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 :) 

Mile time trials May 18, July 13 and Aug 10

 Anchorage Running Club has been offering monthly mile time trials since May. This was a great way to check speed and fitness throughout the season. 

May 18-

I had just flown in from Bethel the night before and this was my first time in spikes since 2020! That said, it was also suddenly HOT like near 70 F hot when just two weeks ago I had woken up to SNOW in the yard! Somehow I had managed to put down my best mile since 2014! My goal was to keep trying to improve. I actually had not raced a mile since the Moscow indoor series in December of 2018!

July 13-

This one was not as good-4 seconds off May but this was also the time that left hammy started giving me crap and I didn't want to exacerbate the situation. I ran evenly, but just a bit slower than in May. Also, I was not surprised that speed was down as I had been upping the volume in July. 

August 10-

Apparently, four days was enough to recover from that double. I failed to mention that after the double i did a "cool down" enough to squeak in a 30k for the day. After that, I began to cut the volume to begin prepping my legs for upcoming stuff. This produced my best mile since my indoor heyday in Moscow in 2013/2014 cutting 4 seconds from the time in May. I had the irritation of little kid interference in the last 200 though that our group did not know was going to suddenly just decide to use the track during our time trial. So annoying.....

Alaska Distance Classic Double Up 6 August

 I was happy to be able to do this one in person again. Last year, I literally missed it by a day because I had to fly back to work. I won the double in 2019. This is the one where you run the 5 then head to the start of the 10 shortly after. Both the 5k and 10k are scored separately then they tally your overall time for the double up. A couple days after the half, that damn left hammy developed a bruise. Oddly enough, I iced the crap out of it after the race and it slowly began to quit bothering me. I actually did a 35k training run the following weekend with no issues other than an ugly backside.  After that, I went dipnetting and camped out for 5 days and caught a lot of reds to fill the freezer. I just did easy 15 k runs those days and that left leg settled down completely. Whew. 

My ugly ass leg and long run that featured fresh bear scat!

I had planned to run the 5 easy because I still had to run the 10. Again, I was treating this as a long interval workout FYI. I started out in 4th and by the 2nd km had eeked up to 2nd. OH crap! I'm going to have to actually bust my butt because now I'm going for top 3! I had put a decent chunk of real estate between the 3rd and 4th place ladies. Well.....with about 800 to go, I knew they were starting to go loke hell behind me so I just kept plugging away damned if I was going to give up my spot. Top 3 go on gun time not chip time and I ended up in a dogfight to the finish. I finished 2nd,(first masters) 3rd was just over a second back 4th was actually7 seconds back on gun time but only a second behind us on chip time. That was just too close!

Now onto the 10-

I thought I was really going to pay for this. I had cut a minute from my 2019 5k and the 5 and 10 are not on fast courses. The 10 is definitely not fast because it's got a few mild rollers and a couple km of trail around the lake. I went out sane and after the 1st km eeked up to 2nd overall again. Knowing the ladies behind could kick, I just opened that gap as widely as I could during the 10. By 4k, I still only had about 20 seconds, but by the time I hit the dirt section by the lake, I was alone and just had to hold my position. The 10 turned out to be easier because I just got away and stayed away. I ended up cutting nearly 3 minutes from my 2019 time as well. 2nd in the 10 2nd in the double first masters and hammy no longer an issue.

                                        ALL THE PROOF YOU NEED I'M NOT A MORNING PERSON!

                                      Awards-overall 2nd in the 5 and 10 top masters 5 and 10(busy day)

Skinny Raven Half 17 July

 WET WET WET

Usually, this one is hot and sunny. Right after the fist week of July, things went from drought to record WET. This one was a soaker. My left hammy had been acting up off and on over the last week too. Ice and rest seemed to have taken care of it. I noticed it was grumpy about a week earlier when I was doing a track workout. My goal was not to further aggravate it here ,but I needed this half as a good barometer run and workout for other upcoming things that were on the table. I was going to have to decide very soon what exactly would be on or off the table the rest of the season and which direction I would take my training. I had officially hit that fork in the road. 

I ran pretty even throughout moving up throughout the way eventually ending up 5th/1st masters.Sure, I could have easily won the 10k after seeing the times, but I needed this tempo race to really see where I was endurance wise. I managed to cut a minute off of last year's time rivaling my 2015 performance here despite that nagging left hammy. In 2015, I had just flown in from Moscow and ran this one still tired from that.