Anchorage

Well, it was a magical week in Alaska, where I went with my two friends Kate and Heidi to run in the Anchorage “Midnight Sun Mayor’s Marathon” in support of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. On the flight to Alaska, I sat next to a big guy who lived with his wife in a heated hangar that he’d built himself on a community airfield about an hour North of Anchorage. Flying seems a pretty popular form of transportation in Alaska; there are airfields everywhere filled with prop-planes and there are always bush planes buzzing in the sky. This guy owned two planes – a Cessna and a Piper Cub – and did all the service on them himself. His eyes gleamed as he described flying into the wilderness and landing in a field or on a dirt road and going hunting or fishing (I guess he wasn’t hunting for moose). Every fall, he would shoot an elk – “It’s the best meat in the world” - and survive on it through most of the winter, making it into sausage and tenderloins and such. I began to get a sense of the self-sufficiency that living in much of Alaska requires and of the satisfaction that can come from it. His wife said that she hoped that he would use some of that self-sufficiency to build the house next to the hangar that he’d been promising for awhile.

Anyway, we landed at 10 pm and the sun was still reflecting off the bay and off the couple skyscrapers of Anchorage. My two friends Kate and Heidi, who work at Project Homecoming with me, had arrived the day before and they picked me up in this crappy, aquamarine Kia rental car that they’d nicknamed Booger. Heidi is a self-sufficient 33-year-old who looks my age, leads a “boot camp” exercise class at 5am every morning before going to a day of construction work, wears funky, teal-colored eyeglasses and has two white pitbulls who she calls her “lady babies.” Heidi’s from Westport, MA. Kate is a year older than I am; is from Saginaw, Michigan; went to Michigan State and is a huge Spartan fan, and is the most enthusiastic karaoke performer I’ve ever met. They were a bit loopy as they hadn’t slept a wink the night before because of the light so we had a couple close calls as they took me to the campsite they’d found. At the tent was Heidi’s talkative friend Tom Tierney from Boston, MA. He was running the half-marathon, works at Fidelity and traveled with Heidi around Ireland a couple years ago. The place we stayed the first “night” wasn’t particularly memorable. There was a popular ATV trail about 100yds through the woods from our tent that people were on all night and the Air Force was conducting some type of training in the sky above so it was kind of like trying to get to sleep during World War III. Not exactly the wilderness experience.

Things picked up the next day, however. We drove out to Chugach National Park, which is a little South of Anchorage. It was our first taste of real Alaska - the road snaked out from the highway up into the mountains, soon revealing a valley below with an impressive green range on the other side. Booger whined and strained. At the Park entrance, there was a sign reading: “Warning: You are entering Bear Country” and, hand-written on the sign, were the most recent sightings of grizzlies and black bears. There had been one two days before. Heidi, whose only fear in life as far as I can tell is bears, gripped her hachet tight, which her boyfriend had given her as a birthday gift for her Alaska trip. We pulled into the camp host station to ask about bears and how to avoid them. An open meadow stretched upwards, turning into a steep, wooded side of a mountain. The sun was out and a nice breeze was blowing and Alaska was starting to seem like a pretty stunning place. The camp host was a thirty-something year-old guy named Erin who was originally from Malibu, California and had moved up here in December. “I’m here to stay, man,” he said. “There is no place like this, everything in Alaska is on a bigger scale. You can’t find this amount of wildlife anywhere else. You got wolves, black bears, grizzles (Heidi’s eyes widened), foxes, eagles, and the fishing, man the fishing’s incredible. And the people here are great; they’re real.” (especially compared to Malibu, I thought). “Most of them moved up here, are a little kooky, but are truly good people once you get to know them.” Kate, Tom and I were all nodding, try to soak up the essence of Alaska, but Heidi had other things on her mind. “So people see bears often then?” “Oh, all the time, you’ll probably see one, they make the rounds from campsite to campsite to see if anyone left food out.” Heidi laughed nervously and looked on the verge of tears. “So what should we do if we see one?” I asked. “Well, make sure to put all your food away in the car, even toothpaste, and then if you see one and you’re near your car, get in and honk the horn.” “The bear would probably just eat Booger whole,” we joked. “If your not near your car, just give them plenty of space and they’ll probably go their own way. Don’t make eye contact with them. If one does attack you, they say not to fight back, to just stay still, unless it keeps attacking you, in which case you should fight back.” I was a little unclear as to what point during a bear attack to decide that the bear had attacked you long enough and to begin fighting back but I decided it wouldn’t do Heidi’s nerves a whole lot of good to ask for clarification. “You guys will be fine,” he said, “Bears are all over, but there hasn’t been a mauling since I’ve been here, I don’t know when the last one was. Travel together and make noise and you’ll be fine. Enjoy this place, go hiking, go fishing, take it all in.”

The campground was near Eklutna Lake. We got out of our car and set up our tents in a little spot shaded by birch trees then strolled through the woods until they opened up to Eklutna Lake, a large, aqua-marine lake bordered by layers of dramatic mountains. The mountains in the background were covered with snow and were bathed in sunlight. A warm breeze fluttered through the tall grass surrounding the lake. We all just giggled out of joy. We were the only people in sight. “I feel like I’m in a dream,” Kate said and that really nailed it; it did feel like an entirely different level of existence, it was so peaceful and grand. We got some Alaskan beers out of Booger and returned to the rocky beach and sat propped up against boulders watching the sprawling peaks in awe. Clouds hovered behind the peaks, unable to get by. “This is the best beer of my life,” Tom said and we all nodded in agreement.

Soon, our serenity was interrupted by honking and whistles; apparently there had been a bear sighting. “Oh, god,” Heidi said, with a frantic laugh. Every hour or we’d hear some distant horn honking or whistle blowing and wonder which poor individual was being mauled by a bear. Nevertheless, we survived the night without getting eaten.

The next day, we hiked up a mountain overlooking the lake. The few other hikers we ran into all had guns; we began to feel like Heidi’s six-inch hatchet might be a bit insufficient. As we got higher up the mountain, we’d periodically come across steaming bear “skat,” or poop, on the trail. We all huddled together and huffed and puffed up the trail, trying to make as much noise as possible to scare off the bears. Soon, the trees thinned and were replaced by shrubs and seemingly hundreds of different types of hardy wildflowers of all different colors and shapes dotting the hillsides. The hike was much longer than anticipated but the nice thing about hiking in Alaska in the summer is that you don’t have to worry about it getting dark. As we got high up, we could see the bay way in the distance, glowing orange from the sunset. On the other side, was the sprawling Eklutna lake, a bright aqua marine in sharp contrast to the forest green hills around it. It was cool; we could see planes flying in the valley below us, little white, fast-moving specks. “We’ve climbed a long, f**king way,” said Tom in an Irish brogue, an accent we all adopted for some reason during the trip, perhaps because whatever you said in it could always be passed off as a joke if it was not well-received.

We lounged on the ridge for awhile, looking in awe at the lake and the valley of the river that fed it, carved out between snow-capped mountains. Thinking about how exhausting the hike up had been, I talked with Tom about how few great things come easy. The mountain kept going upwards and couple hundred feet above us grey clouds slipped over the hillside. We were definitely experiencing the world on a grander scale than we were used to. It was nice to be there together, to share the awe we were all in; it had taken awhile to rally the troops to leave the rocky beach by the lake and take a hike, so we left far later than I would have if it had been by myself, and there had been some complaining on the way up, but having people there to hug and to share the experience with made all the previous inconveniences worthwhile. I thought of that last passage written in Chris McCandless’s journal from Into the Wild: Happiness is only real when shared.

We basically ran the whole way down the mountain, hooting and hollering as we did so to scare off bears. We got back to the campsite around 10 or so and it was still light of course and we started a fire and had s’mores for appetizers as the water boiled for rice, which we mixed with our only other available ingredients: canned tuna and powdered broccoli cheddar soup. It was still the most delicious meal I’d had in awhile given how hungry I was from the hike.

The next day, we departed for the Kenai peninsula which is South of Anchorage and home to many accessible glaciers and fjords, which are bays formed by glaciers. We arrived in Seward, Alaska, a fishing town on Resurrection Bay that is the home of the famous “Mount Marathon” race in July where runners race up and down a 3000 ft mountain. We set up our tents on a windy campground right on the foggy bay and then strolled into what locals call the “Bistro District” which is a single, quaint street that has some surprisingly hip coffee shops and stores. The rest of the town consists of small houses and cottages with rugged looking fishing boats and cabin-cruisers parked in the driveways, It was cold and overcast and we all felt like we were truly in Alaska. Clothing stores sold fur winter wear that was, for the most part, more for warmth than fashion. There was the smell of chimney smoke in the air. The “bistro district” road ended at the bay, from which fog poured in. We slid into the “Yukon Bar” near the end of the street, and played pool and a bear-hunting video game (Heidi loved that one) then to another bar where we did karaoke. Alaskans aren’t particularly friendly or unfriendly, they are for the most part just uninterested; seemingly focused enough on their own lives and those close to them that they don’t see the point in making chit chat with strangers. Several times during the trip, someone – say a waitress – would feel obligated to ask where we were from, and we’d reply “Louisiana” and they’d nod and walk away, worried to be engaged in too long of a conversation. A few, however, did ask if we were from Ireland. Then we had some explaining to do. Anyway, we all got pretty drunk at another bar right next to the Yukon that was packed with locals and where ship steering wheels hung on the wall and where we did karaoke and poor Kate left her bag there at the end of the night and the next morning when we returned to look for it, someone had taken it. So she lost her ID, her credit cards, and her cell phone. Also, in our inebriated state, we forgot to zip close the door to the tent at the end of the night and it rained that night so when we woke up, we were all soaked from the knees down.

That next day, after looking in vain for Kate’s bag, we took a cruise out to see the Holgate glacier. It was cold and foggy and there were huge swells heading out towards the open ocean. Steep cliffs with trees somehow clinging to their sides rose up on both sides of us. There were few boats out except for us, and certainly no pleasure craft; the only boats out with us were fishing boats that looked as if they were going into battle, with steel hulls and thick bridge-house windows and massive antennas. Kate, Heidi and I stood outside the cabin on the bow and hung over the railing watching the racing water as the big ship rolled over the swells. “It’s like an amusement park ride with a view,” I said. We saw otters, paddling on their backs, seemingly quite comfortable in the frigid waters; and puffins, who would frantically flap their wings and skid along on their bellies to escape the oncoming ship.

The glacier itself was stunning. After a brief, bumpy stint in open ocean we went into this fjord and began to see chunks of ice in the water. The chunks of ice gradually got bigger and bigger and the air got colder. Clouds of mist glided over the tops of the cliffs on both sides. The fjord ended at the glacier, which was enormous and was a light shade of blue (because the ice was so densely packed that it only reflected certain spectrums of light). The glacier moved as much as a meter a day! You could hear it creaking and every so often you’d hear an especially loud crack and a big chunk of ice would fall off the glacier and make a big splash.

After staring at the glacier for a long time, we headed out to the ocean again towards the Chiswell Island, which are part of the Kenai Fjords National Park. On the way there, the sun came out and a humpback whale surfaced near us and the mist he sprayed out of his spout glowed from the sunlight. He did a couple jumps out of the water like in the Prudential commercials which was pretty stunning. The Chiswell Islands were absolutely magical. They are uninhabited and are clustered a couple miles out in the ocean. They have dramatic, jagged cliffs with tiny rock beaches and bright green trees bursting from the few flat patches of rock and soil on each island. They drove the boat into a couple little inlets where sea lions flopped up the steep rocks and where puffins and seagulls perched on rocks or floated in the water. The sun was out and hit the high clouds at an angle and made the aquamarine water radiate and the mist from the crashing waves glow. We were mostly speechless. I felt like I’d come across the islands from Jurassic Park or King Kong.

That night we returned to Anchorage and the next day was spent resting up and eating in preparation for the marathon. Also, it was Heidi’s birthday so we went out to dinner for that, but we were all a bit nervous about the marathon so it wasn’t exactly unbridled revelry.

The day of the race, Heidi and I woke up at 5:45 and loaded onto the shuttle which took us out of the city to a high school whose mascot was the Golden Bears. We waited in the gym and, painted on the wall, was “You’re in Bear Country.” It was quite chilly and a bit drizzly which I was pretty happy with since that is good running weather. People stretched and ate lots of energy bars. The Mayor’s Marathon is a big Team in Training event, which is the organization affiliated with the Leukemia and Lymphoma society, so there were lots of purple jerseys around from all over the country. A lot of them pinned pictures of friends or family members with cancer to their jerseys. One woman I was next to had a picture of her son. There were definitely a lot of stories behind the purple jerseys. The race (finally) started in the parking lot. There were about a thousand people running the marathon. There was one very skinny black guy who was standing next to me, perfectly still, looking straight ahead. His legs were the width of my forearms arms. He didn’t have any IPOD holder or “fuel belts” and was only wearing a tank top and running shorts. “There’s our winner,” Heidi said. (He ended up coming in second). The Mayor of Anchorage gave a short speech, the point of which seemed to mostly be to inform us that he, also, ran marathons. He told us to stay in groups (to avoid the bears) and to pace ourselves. Well, when the gun fired, people didn’t seem to take his advice, at least concerning the latter piece. Everyone was off to the races and, as I got passed again and again, I couldn’t tell if there were simply a lot of super runners in the race or if they would burn out at mile 10. As we jogged down a trail along the highway and even old guys passed me and the competitive part of me squirmed, I tried to remind myself that 26 miles is a very long way and that my pace would hopefully improve with the miles as I got stretched out and in a rhythm. Soon, we thankfully left the highway and entered property belong to an Army base. The road became two lanes and hilly, with no traffic, forest on both sides and mountains in the distance. We’d all been pretty scared of the hills before the race, looking at the elevation chart, but the uphills were actually a nice challenge and a time when I began to pass people. It also helped that there were lots of Team in Training supporters along the route, who recognized my purple jersey and would cheer me on, “You’re the first Team in Training person we’ve seen,” they’d yell and they’d rattle noisemakers.

Around mile eight, the course turned from asphalt to dirt and narrowed and passed through more rural territory with few spectators save for aid stations. The miles seemed to go a bit quicker at this point. After a couple killer uphills, the dirt road narrowed at mile 16 to a trail through the woods that was about one person wide. I was feeling pretty good and began to pass people pretty steadily. Around mile 17 was the high point of the course, and from there the dirt path changed back to sealed roads and began a wonderful gentle downhill through birch-trees. By this point the density of runners had thinned out a good deal and I had the road mostly to myself. Around mile 21, my legs started complaining and a mile seemed like a longer and longer distance. A Team in Training coach began jogging alongside me, trying to make conversation. “Where are you from?” He was trying to help but chit chat was about the last thing I felt like. My legs were running out of juice and the course, which was now on the outskirts of Anchorage, had changed into an annoying, winding bike path with lots of ups and downs. Eventually, the poor guy got the hint that I wasn’t too keen on talking and fell back. The last miles were definitely tough, especially the last mile that included a steep uphill to the finish line. But despite the discomfort, I kept thinking to myself, as I looked out on sun-lit meadows of the city park and snow-capped peaks in the distance and huffed and puffed, that this is what I truly enjoy. I felt uncomfortable but healthy and pure, like this is what my body was meant to do.

The course ended at another high school, in Anchorage. At the finish line I saw that my finishing time was 3:13, two minutes shy of qualifying for Boston. It was seventeen minutes faster than my Mardi Gras marathon time and I was pleased with it, though I wished I’d been wearing a watch so I could’ve shaved those last two minutes off. Still, I felt like I pushed myself about as hard as I could’ve. I ended up finishing 4th in my age range and 34th overall They had delicious fresh-baked cinnamon-swirl bread at the finish line which I ate a lot of while I waited for my team mates Kate and Heidi to finish. They both did quite well. Kate finished her half-marathon which was a big accomplishment for her and Heidi finished with a time of 4:20, better than she was expecting. That night, we went out to an Irish pub in Anchorage where a Cajun band was playing (what are the odds?) A bunch of the Lousiana contingent were there and we all danced and did a second-line around the bar to the familiar zydeco tunes like “the Saints” and “Jambalaya.” It was a blast. The next day I returned to New Orleans, which was steamin’.

Overall, the Louisiana chapter of Team in Training raised $120,000 for cancer research. I ended up raising $4300. Thanks so much for your all’s support. It was an incredible week.