Once again I'm writing on the eve of the next marathon. Perhaps I'll get back on track now that my traveling is slowing down a bit.
Anyway, here are the numbers after getting the 8th one in the books:
- Two thirds of the way through the #Sub3ForPtR campaign and we're nearly 2/3 of the way to the second $3000! So that's nearly $5000 raised so far this year! Looks like we'll get to $6000+ by the end of the year. Thanks for all your support!
- One person guessed within 1 minute of my finish time of 3:00:50. So I'm donating $10 for that guess plus $1 for each guess made (70) for a total of $80.
- 8 marathons complete, cumulative time of 23:44:35, average time of 2:58:03. That keeps the average finish time at #Sub3ForPtR and 5 out of 8 have been under 3 hours.
I was pretty excited about this race. My first time visiting Alaska, weather conditions looked to pretty favorable, the Chief Running Officer Bart Yasso was there to kick off the race, and the course looked to be decent.
So the race is off and within the first half mile we go down a pretty steep but short hill to get onto the bike trail. I thought to myself "Well that's going to be wonderful coming back up at the finish." Spoiler alert, It was not wonderful.
The first out and back stretch was nice with some views of the Pacific and pleasantly wooded sections. Some runners were even lucky enough to spot a moose! Around 14 miles in the course took a left onto another bike trail that meandered into the heart of some Anchorage neighborhoods. This is when things started to get difficult. It was a gradual uphill and the trail was getting crowded due to overlap with the half marathon. I had a buffer so I wasn't that worried yet. But things just continued to get tougher and I was starting to feel drained.
Finally I made it to the second turnaround and got some benefit from a slight downhill on the return. With about 5k to go it looked like I was still going to hang onto Sub 3. But then my body just seemed to revolt and say it had had enough. I made the last turn on the bike trail with about a mile and a half to go and realized I was going to need to summon something pretty remarkable to get in under 3. I kept repeating to myself "you gotta fight for it" and thought with a mile to go I might even still pull it off. But then that wonderful hill I mentioned earlier reared its ugly head. I had nothing left and it pretty much trashed any chance I had left. So I ended up coming in at 3:00:50.
It was rather irritating to come in so close but not quite under 3, especially after doing so well at Jack and Jill's. But since the goal of all 12 being under 3 had gone out the window at number 2, I didn't fret over it too long. Pretty much after a hearty post race meal and a couple of beers I was past it and thinking about the hikes coming up in the next couple of days. Totally worth the trip! Some spectacular sights to see and I barely scratched the surface of what Alaska has to offer!
Ultimately I'm still well under 3 for the average and with just 4 more to go I'm confident the average will stay under 3. I'm still going to attempt to finish the remaining 4 (Erie, Chicago, Monumental, and CIM) under 3 though, especially the two I'll be pacing (Erie and Monumental).
Again, my sincere thanks for all of your support and trust me when I say this is doing a lot of good for the people PtR is focused on helping. Please keep that love and support coming!
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