Midnight Sun in Fairbanks

This is the start of the Midnight Sun Run race with over 4000 runners. AWESOME!!! We are in there somewhere!!!

This is before the race, you can tell by the smiles..

We created yet another first for our Alaskan Adventure. Saturday night, June 19, 2010 we participated in the 28th Annual Midnight Sun Run in Fairbanks. The race is a 10K (6.2 miles) race that takes place every year for the summer solstice (the longest day of the year). The race left the University of Alaska at 10pm and wound its way through the streets of Fairbanks ending at a Pioneer Park, a local amusement park. We had not trained for this race so we were unsure how we would do. As it turned out we did very well. Chip finished in 1hr 3 min and I did it in 1hr 6 min. We felt good about that time since the last 10K either of us had run was probably 20 years ago. The race itself was amazing. When we started the race along with about 4000 other runners and walkers it was like you would imagine the start of the Boston Marathon to be. Everyone was packed onto a 2 lane road supposedly with the fastest runners in the front of the pack and the walkers in the rear. We were someplace in the first middle of the pack. When the gun went off the wave of people moving forward was like being in slow motion. You start out walking, then pick it up to a slow jog, then get in stride for what will prove to be your cadence for race (hopefully). We had just stared the slow jogging after weaving around walkers who should have been towards the back when we looked down the street and for probably 1/10 of a mile or further, there was a sea of bobbing runners. Some in costume, most not! The energy was amazing! Before the race started our plan was to run a little then walk a little, then start over again, hoping to finish within 1 hr 30 minutes. We have not been doing much running at all. Chip has been doing a walk/jog type work out once or twice a week but not for any distance, just time. But we both felt so good (I'm sure it was all the excitement of the event) that we ran the first mile in a little over 10 minutes and could not believe the fist mile was behind us. We walked for a minute and started running again trying to keep this pace throughout the race. It really helped that all along the route the locals were set up on the sides of the roads cheering the participants on. At one corner there was a band playing music, in front of quite a few houses there were people spraying the crowds with water (the night was pretty warm), there were little kids with outstretched hands giving high 5's to anyone paying enough attention to reciprocate, there was a man playing what looked like turntables and a group of guys trying to temp runners to stop and have beer. I wish I could have paid more attention to the crowds but I was trying to stay focused on putting one foot in front of the other. At the 4 mile point I had to start walking for longer periods of time, but Chip was able to keep going. Even though he didn't want to leave me, I insisted. So he continued at his pace and I went at my own pace from that point on. When I crossed the finish line at a little over an hour I was so happy. It felt so good and hurt so bad!! We could not believe we actually did it, and had a better time than we could have imagined! AND the most amazing part of this story is that we could actaully walk the next day without much discomfort. Maybe we didn't push hard enough.......