A Bear On The Run: June 2019

My last frontier and the family photo finish I hoped for!

This goal of running a marathon in all 50 states has been 10 years in the making, all of my 30s, in which so many life events have occurred: a marriage to the most supportive and wonderful woman with whom the above 3 spirited kids were introduced, a career change from corporate-suited-lemming to stay-at-home dad, and moving to Libertyville, IL and building a running community by starting the Libertyville Running Club who participated in and encouraged me for 2/3s of these states.

Now what?

Retire? Take up cycling? Redo the 5 states that are not under 3 hours? You guessed it, I'll redo marathons in WY, ME, NM, SD, VT - and DC while I'm at it - to tidy this thing up and become the 8th known person to complete that feat... or 9th... or who cares?! This isn't a race against others; I just want to achieve what I set out to do as A Bear On The Run... what? I like bears and I like running. Alaska was the perfect place for my 50th state marathon!

1st place Masters bear!

So yeah, I ran Alaska in under 3 hours: 2:56:01, 4th place overall, for my 45th state marathon in under 3 hours. Though I had planned this EVENT for this race for 3 and 1/2 years, I did almost none of the planning. We were bringing the whole family, including my parents, along with almost 50 people from LRC to run a course that had its challenges for an 18-day vacation. I was too nervous about the race so my wife took charge.

This trip began on Father's Day, 6 days before the race. Traveling with my kids on Father's Day was not the gift you think it could have been but by playing a zone defense on the 6 and 1/2 hour flight, we managed to arrive in Anchorage intact to enjoy dinner and beers at Humpy's Ale House.

We drove to Denali National Park the following morning for a rare glimpse of Denali Peak, a family hike, and the kids' 1st Junior Ranger program - an activity offered by our National Park Service at each park to promote exploration, learning, and protection of our parks to the next generation of conservationists.

An easy 2-mile family hike at Denali Visitor Center

"As a Junior Ranger, I promise..."

Tuesday, Melissa and I took a light aircraft expedition in search for bears along the Cook Inlet, landing on the beach in Lake Clark National Park and Preserve, and boy did we find them! How's this for A Bear On The Run - Melissa walking with bears video link HERE? Before relieving my parents of the kids, we snuck in another brewery, Glacier Brewhouse, for some Alaskan King Crab because... we're in Alaska! Oddly, it's no less expensive here.

The plane! The plane!

Should we be turning our back on a field full of bears?

The next morning's drive to Girdwood was magnificent. The views along the coastal highway present one awe-inspiring scene after another for the 45-minute drive to the Alyeska Ski Resort where we rode the tramway to the mountain top for lunch. Once off the mountain, we left my parents and kids at a park and found Girdwood Brewing, one of the better breweries in Alaska so far.

The kids are like mountain goats, climb they did!

30 minutes of kid-free "play"

In LRC, we do a Wednesday night fun run from a different bar or brewery each week and with some of us already in Alaska, we did one from 49th State Brewery to preview the last few miles of the courses, including the nasty uphill finish that both the marathoners and half marathoners would experience.

Making room for that yak burger - not worth $25

Thursday was dedicated to the Hops On the Rail Tour with our compadres, the Bartuschs. This 11-hour tour began with breakfast (and conductor hats!) in a glass-domed railcar that left from Anchorage and traversed the vast wilderness of Alaska to deliver us to the town of Talkeetna - a registered National Historic Place whose mayor was a cat named Stubbs from 1997 until his death in 2017. From here, Bryan of Big Swig Tours picked the 4 of us up for a private tour of 4 breweries (Denali Brewing Co., Arkose Brewery, Bleeding Heart Brewery (favorite), Odd Man Rush Brewing) along the drive back into Anchorage.

Our one other tour buddy, Kurt, assimilated quick enough

We made it back in time for my oldest son, Mars's 1-mile kids race, his 2nd state; like father, like son! After running along side him for about a block, he stopped and said to me, "Dad, my legs are tired," so we began to walk for a moment... "Ok, I want to win!" he stated emphatically, and we began running again! He finished in 10:31, his PR.

Mars's second state 1-mile race!

I was planning to get all my brewery visits in and relax Friday before the Saturday race. After our group shakeout run on Friday (ok, and a flight of beers at Moose's Tooth), I did just that; Melissa took the kids to see Toy Story 4 while I napped and hit the sauna in our Airbnb.

Shakeout run - we're almost all here!

There was a time I thought this race, previously referred to as the Midnight Sun Marathon, was actually run at midnight... alas, I was wrong. LRC was in force for the marathon start at 7:30am.

Pledging to not screw this one up!

It was a bit warm for Anchorage, 70 - 80 degrees this week; they would experience record high temps in the 90s the following week. Couple that with the course elevation chart fresh in my mind and I decided to run with music, something I've only done once before (at Richmond Marathon) in 70 marathons. With 650 marathoners and a different start time and route for the half marathoners, I had a feeling I'd be alone - and I was from mile 3 to the finish - and could use the motivation from my 2009 iTunes catalog: Coheed & Cambria, The Hold Steady, Baroness, Off With Their Heads, Led Zeppelin... the same playlist I've been running to for years. You kids and your new music!

The reviews don't do this course justice, it's beautiful and full of variety. Beginning at a high school, the first few miles transition from road to bike path then to a gravel road that carves its way through the foothills along Chugach State Park, diverging onto approximately 2 miles of single track trail that led us to the highest point on the course. Those 15 miles were rolling and climbing before returning onto the asphalt for a fast downhill mile 16. The rest of the course is downhill to flat except for that sadistic climb in the last 3/4 mile that I had previously scoped out.

Those old Nike 4% shoes got me 7 sub-3-marathons out of 7 races and a PR!

I had an average 6:30-min/mile pace at mile 19. I saw my wife and Amy, gave them my finish estimate of 2:55 - 2:58, then dialed it back. I was feeling good and pretty confident early on that this race would be under 3 hours. The music helped, as did the crisp, clean air. The thrill of knowing all that it took for all of us to get here together inspired me to be successful, knowing I wouldn't have a chance to recreate this moment with these friends and family.

With 50 states now complete, I've compiled a short list of stats via a post to Strava, linked HERE.

Family finish photo

Shortly after finishing, the weather that was sunny and warm took a turn to shady and cool (go figure!) as we lined the finisher chute to cheer in all of our friends: PRs, 1st timers, and finishers of hard-fought half marathon and marathon races that flew thousands of miles to be in Alaska together. In LRC fashion, we celebrated with a brewery crawl all afternoon, hopping (get it?) from King Street Brewing Co., to Anchorage Brewing Co. (probably my favorite), to Turnagain Brewing (wait, this might be my favorite). It was a late night; the sun hardly sets this time of year. 11:30pm still looked early.

We started on the rooftop at King Street Brewing Co.

Post-race LRC gathering stop #2 at Anchorage Brewing

Stop # 3 - Turnagain, where details get a bit blurry

The next morning, we boarded the train to Seward, AK - trail marker mile 0 of the Iditarod National Historic Trail and home of Mount Marathon, a crazy 5km footrace up a 3,000ft mountain and back down (an average 36% grade!) that takes place on the 4th of July - yeah, I wanted to do this pretty bad but it's difficult to get an entry and it didn't align with our cruise plans. Someday!

Where the Iditarod Trail begins

Mt. Marathon towering over a cute church-turned-coffee shop

Anyway, the train parallels the coastal scenic highway to Girdwood described above, then continues for 3.5 more hours into the Chugach National Forest for views of glaciers and mountains while periodically being alerted of animal sightings and given historical context along the way by the train narrator.

You'll love trains after this trip!

Seward is a beautiful port city where we would embark on our cruise ship Monday, the following evening, for a 7-day cruise exploring Alaska's Glacier Bay and Inside Passage, finishing in Vancouver. With a day and a half to explore this small town, we took advantage by booking a shuttle tour that picked us up from the train depot.

First stop: Iditarod dog sled tour! What's more Alaskan than learning about the dogs that compete in this grueling 1,000-mile race from Anchorage to Nome in March from the family that is accustomed to winning?

Next stop: Exit Glacier in Kenai Fjords National Park - where the kids earned their 2nd Junior Ranger badge. This short hike brought us to an overlook where we took in the views of a glacier literally melting before us; that heatwave was here!

Exit Glacier hike with the little mountain goats

The peak of salmon run season is July but by late June, we were able to stop and see salmon beginning their trek up stream from the ocean to spawn and die; ah, the life cycle of salmon, what a life! Afterward, my kids discovered king crab and loved it. Great, they have expensive taste. Mostly, I think they just liked the shells they took and carried with them for 3 weeks which I finally threw out - so long, "Crabby!"

Kid took half my dinner!

Catch and release, ha! Notice the crab leg shells.

And finally, a 4-hour boat tour of Kenai Fjords National Park before boarding a cruise ship... out of Kenai Fjords National Park.

Spotting beluga whales

You come to Alaska to see wildlife and that you will see: bears, moose, eagles, salmon runs, sea lions, sea otters (the cutest!), puffins, whales; we found them all via train, plane, boat, and automobile! My takeaway from the overwhelming amount of animal encounters is that eagles are basically the pigeons of The North... THEY'RE EVERYWHERE!

And then there was the cruise. Look, you just had to be there! This was my favorite part of the trip and the most relaxing way to finish. If ever you go to Alaska, you MUST do the cruise. I'll just leave these pics to tell a bit of the story: