Mayors midnight sun Marathon

Mayors Midnight Sun Marathon

June 21st was the summer solstice and that morning I woke up to run a marathon. After we got into Anchorage we ran into a McDonald's to get Aaron some breakfast and for me to use the bathroom. I was a little nervous, but suddenly I was terrified as I noticed a table of other runners. They looked like runners with their Nike sweat resistant running clothes and perfectly molded calves. I think I had a panic attack as I listened to them discussing strategy and retying their hundred dollars shoes. Clearly I wasn't a real runner and I shouldn't be running with them! Heck, my strategy was to try and run the whole thing and my very modest goal was a 4:30, which were 10 min miles. I watched them head out into the pouring rain to run to the start line. I don't run to warm-up before running, it just means I have to run more! I've never felt more insecure about a race then when I watched those four lope off to the start line like gazelles. I literally leaned over to Aaron and told him I didn't want to run anymore. He laughed me off and walked me to the start line where I saw other people that looked like me. Like maybe they didn't run for a living and I felt better. I moved into line in the middle of the pack and waited for the countdown. I turned on my music and started jumping up and down in excitement instead of fear. My feet were soaked through about .2 miles into the race because of the unavoidable rain puddles, but I was accustomed to this from running in Girdwood. I was still a runner and I was running a marathon!

Right before hopping into line

And we are off

It was an interesting course because 11 miles were on a dirt road and another 2 a single track trail. The rest were on paved bike paths. I hit the halfway point at 2:00 which is my fastest half-marathon time so I knew I was doing great. And then I hit the wall. And I hit it early. I called Aaron around mile 18 and told him everything hurt. My feet, my calves, my thighs, my hips, my back, my arms, my neck. Everything! I hooked up with the girl above with five miles to go and she kept me going when I wanted to stop and walk. She had done six marathons before and was doing this on her vacation and talking to her about Alaska really helped keep my mind off the last few miles.

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They put two massive hills on mile 25! What were they thinking?! Just knowing the end was close but not being able to see it really was killing me.

Seeing Aaron near the end was really fun!

I finished a whooping 2 minutes before my goal time at 4:28:03! I placed 350th of 852 people. I was 109th in 396 women. I was 13th in my age division 20-29 of 39 girls. I'm hoping with the shorter age divisions in UT I will maybe be able to get a medal for my age division. So glad I have an awesome husband to support me! 

Katmai National Park

Katmai National Park

What an experience! We flew from Homer so we had an hour scenic flight to Katmai where we saw tons of glaciers and we even got to fly around a volcano! So cool! As we landed on the beach there was a grizzly bear right there on the beach next to the plane. Only like thirty feet away. We've only run into four grizzlies before this, but this was such an awesome experience to see them for more than a few minutes at a time. 

Boarding

In the clouds

Glaciers

Volcano

More glaciers

Ribbons of Rivers

Our first bear to watch

We were watching him from a good ways away, but he kept getting closer and closer. We asked if we should move, but our guide (Jared, he was super awesome) told us to stay sitting. It's a submissive pose, and if we had gotten up it would have been an aggressive move toward the grizzly. If we had decided to run, it would have assumed we were prey and run after us. I was the closest to the bear as he wandered ten feet away from us. Pausing to a moment to sniff at us. It gave me goosebumps! For all you out there that haven't seen my video of how close he got, check out my facebook. It was crazy! They don't do that very often and the only thing our guide has to protect us is a flare.

Fortunately, because of the abundance of food on Katmai (its an island) the bears aren't willing to risk getting injured in a fight with you when there is plenty of protein grass, clams, and deer to chase down so its rarely a problem. They know the bears that are problematic because they have fight markings, like a torn ear or face and the guides know to give them a lot of distance.

He walked right past us to get to the beach for some clam digging

We walked over to a couple of other bears we saw out clam digging and watched them crack open and eat the clams.

They were pretty intent on what they were doing and didn't care one bit that we were watching.

On our way back toward the plane another two grizzlies came out of the grass and another past right next to our plane to get out on the beach. We ate lunch on the beach with three grizzlies within our sight. They have never had human food before so while it may smell interesting, again they aren't willing to fight us for it when they have plenty of food available. So you can't bring fish, but anything else is game. The Kodiak Grizzly is the biggest grizzly in the world because of the plentiful food sources. They don't even hibernate because they can find food during the winter as well. 

We got to see 10 Grizzly Bears and even more as we were flying away. We even saw a little baby with its mom as we were leaving. It was an incredible experience! So happy we got to go.

Homer

Homer

Finally! We made it to Homer! Aaron and Justin went last year with Keith to help fix up a boat, but I was working. Homer is basically the end of the road. There is nothing but ocean, mountains, and glaciers past here. It's basically the only place in Alaska you can catch a Halibut from the shore. (Not that we had the right equipment or anything). I was super excited to see the legendary Homer spit. It's a natural sandbar that people built all these tourist trapping business's on. And we were double excited because the next day we were flying to Katmai National Park to see Kodiak Grizzly Bears! It only cost a fortune so we were hoping we would see them up close and personal as promised. ;)

The Homer Spit from above. It's really wild to drive down it and see ocean on all sides! We camped on the right side of the spit and it was so fun to hear waves crashing all night long.

All set up and ready to party

Good morning views!

We walked all over town and saw some beautiful float planes, tried some fishing (the guy next to us pulled in a huge King Salmon-we were so jealous even though we didn't have the right tags), saw the sealife center, and walked around the lighthouse and shops.

Lupine on the Lake

The Harbor

Fishing

The coast at the beginning of the spit (they had awesome bike trails to walk on)

Lighthouse

An otter at the sealife center

Walking on the beach

All the sea shells I collected

I've missing hearing the waves crash! We have the Cook Inlet that is only three miles from our house, but its mostly mud flats and we don't see waves like this. It was really fun. We stayed two nights.