Race Report- Anchorage Mayor's Marathon

[Fast Eddie]

Anchorage Mayor’s Marathon this morning. To be my 50th State Marathon finally, after a two year hold due to the pandemic. Also my 86th marathon in total.

Flew out from Toronto early Thursday morning to O’Hare, but had an almost 7 hour lay over before my flight from ORD to ANC. Plus the fact that Toronto Pearson warned us to come 3 hours early, due to staff shortages in security check, and customs. I have a NEXUS card, so the expedited things, and it only took me just under an hour to arrive at my boarding gate. Originally the layover was gonna be just 3 hours, but the airline changed, or cancelled a flight.  Ironically my brother who arrange to come with me to celebrate my 50th and booked his flight a month later got a flight to ORD with only a 90-minute layover. I tried changing, but nothing was available. My sister and niece wanted to come to, but they were moving house this weekend. Thoughts of taking the C Train to Chicago downtown for a few hours, but I’ve been to Chicago like five times, and have seen just about everything touristy.

Flight time from ORD to ANC was just under 7 hours. No worries about arriving in the dark as sunset is just before midnight here and sunrise just after 4am. Uber to our Airbnb, and then picked up or private TURO rental the next morning. Bunch and then kit pick up at the local University and then on to check out the tourist spots in Anchorage, like the historical downtown, Anchorage museum, scenic waterfront spots. Evening dinner was at a Ramen restaurant.

Race time was at 7:30am from a park just south of the airport. And we had a nice two K worth of downhill to the coastal trail. A good 90% of the route was on the local trails, so you were pretty much surrounded by green all the way. No surprise the paths were fairly curvy, so you had to do a good job of running the tangents. In the end, my Garmin had me running 43.1K. Biggest hill, about 300 meters was in the last K, as you headed up to the downtown park. Oh, and we had a bear sighting reported at the 20 mile mark near the University, but I didn't see anything.

Decent time for me, at 4:10:05 chip and 92 of 259 overall, M60-64 - 6 of 21.

Sunday, will be a daytrip to a local glacier, and then up to Denali for three days, before flying back on Thursday, via Vancouver and the red eye to Toronto.

 

[DrT(weekendwrAcur)]

That’s a tremendous accomplishment!  Congratulations and enjoy the rest of your trip!!

[glwestcott]

Amazing accomplishment FE!  I can’t really wrap my mind around it and all the years of sustained work that went into it.  Glad you’re getting to see some of Alaska also. Denali is great. If you visit Talkeetna when you go to Denali, try the microbrewery beer flight there. It’s something special.


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[Loco Coyote]

Congrats Fast Eddie! Glad you made Alaska your 50th state and hope you enjoy the rest of your trip.