottle. She was relieved to hear this
great news and in no time she caught back up with me for the mostly downhill
section we had just ran up a few minutes ago.
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| Bridge Crossing |
I passed George and could tell he was far enough behind that I might not
see him till the finish. Both of us
still in good spirts especially me because I was on the downhill section. Once we left the narrow trail and back on the dirt road
finally John and Anthony had found me.
Neither John or Anthony are runners, so now I think they could see exactly how
far I had run and acknowledged this marathon stuff was tough work. The return was into the wind, so this course
continued to relentless all the way back to the finish line.
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| Single Track...Bear Territory? |
There was a mobile water stop that passed
me a few times but I was always stocked with everything I needed. I usually walk water stops, but they were
so infrequent it seems as I took less walk breaks than I usually do for a
marathon. I knew the rest of the route
home, or thought I did, it seems as I had forgot about the long section that
was downhill on the way to the turn around, now it was an uphill section. This uphill section lasted from mile 20-23
and usually it’s mile 19 when runners hit the wall, so this was particularly
hard. Since the race slogan was “hardest
marathon in Alaska” I actually had envisioned harder route, so while it wasn’t easy,
I slowly chugged up these three miles knowing that the last 3 miles. This last uphill section I started to have second thoughts that the course was starting to live up to it's reputation.
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| Yes Windy all day on the Course |
When I started the downhill section a girl that had we had
paced each other the whole race turned it up a notch and was gone. She said to me, “I’ll let you pass me at the
end”, however, I didn’t have the drive to go after her and took it easy all the
way down hill. I asked Parisa to go to
the finish line for pictures, so I was mostly running alone the last few miles,
or that is until about one mile to go again the guy that had been videotaping
me earlier was back. This time he was
on bicycle and followed me all the way to the finish line. Lucky for me to because while I knew where the finish line was located, I didn't really know the exact streets to turn to get there without accidentally cutting the course. No sense getting DQ'ed this late in the game. There were so few runners and by this time
we were so spread out I could hardly see anyone in front or behind me. I did catch up with a few of the half
marathoners, who started way after the marathon, and left them in the dust as they were only at a walking pace.
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| Almost there! |
I proudly accepted my medal and went back to where I stashed a jacket near the start to put on to stay warm, also a few snacks were in the Mountain Hardware tent at the finish line and I grabbed a chocolate milk which never tasted better. I again was greeted at the finish with my whole crew Parisa, John and Anthony. Parisa videotaped my finish from one side of the finish line and Anthony videotaped it from the other side. We posed for a finish photo and again I was interviewed. I’d run so many marathons where I finished all alone I suppose I wasn’t used to all the support I was receiving which must have distracted me from the thoughts and the emotions I was probably feeling at the time.
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| 2017 Finisher - Skwagway Marathon |
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| At the Finish Line with Race Director Kristin |
Again the guy that had interviewed me before the race and filmed me running all over the course was now ready for a few closing remarks which I gladly shared as I pulled up a chair and sat down to rest. The dust settled fast, Parisa wanted to go get some lunch so headed back to the hotel with Anthony and John while I waited for my friend George which I hoped was not that far behind. George had run 5 half marathons while I ran full marathons and was my support, now this was my first time to return the favor. I started walking the course backwards and hoped to run in with him the last mile. I figured he could easily get lost or pick an incorrect turn to the finish line so if he did I might miss him, so I waited by a point that he would have to cross no matter which direction he came from. It ends up he ended up creating his own ending route the last half mile of the marathon, but I found him and cheered him on to his finish. I again posed for a couple more finisher photos and then was the walk several blocks back to the hotel where we shared about our stories of our morning.
The whole gang, Parisa & I, John & Anthony, and George all gathered for lunch and shared in good spirits of our accomplishment with some pizza and cold Alaskan Amber brews. It would be a pretty low key day after lunch and rest and relaxing back at the hotel. The next morning we would have one last adventure in Skagway riding the White Pass & Yukon Railroad, about a four hour tour up to the top of the pass and back, just enough time to squeeze in before we had to board our ferry to take us back to Juneau so we could catch a flight to Anchorage the following morning so we could continue with the second week of our journey.
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