The Anchorage Marathon

Well, it is official, all those folks that said that running a marathon after riding a motorbike for a week was not the best of ideas (some said it was a stupid idea) - well they were in fact right. While I did finsih the marathon, it was kind of slow, and it entailed a lot of awkward and ungainly walking towards the end. All sorts of muscles tightened up and made it painful to run so it was more of a lurching shuffle interspersed with lots of walks.

It was still a great marathon though, one of my favorites. The weather was for the most part great running weather - a steady light rain, but no wind. It stayed that way until the last 3 miles when we ran around the lakes and when the wind got up making it pretty cold and miserable. The finish was most unwelcoming with rain and a stiff wind - it made everyone get out of there as soon as possible - no basking in the glory of the finish. That's a shame because that is always a nice period I think.

Everyone did very well, Julia H. turned in a great 4:10, Leslie L. a P.R. of 4:16 - but neither of them waited for me and my feeble 5:08 time. That's the first time I have gone over 5 hours, pretty impressive no? Insult was added to injury when on the last quarter mile, Bill F. a race walker from Sacramento overtook me and I just watched him edge away from me up the hill while I stumbled along.

I think people are taking bets on whether I will be able to mount my motorcycle tomorrow morning to head south. I am optimistic for getting on - its gettin off that will be the problem.