Anchorage, Alaska - Mayor’s Marathon Recap

What better way to celebrate the start of summer in the land of the midnight sun than with a solstice weekend marathon. When I originally signed up for this race, I mistakenly thought I’d be running through the night, while the sun was still up. And while it’s true that it never actually gets dark this time of year in Alaska, the morning-after-the-solstice start ended up being a lot more manageable and still offered time to enjoy post-race festivities in downtown anchorage, such as the summer solstice festival, featuring the absolute best ice cream from Wild Scoops, and a celebratory rooftop lunch at Forty-Ninth State Brewing.

Written reminders for when the runner’s brain hits to keep me motivated and laughing.

June 22nd brought perfect weather: sunny with a gentle breeze; clear skies offering mountain views throughout the entirety of the race; A brisk 55 degree start, and even with a warm 70 degree finish, a great majority of course was covered with shady trees offering protection from what otherwise could have well been a near heat stroke at the 20 mile mark. My mantra for this race was to start smart, stay present, finish fierce. I have a bad habit of starting out too fast, blacking out for the majority of the middle miles, and then slogging it to the finish line. I had every intention of changing my ways - but it was as if this course was engineered to intentionally work against me. So here’s a detailed course description so you aren’t as fooled by the posted elevation map as I was.

Trying to Start Smart

With a 7:30 am start time, I scheduled out my marathon morning plan by counting backwards in my usual 5 minute increments in order to complete of all my pre-race morning rituals. This brought me to a 4:45 am wake up call. That allowed time for breakfast, mantra journaling, slathering Chamois Butt'r anti-chafe cream over every square inch of my body, a quick foam roll and some Nuun Sport electrolytes to-go for the 35 minute drive to the start line. I can’t believe I’d ever see the day, but 6:45 am arrival at Kincaid park for the anticipated forever-long bathroom lines may have been too much. There were next to no lines! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?! This gave me plenty of time to warm-up, and line-up.

But of course I procrastinated with this extra free time, finding new muscles to stretch and therefore fighting my way through the lineup just in time for the gun start. There were no wave starts or designated corrals. No pacers even. This made for a kind of free-for-all take off, kind of reminiscent of boarding a Southwest Airlines flight. So don’t make the same mistake I did, when fighting for an airplane seat or corral space - if you’re in a hurry, get to the front. Even though it is a rather small race, about 700 participants total - the course starts out narrow right off the bat. And all downhill - which is where I thrive with my backwards knees and was hoping to bank some time.

This first part of the elevation map you can believe. Glorious downhill for about 5 straight miles, with the first two being rather steep. If you have that “Can’t fight the hill, won’t stop the momentum” like I did, you’ll likely find it infuriating trying to pass people on the narrow paved trail that may be trying to "start smarter" and save their knees. So again, if you know you’re gonna bomb it down the hill, don’t hesitate on that race boarding call. The downhill excitement and start line adrenaline didn’t do me any favors for part one of my plan, but I did make an honest effort to chill out once the course started to flatten out a bit.

Course Map

Attempting to Stay Present

As tempting as it always is to try to stick with the pack at the beginning of a race, I tried my best to stay present in each mile and run my own race instead. The sub-8 minute mile paces might have been feeling good to begin with, but I knew that wasn’t sustainable for 20 more miles. Instead of tunnel visioning it to the leading pack, or panicking when I would sense someone on my heels, I kept an eye on my watch and took in the views around me. The course follows the Coastal Trail for a majority of the first half of the race. The trail is black-top paved and winds through a serene forest along the Cook Inlet. And I don’t mean "winds" lightly - the course is curvy! Do your best to run the tangents. Even despite my best efforts, I was consistently tracking about 0.10 miles ahead of the signed mile markers. This little game of constantly trying to run the shortest route amongst the curves certainly helped me pay attention to the beauty of the course.

I even pulled out my phone around mile seven when spotting what I thought was Denali  (It was not, but let's pretend for the sake of my excitement at this point) through a break in the cottonwoods to snap a selfie for my memories. The barely visible photographed mountain peak turned out to be "Sleeping Lady" - part of the The Alaskan Mountain Range to the west of the course. This along with the Chugiak Mountain views to the east were easily worth the less abundant shade from this mile marker on towards Chester Creek trail at mile nine.

Here I was still feeling good, but wishing I would have studied the water stations more closely. I just figured they’d be about every two miles, but that wasn’t always the case. When I started to feel parched and under fueled at beginning of the gradual incline around mile 11, I wished I would have used the real estate on my other arm to write out the mile markers for the water stations - note to self for next time. Another note to not skip out on the extra pack of Honey Stinger Energy Chews that I almost brought but decided to save the race belt space. While the course offered GU Energy gels at mile 8, 11, 17 and 24, which was considerably quite frequent, they were all of the non-caffeinated variety which just don’t quit hit like my favorite drug of choice, Stingerita Limes.

But the most important note of all: make sure your fire marathon playlist isn’t set to Spotify smart shuffle. I spent way to much time the week prior carefully adding all these bangers or for random, unwelcomed shuffles to sneak their way in and ruin my vibe. Eventually, around mile 15, I figured this is what allowed a country song to make its way through my AirPods and finally switched to regular shuffle, just in time to hit some dirt roads. Thank god, because that terrain change was not expected, so the least I could do to help my mental status was to have to my readily anticipated jams to power me through. The gravel was less packed than ideal. Some big rocks here and there were not so pleasing to my now already tender feet. I kept telling myself just make it to mile 18, then the course basically loops back around and it all starts to go downhill from here, supposedly.

Anchorage Marathon Course Elevation Map

Failing to Finish Fierce

Considering the map, I mentally allowed mile 10-18 to be my slowest. Then, no excuses. After that, it's time to fly. But to be honest, the uphill really hadn’t felt that bad. There were a feel steeper rollers, but spreading out 300 feet of elevation gain over 8 miles was a lot less noticeable than I anticipated. And since that elevation gain out from Chester Creek trail up to Far North Bicentennial park essentially becomes the elevation descent when looping back around, the downhill that was supposed to send me zooming to the end did end up feeling as “zoomy.” I started to get wary when that final 8 mile downhill push didn’t really seems so downhill after all.

And while it still was a net-downhill from mile 18 onward - my legs just wouldn’t turn over like I willed them to. Maybe if i had that extra caffeine, hydrated better at the water stations, or understood how to interpret an elevation map to scale - I would have been better prepared for my anti-climatic downhill finish which in actuality ended up being the steepest, most horrendously evil UPhill finish at mile 26 that I’ve ever had the misfortune of running. I did see this on the map. I decided to ignore it and pretend like it wasn’t going to be that bad. Trust me - it’s THAT bad. I was so close to walking the entire incline. I could have crawled up for better traction. I’m not being dramatic - it was that steep. But then I remembered “Finish Fierce” even if that fierce is the ugliest slow jog that just barely passes for running form. Fierce in this sense was forcing my ragged body to the top of that evil evil hill and death glaring and my dear friends that came to support me at the finish. It was my fifth marathon, but first that left me with absolutely nothing in the tank for even for even a half-assed effort sprint to the finish line - and maybe that total depletion of all energy capacity within my body was a fierce enough finish.

Though I think the lady the cartwheeled across the finish line a few minutes after me definitely wins the ferocity award this time around.