Humpy's and Weekend Hike

Lori at the start line

This weekend, I did my first 5K in AK...the Humpy's 5K. For those of you who don't know, Humpy's is a popular bar downtown. They have been sponsoring this race (which includes a marathon and half) for four years, and this year successfully moved the race to downtown so that people can get a beer afterwards (apparently Alaska racers have their priorities in the right place. Ha!). This is one of two USATF certified marathons -- this one goes south along the bike trail (relatively flat) and the other one (Midnight Sun) apparently goes through the army base and is partially run on tank tracks.


Stretching at the start

There were about 1000 runners in total in the race, which is a pretty good turnout.


We're off!

The race was pretty spartan -- you basically had to dodge cars and really make sure you knew where you were going. For the people in the front, there were cyclists that led the groups through the bike trails. I went out a little too fast, and at the end it was really hard to climb up the hill back to downtown! But I finished, even passing a pigtailed lady right at the end (thus the "kick" picture here).


I'm so fast I'm blurry!

Frank was very generous in coming to support and take these pictures!

Afterwards, Frank, Galileo and I went on a short hike. I'm glad we did, because on Monday the fires from Tok caused a lot of smoke to land in the Anchorage bowl -- we are on a respiratory alert here. It's also been the warmest summer on record (today it's supposed to get up to 84), and the plants are very unhappy. Supposedly, August is the rainiest of the summer months usually and we have so far only had trace amounts of rain.


Mud Flats

I also found out that fireweed gets its name because the leaves start to turn bright red...here's one starting to turn:

The fireweed's starting to change

We basically completed the Blueberry hill circle (steep at the beginning but pretty flat beyond that. We went by the old flattop trail, which is supposedly not maintained but you could see people climbing up and down it. We saw one guy scree down the trail...when he went by, he said that scrambling down loose rock is easy if you are used to walking on ball bearings, whatever that means.


Lori and Galileo on the trail

Frank and Galileo on the trail

"wildlife" on the trail

Here's some twisted trees on the side of the trail: