I. Ran. A. MARATHON!!!

I ran a marathon: the Mayor’s Midnight Sun Marathon in Anchorage, Alaska.

The starting line!

I got up this morning at 6am.  Already feeling a little queasy, I forced myself to eat breakfast and drink a full liter of water.  I struggled to get my hair in a ponytail, because I got it cut way short yesterday (timing not the greatest).  Then we hopped in the car and drove to Bartlett High School.  The starting area was so exciting!  There were tons of people and music blaring and the whole atmosphere was very uplifting (good thing too!).  It made me feel ready.  Ready to start, to run, and be done with it.

My mom and I at the start.

Unfortunately my watch decided this very day at this very time to stop working, and I didn’t bring a back up (bad planning on my part).  So this made pacing very difficult which I’ll get into more later.  At 8am, starting gun was fired, and we were off.

All lined up for the start, we're in there somewhere!

The first 4 miles we ran up the Glenn Highway.  This was the hottest part of the race, with the sun beating down right in front of us.  I was dripping with sweat, which I didn’t think of as a very good sign being only 3 miles in, and my starting pace was definitely too fast.  I kept up the 9 to 9:30 mile pace though until about mile 20.  Just before mile 2 I found Elle, a friend and former teammate and we ran some together.  She did awesome, finishing in just over 4 hours, but her pace was too fast for me.  Unfortunately the time I did spend running with her got me separated from my mom, and I didn’t see my mom again till the end.

From the Glenn we turned onto some road that lead to Tank Trail, which is exactly what it sounds like.  I had read about this portion of the race online, and honestly the reviews kind of freaked me out a bit.  It really wasn’t that bad however, but maybe I’m just used to running on similar trails.  The first part was more like a gravel road and a lot like Eklutna only smoother (I did my first 16 mile run at Eklutna, so the 7 miles I spent on the trail were nothing!).  The second part of Tank Trail was a double track dirt path (like Red Lake Trail in Willow) through the woods and I really enjoyed that part.  The trees offered some shade and a nice break from the sun.

Getting a drink at the Mile 9 Aid Station

GO MOM!

At mile 14 we reached the highest point in the race (such a relief!) and emerged from Tank Trail.  We ended up (somehow) at Campbell Creek where I had worked at an Outdoor Week thing for the Anchorage schools last month.  So that was cool I guess to know where I was all of a sudden.  We then turned onto Tudor Rd. and wound through Anchorage for a while and eventually through some parks* and onto the Coastal Trail.  I did fine till about mile 21, when I was like, “Oh my gosh this really sucks.”  Somehow or another I convinced myself to “just keep running” for another four miles while playing lots of silly games** in my head.  I knew that if I stopped and walked I wouldn’t start running again, so walking was not an option. 

At about mile 23 Jessica, another friend and former teammate, caught up with me.  This was her second marathon and she ran it right, even splits.  I kept up with her until mile 25, when I was like, “Oh my gosh this REALLY sucks!”  At that point everything began to hurt way worse, not just my legs which had hurt since about mile 12, but my back and chest tightened and I started to have a lot of trouble breathing.  I haven’t been having a problem with my asthma so it wasn’t even the slightest bit on my mind before the race, but then again I hadn’t ever run 25 miles before.  Wheezing, limping, crawling (not really)… I managed to get to the last water station about a half mile from the finish.  This was the only portion of the race that I actually walked for any real distance (I walked through all the water stations, but that’s because I was not blessed with the gift of running and drinking at the same time).  Immediately after this last station was a 100-foot vertical climb up an incredibly steep hill.  WORST RACE DESIGN EVER!!!  100 feet may not sound like much, but after 25 miles it may as well have been Denali***.  And so I walked up the hill.  After the first hump (and consequently the end of my water break) I tried like 6 baby steps of running but just couldn’t pull it off.  At the top of the hill I continued to “run,” which would be more aptly named a “shuffle”, down the street and onto the West High School track. 

I honestly might not have made it but for Meghan, Brad, Stephen, and the rest of the Birchwood Crew cheering me on down the sideline.  They completely made my day and I am so thankful that they came out!  I finished 88^th overall for women in 4 hours and 15 minutes!  That’s about 9:45 average per mile.  Stephen made sure I did everything right at the end, like eat something and drink something and walk around a little to cool down and stretch (he’s done a few of these before).  My mom finished shortly after me, she did fantastic!  My dad was the best support team and cheered us on from multiple spots on the trail; he’s also the one to thank for all the pictures!

As we were getting ready to leave I noticed the awards ceremony going on over in the corner.  I went over to check the results but my time wasn’t posted yet, and neither were the results from my age group.  So I asked about it and it turns out that I got 1^st Place for women 15 to 19 years old!

My first place medal (left), my GIGANTIC finishing medal (right)
and my finisher shirt****!

Overall I’d say I’m happy with how everything went.  I am thankful to be done with it, but also glad that I stuck it out to the end.  I ran a marathon.

*Most of the parks I don’t know the name’s of, but we did run by Rocket-ship Park (that’s not the real name but that’s what I call it) which brought back some great memories of playing there as a kid.  I kind of wished I was still climbing all over the rocket-ship instead of running by it… But that may have had something to do with already running 20 some miles and still having quite a ways to go.

**Games included: 1) Take the distance I have left and divided by 2… I can do that!  2) Only count the distance to go as the distance to the next water (and excuse to walk) station, this meant that the farthest I ever had to go was just over 2 miles.  3) Think of a run of a similar distance to what I have left, and pretend I’m on that route, for instance with 5 miles to go it was the “Gail Loop” which I ran almost every day three years ago in training for the upcoming XC season, and at 3 miles to go it was the “Peck Loop” which was always the first day of XC practice and our “long” runs during soccer season.  4) Think of all the nice things I’m going to do when I finish, like sit down!

***Sorry for the exaggerations, but I HATED this hill.

****You don’t get shirt till you cross the finish line.