I was already in Anchorage as I did the Mayor's Half Marathon the week before. I was scrolling on my phone Friday evening looking for something to do Saturday morning … MORE
I was already in Anchorage as I did the Mayor’s Half Marathon the week before. I was scrolling on my phone Friday evening looking for something to do Saturday morning when I found this race and decided to sign up as I wanted to do another race and support my nurse colleagues. The website for the race was well updated. I’m not sure how much pre-race communication there was since I signed up about 12 hours before the race. The race takes place in a park in Anchorage. It was a pretty small, laid back race. There were about 100 participants. Half did the timed race and about half did the untimed walk option. Plenty of parking in the park. Bib pick up was at the start. The race had nice tech T-shirts. Unfortunately since I signed up so late they ran out for late registrants which is fair. They did collect our info and said they will mail them. I do hope I get the shirt. If I don’t, I will survive as I have plenty of race shirts but I think it’d be a fun conversation starter to have a shirt from a random 5K in Alaska. I marked the swag 2 sneakers since while the swag item was nice I didn’t get it. If the shirt does get mailed I’ll raise it to 3. It was the only swag item. There was pre-race Zumba and post-race yoga which was nice. The course is an out and back on a paved bike trail. It might have been one of the trails used for the half marathon. I don’t know but it was again just woods. Pretty woods but nothing too special. For the race there was the same start/finish arch. The timed participants were instructed to line up closer to the front than the back. The course was as I said an out and back. It was moderately hilly. Nothing steep just lots of small ups and downs. Turn around was well marked. There were small mile markers but the first and third were not very accurate. There was also a volunteer blasting music at the 1 mile mark so it was nice to have some entertainment. There was an aid station at the turn around point but they were handing out full sized water bottles so this was clearly not planned by a runner. I was carrying water and weather wasn’t too hot so I didn’t take one. My time was pretty average for what I’ve been doing 5Ks at recently. The course did seem just a bit short and I had 3.06 miles on my Garmin. At the finish there were nice snacks for a small 5K including fruit, granola bars and delicious cookies. This was a fine race. Not the greatest 5K ever but it went to a good cause. I was glad to be able to run another race in Alaska. I’d recommend this race if you are either a local or hanging around in Anchorage the week after the Mayor’s races.
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Another Alaska Run
I was already in Anchorage as I did the Mayor's Half Marathon the week before. I was scrolling on my phone Friday evening looking for something to do Saturday morning … MORE
I was already in Anchorage as I did the Mayor’s Half Marathon the week before. I was scrolling on my phone Friday evening looking for something to do Saturday morning when I found this race and decided to sign up as I wanted to do another race and support my nurse colleagues. The website for the race was well updated. I’m not sure how much pre-race communication there was since I signed up about 12 hours before the race. The race takes place in a park in Anchorage. It was a pretty small, laid back race. There were about 100 participants. Half did the timed race and about half did the untimed walk option. Plenty of parking in the park. Bib pick up was at the start. The race had nice tech T-shirts. Unfortunately since I signed up so late they ran out for late registrants which is fair. They did collect our info and said they will mail them. I do hope I get the shirt. If I don’t, I will survive as I have plenty of race shirts but I think it’d be a fun conversation starter to have a shirt from a random 5K in Alaska. I marked the swag 2 sneakers since while the swag item was nice I didn’t get it. If the shirt does get mailed I’ll raise it to 3. It was the only swag item. There was pre-race Zumba and post-race yoga which was nice. The course is an out and back on a paved bike trail. It might have been one of the trails used for the half marathon. I don’t know but it was again just woods. Pretty woods but nothing too special. For the race there was the same start/finish arch. The timed participants were instructed to line up closer to the front than the back. The course was as I said an out and back. It was moderately hilly. Nothing steep just lots of small ups and downs. Turn around was well marked. There were small mile markers but the first and third were not very accurate. There was also a volunteer blasting music at the 1 mile mark so it was nice to have some entertainment. There was an aid station at the turn around point but they were handing out full sized water bottles so this was clearly not planned by a runner. I was carrying water and weather wasn’t too hot so I didn’t take one. My time was pretty average for what I’ve been doing 5Ks at recently. The course did seem just a bit short and I had 3.06 miles on my Garmin. At the finish there were nice snacks for a small 5K including fruit, granola bars and delicious cookies. This was a fine race. Not the greatest 5K ever but it went to a good cause. I was glad to be able to run another race in Alaska. I’d recommend this race if you are either a local or hanging around in Anchorage the week after the Mayor’s races.