the willman's: Mount Marathon, Seward AK

We spent the Fourth of July in our usual tradition - in Seward, AK running Mount Marathon. We made it into a long family weekend, going down a day early and walking with Harper around town. We stayed in our favorite hotel, Trailhead Lodging, right on the race course. Hands down the best place to be on race day. The day before the race, we took Harper over to one of the playgrounds and played on the swing for the first time - it was a big hit and Harper loved it!

For me, this race was all about finishing the race and coming off the mountain injury free, and let's just say mission accomplished...almost. I had a few scratches from getting lost (yes, I said lost) on the way UP. I can explain...you see it was the hottest year I had ever run the race, and since I'm in less than stellar shape post baby (oh yeah, and not much exercise for the past 8 months) I decided to take my time and stay in the shade as long as possible. On the way up, everyone else seemed to have the same idea. And since I had take my sweet time running from the start line to the base of the mountain, I had a bunch of energy in the trees. At one point on the trail, I decided to veer off onto a less populated trail, which after about 20 feet vanished into a beautiful salmon berry patch. Had I not been in a 'race' I would have plopped right down and began gorging on the berries, however, I decided just to eat a few of the berries since I was was thirsty anyway. I realized that three other ladies had followed me on the dead end trail, to which all I could offer was "Hey, these berries are really good! Want one?" Oh yeah, and by the way, this looks like a dead end and I think we have to bushwhack back to the main trail. They were less than happy to see the dead end trail, but I was able to follow them across the berry patch back to the main trail, which took about 10 minutes to get back to. We emerged from the bushes back to the main trail to continue marching up the mountain when I notice the tiny scrapes all over my arms and legs with a tiny amount of blood starting to bubble out. I made it up and back down the hill with no other marks to speak of, and I took it so easy I even had enough energy to run back to our hotel from the finish line to take over watching Harper before Dan's race. Dan did a great job in his race - running a pretty decent time for the heat being so bad and not training much! Perhaps next year the Willman's will train for this...but for now, it's over in 2009 and we're reveling in the feeling of completing another Mt. Marathon!

I had the privilege of running with the Alaska Mountain Turtles...a very amazing group of fit ladies. Thank you so much for letting me go up with you awesome gals!!