Fairbanks

Finally, we have some really nice weather. Yesterday and today we have had full sunshine with temperatures in the 70s. This is after about of week of rain and much colder temperatures than usual. Of course, being from South Mississippi, these temps felt even colder to me.

We arrived in Fairbanks on Friday and it was still raining so we found a city recreation center where we were able to workout and shower. I ended up doing 5.25 miles on the treadmill. Had I known I would race a 5K the next day, I would not have worked out at all.

 Later Friday, we found out about the "Run From the Cops 5K" that would be held the next day. I called around and found that we could register race day, but not be guaranteed a shirt. Since I have hundreds of shirts, that was not a problem. In general, it was a good race with about 180 runners/walkers. Unlike MS races, they did not have age group awards. All they gave were the top three male and female.

The course was a bit long (3.2) and I think my time was about 29:15. I'm OK with that because I certainly did not follow my usual pre-race routine. In addition to running the day before, I also overslept so I did not have time to do a proper warmup and I forgot and left my Garmin and my iPod in the trailer. I can't recall how many years it has been since I have done a race without those two gadgets. During the run, I had no idea of pace and not having feedback on distance, it felt like a 10K rather than a 5K.

The run from the cops theme involved a group of policemen starting 2 minutes after the general field and them running 30 minutes for the 5K. In theory, if you ran a 32 minute 5K, you beat the cops. Overall, this was a well organized event, with a nice course and lots of donuts after the race. I did get a shirt, but it is a large and I will give it to son Robin. It is bright orange (think inmate colors) and the design is really unique involving bad guys being chased by cops with the "O" in cops being a donut.

We spent the afternoon seeing the sights of Fairbanks. The most interesting place was a business that has been here for over 100 years. They make wood bowls out of Alaska birch, using a technique that is not common. Check out http://www.woodbowl.com for more information. I thought of my friend Neil Solomon who makes such beautiful bowls, but uses a different technique.

This afternoon we will drive back to the Denali area where we hope to get a clear view of MT McKinley. We've been to Denali three times and have yet to see more than half of the mountain.