Klondike Road Relay 2010

I ran in a race on the Klondike Highway.  It is a yearly event that teams run from Skagway, Alaska to Whitehorse, Canada.  I had never been to Canada either, so it was a great introduction to our northern neighbor.

There are ten legs in the race, so ideally, you want a team of ten. I was on a team from Sitka originally, but it ended up not working out for everyone and it sorta fell apart. It seems a large number of teams have trouble keeping all the numbers that signed up in the first place so there are quite a few teams scrambling to find last-minute runners. A few members from the team I was on dispersed and joined other teams. I joined a Juneau team called the UAS Road Scholars at the last minute.

I was worried that I was going to slow down the team since I had not been training as much as I would've liked.  I felt like I was not in as good of shape as I had been when I ran the half-marathon in Boise three years ago. I predicted I would run 11-minute miles.

The race started at 7:30 PM PST on Friday evening. The first four members of our team shared a vehicle and followed the race. Meanwhile, the runners following the first four, myself included, tried to get a little sleep before leaving around midnight to get to checkpoint 5.

I maybe slept an hour and then we were off. We got to checkpoint 5 and I was the next runner so I was pretty nervous. We got there about an hour before when we predicted the switch would be. I couldn't rest in the car though, I was too nervous! So, I got out and just stood by and watched all the runners.

It was about 2:30 in the morning when I started running. It felt so crazy running in the middle of the night. It was dark. Every runner was required to wear reflective gear for the cars that passed on the road. Some runners wore head lamps to see where they were going. I didn't wear a head lamp. It was sort of a thrill to run when it was pitch black and not know for sure where my feet were landing. I ran along Tutshi Lake and I crossed the border from British Columbia to the Yukon Territory. It was about a 14-mile run and I made it to checkpoint 6 at 4:36 AM. I ran 9-minute miles! My team called me a sandbagger. Hahaha.

I should mention that the race started at 7:30 for a few teams.  From then on there were teams that began every half hour until midnight.  The fastest teams started at midnight.

The last picture is Tutshi Lake.

Brandi Carlile in Fairbanks

Just so my mom knows: I looked into getting a bus from Denali National Park to Fairbanks and a park service lady actually recommended that I hitchhike!  Hitchhiking is not that bad of a thing in Alaska.

Anyway, I made a sign.  I was making this sign at the park's mercantile and the employee was loaning me markers to make it with.  I guess I shouldn't go into details about poor Sharpies and highlighters but I am aware the sign could be improved upon... but I was hitchhiking so it wasn't like I was gonna put this in my portfolio!

I went down to where the tourist shops are.  It was raining very hard.  I held the sign out and a couple cars passed.  I held the sign out for the next group of cars and one pulled over.  I was shocked how quickly it happened and I was actually in disbelief that the car pulled over for me. A backpacker got out, he had just gotten a ride from Anchorage to Denali National Park. The lady that gave me a ride was very nice.  She was driving from Anchorage to Fairbanks to pick up her 78-year-old mother and drive her back. She said she was borrowing her son's car and if either of her children knew about her picking up hitchhikers they would have a meltdown. I told her if my mother knew I was hitchhiking she would have a meltdown!


When we got to town, I had her drop me off at this area of town that had some restaurants as I was very hungry. I ate at Pizza Hut and looked at the directions to the hostel. My walk to the hostel turned out to be almost four miles! With a large backpack that is a lot! Well, in my mind making it to the hostel was my only goal because once I got there then I would get info on taking the bus to the Brandi Carlile show that started at 8 pm.

The hostel has a big lawn for setting up tents if you choose to camp out instead of sleeping in a bed. So I got to the hostel, checked in, set up my tent, took a shower, and then I was ready to go to my concert which was in two hours. I figured I had plenty of time if I was going to be taking a bus. Well, I was talking to a guy about the bus system and he asked where my concert was.  I told him the Blue Loon and he replied, "The Blue Loon!? You're not gonna make it, the buses don't go out that far!" He asked if I had paid for my ticket already and how much, as if I was only determined to make it there because I paid a whopping $31 for it.  I didn't waste anytime and I said I was going to run.  There was no question about whether I was going to go or not. I took with me my sweater and rain jacket because I had no idea what the weather might be on my long walk back, and a water bottle because I was worried about being dehydrated. It was too warm at the time to run in jeans but I was so thankful I had brought along my running shoes, it would've been painful to run in Xtratufs!
 
I left at precisely 6 o'clock and arrived to the Blue Loon at 7:09 pm.  I couldn't have arrived at a better time and I couldn't have asked for a better run!  There were so many times I wanted to stop to take pictures, but I felt I had to discipline myself from that if I was going to make it because really I had no idea how far I was going. I was running along the Interstate that runs all the way to Anchorage.  There was this part as I was coming around a bend that gave a wide open view of the trees and tundra.  I was running in daylight but out into the hills were some very dark and massive storm clouds. It was such a gorgeous run.

(click for a big picture. The map has the Pizza Hut, hostel, and Blue Loon pointed out. The run was 6.15 miles)

I got to be in the front row for the concert. Brandi Carlile has two members in her band, Tim and Phil Hanseroth. They played an all acoustic concert, i.e. plugged in acoustic guitars; no electric guitars or drums.  Although they did one song completely acoustic, so they didn't sing into any microphones or use any amplifiers. Anyway, the whole show was completely delightful.


After the show, Brandi was selling posters and autographing them. I told her how I last saw her in Boise, Idaho and since then I moved up to Alaska so I was excited when I saw that she was touring here. She asked if I lived in Fairbanks, to which I replied no, Sitka.  She asked me how I got to Fairbanks. I told her I flew, took a bus, and then hitchhiked. She gave me a surprised look and told me to be safe on my return home. I told her I would be because I was taking the train. Haha.

There were some people at the show that recognized me from passing me on the road. This lady said to me, "Were you the shirtless guy running?" I said yes.  She and her friends had said to themselves that it would be funny if I was running to the concert. They were outside having a cigarette when I showed up to the Blue Loon and they laughed because I had been running to the concert. They offered me a ride home and I gladly accepted.  Since it had been an hour run it could've been a very long walk home! They gave me a ride all the way back to the hostel and they kept saying they couldn't believe I ran all that way. However, they all agreed that Brandi was well worth such a run!


Update: I got some videos uploaded on YouTube so I will post one here now.

A short blog! Maybe...

I had written out this long blog about how this "adventure" blog just turned into my "life" blog and that a life blog is harder for me to share... but then I realized I'm in Alaska and I need to toughen up and blog.  :)  Haha.

Let's see... where did I leave off?  Well, you may know that when I got here, it was arranged that I'd live in the dormitories of a dormant school.  During the summer, I was notified that the dormitories were going to be closed and we were all going to be evicted.  Fun.  Actually, it turned out to be a really good thing.

I've been attending Sitka Lutheran church. In September, I became the organist when the piano player left to attend university in Oregon. I said I'd do it for free since I came up to be a volunteer anyway. A couple members of the church suggested that since I'm a volunteer and I need a place to live, I could just live in the apartment that's dedicated to the church's summer volunteers. Plus, they said I could use the volunteer car! Things worked out nicely.

A couple weeks ago, I ran a 10k. Since then, it has been snowing and I haven't ran. I'm still riding my bike often, however.


I'll now post some pictures.  Have a good day!

Our race went down the road, nearly to the base of Bear Mountain.

We started at Whale Park.

This is right by where I live now.