Arctic Valley 3 June

 Honestly, I could have bailed in mid May (yeh thank you jury duty for holding me hostage) for Moscow, but I did not want to miss Arctic Valley. So, following in my footsteps from previous years, I decided to bail for Moscow AFTER WINNING Arctic Valley :)

This is one of my favorite races and I love the 10k climb. Leonid opted for the 5 mile again and won the guys division overall! I start serious hill training in Februray for this which often means treadmill sessions in the village. This year, I had a fair challenge.  Kamie Miller who won the 49K in 2019 was hot on my heels. I was able to pull away on the climb, but my lead was less than two minutes at the turnaround. I am a climber and she is a descender. I had about 1:30 on her at the top and she was able to close about 30 secods of that on the downhill. I went eyeballs out on the descent just focusing on holding that gap. I usually win this race by pulling away at my own pace on the climb and hanging on for a strong downhill. I ended up with the win and a gap of just under a minute-whew that was an assbuster but the job got done. Time to hit the pause buttin on Alaska racing until August and head to my other home for a bit. Next stop-Moscow!

MAY

 This year, I'm mixing things up a bit. I'll be racing in May until Arctic Valley June 4. Then I'm going to do something I have not been able to do in FOUR YEARS- get out of Alaska. I have not even been to the lower 48 much less overseas. Covid wrecked it for two years. Last year, Leonid and I had plans to go back to Moscow, but......I do not think I need to elaborate too much on that. Plus tickets  were 4600$ a person out of Seattle so we were sadly forced to sh!tcan the idea another year. Well, I have staycationed for the last three years. I'm getting out June, July and depending on how things go, may hold over into August to get all medical and dental taken care of while I have the opportunity to do so. I now have all of May-September off because we went to a long summer/subsistence school calendar. It also gives us three weeks at Christmas as well. I'm basically seven months off and five on now, so I can now have the best of both worlds with my time off-split it between Alaska and Russia. Yes, that is the plan. Regardless of the current "weather" this is about taking care of personal business, seeing family and friends, taking care of all the medical and dental you have to be a damn millionaire to afford in the US even WITH insurance.. Yes, my teeth are bad  and work has piled up because I have not traveled out since 2019 when I returned from Moscow to close on my home in Anchorage! So, let's just say, this should be a non boring summer.

6 May

Salmon Run-

I last did this in 2003, when I drove down from Fairbanks to sign a contract in Wasilla to be the Russian bilngual teacher at Wasilla HS ! 

20 years later and still getting into shape early in the season, I pulled off a win! Leonid wasn't feeling quite ready to race yet and watched.

20 May- Heart Run!

Yes- postponed a month because it was a super snowy over 100 inches of snow winter! I last did this in April of 2005 before moving to Moscow! I decided to do this one as a tune up tempo run to help prepare for things to come.

18 years later since my last run- 6th overall first masters :) I didn't get pix- doh!

27 May- Trent Waldron 10k

No half marathon again this year so I could be 100%for Arctic Valley. Leonid won the age grading I finished 2nd and third overall no age grading. This is the race where they age grade your times. So that 70 year old granny has a good chance of beating the youngsters :)