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| Pre-race dinner - 1 |
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| Stairs after dinner - 2 |
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| Start - 3 |
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| Start - 5 |
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| Start -4 |
Fnishers: Betty, Cheryl Cindy, Cris, Deb, Kathleen S, Meredith, Paula, Susanna, Suzanne, Toni
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| Race -6 |
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| Race -8 |
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| Race -7 |
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| Mile 12 -9 |
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| Finish - 12 |
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| Finish - 10 |
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| Finish -11 |
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| After Paula's Salmon dinner - 14 |
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| Finish - 13 |
At long last pictures and report on the Team's adventure in the north.
10 team members and 2 support crew made their way to Anchorage for the race. We all arrived between Wednesday and Friday for the Saturday race. The hotel we chose was situated about a 1/2 mile from the start and finish line and about a mile from downtown. The weather was nice, sunny and a little cool on Thursday and Friday with a Saturday predicted high of 70 and sun. The race was starting at 9 AM, so we were a little concerned about running/walking in the"heat", considering our training weather barely made it out of the 50's.
Friday evening the group (everyone but Cindy) went to Pizza Olympia for a good Italian dinner. The hotel shuttle took us there and several of us opted to walk back. The 1.5 miles weren't bad, but we did have 122 stairs to climb to get out of the ravine!
Race day: Ken shuttled us in two trips to the starting line at 8 am. Just enough time to check clothing, warm up a little and take pre-race photos. Then off at 9 AM. There was no timing mat at the start line, everyone had the same start time, so a few people may have been lost a couple of minutes, but the field was just a few thousand. The 5 milers and 1/2 marathoners started together and the marathoners had a different start. There was a mat at the end so we got a chip time.
The course was rolling and beautiful. Mountains on the left as we passed the airfield and the Earthquake Park, leading down to Point Woronzof. Until then the road had been asphalt, after that it became rutted with broken up asphalt, but only for a short way until we hit grass. Yep, we had to make our way from the road's dead-end to the bike trail through gravel and grass. Seems like they just took a weed whacker and cleared a path for us. That was okay, because it was so beautiful, but it slowed the pace down a bit with roots, rocks and clumps of grass. After a little patch of sand, that off-road was 1+ miles, we were along the water on the paved bike trail heading back to Anchorage.
The hills were gentle and rolling, total about 400 feet ascent, until the last 1/2 mile hill that went straight up (kind of like 3x length & the steepness of the Galer hill on the Seattle marathon), but then the last .2 miles were flat into the finish line. All in all it was a great course and lots of fun. Good aid stations and many friendly supportive people. The race itself was a slower course, everyone, but Cris, was about 5-7 minutes slower than "normal". I ran with Deb and Paula (Anchorage pal) pacing each other until the end when Deb sprinted ahead. We got to see mom and Ken at mile 10 and Paula's son Jamie got some great photos at mile 12.
The race booklet talked about what to do in the case of meeting a moose or bear on the trail! Luckily (or not) we did not see any, but there was a moose on the route. A volunteer along the way told Meredith and Toni they just missed it. He also said you could tell the Alaskans from the non-Alaskans because the Alaskans ran away from the moose and the others raced toward it. There were mosquitoes on the course, but as long as you kept moving they stayed away, stop and you were a tasty snack. The temperatures were just what they predicted and about 70 degrees, we got a little warm in the second part, so it was important to drink a bit more than we were used to.
Okay here's the best part of the finish festivities: they had kiddie pools filled with water and bags of ice to cool your feet, even though most everyone sat or knelt in the water. Yeah! We all finished and had fun! After that most everyone went on travels to go fishing, take boat trips or head to Denali.
