Race Report: Humpy's Marathon

On August 16, I ran Humpy’s Marathon, which is part of the Anchorage Runfest.  Besides the marathon, they also have a mile race, a kids’ 2K, a 5K, a half marathon, and a 49K.

At the beginning of the year, I set a goal of running a second Boston Qualifier in every state.  At the time, there were only six states where I didn’t already have two BQs, so I scheduled races in those six states.  Alaska was one of those states.

I got my second BQ in South Carolina, but I failed in my attempts in New Mexico and Ohio.  In June, I found out I was anemic, which explained why I was suddenly much slower.

About two months ago, I started taking iron pills.  Now, I’m feeling stronger.  I didn’t know if I’ve recovered completely, but I was ready to give it a try.

Friday, August 14

I flew to Anchorage Friday morning.  It was a six-hour flight, but there’s a three-hour time difference, so I still got to Anchorage before noon.

My hotel was in the downtown area.  I took a taxi to the hotel.  After that, I could walk everywhere I needed to go, so I didn’t need to rent a car.

It was too early to check into a room, so I left my bags at the hotel and had lunch.  After lunch, I walked to packet pickup, which was in a church at the other end of the downtown area.

This race was a reunion of the 50 States Marathon Club, so they had a booth at packet pickup.  I was talking to some of the other club members for about an hour before walking back to my hotel.

By the time I got into a hotel room, I was already starting to get tired.  It was only 4:00 in Alaska, but it felt like 7:00 to me.  I was originally planning to go for a run on the coastal trail, but I decided to have an early dinner instead.

After dinner, I was talking to a couple of guys at the bar.  When I finally got back to the hotel, I went right to bed.  It turned out to be a rough night.

I slept for a couple of hours.  Then I woke up feeling sick.  I felt like I needed to stay perfectly still or I might throw up.  For several minutes I waited patiently for this feeling to pass.  Then I suddenly felt flush from head to toe.  I recognized this feeling from the only other time I’ve had food poisoning.  I knew instantly that I needed to rush to the bathroom before I threw up.

I had to clamp my hand over my mouth to keep from throwing up on the carpet.  I made it to the bathroom, but my mouth and nose were now full of vomit.  I emptied my stomach contents into the bathroom sink.  Then the diarrhea started.

I had to blow my nose several times, but the taste of that made me throw up again.  When I eventually felt ready to go back to bed, I still felt the residue of stomach acid burning my nose and sinuses.  That made it almost impossible to get back to sleep.  The good news is that the race wasn’t until Sunday, so I had all day Saturday to recover.

Saturday, August 15

I was finally drifting back to sleep when the sound of a phone alarm woke me up.  I simultaneously heard the phone vibrate and play a familiar melody.  I didn’t think I set an alarm, but I reached for my phone to check.  It wasn’t my phone making those sounds.  It must have been coming from the room adjacent to mine, and I heard it through the wall.

It was 3:30 AM, and I was now wide awake again.  I rested in bed until 6:00, but I never got back to sleep.  At 6:00, I heard a train whistle.  It was good to know that the trains don’t start until 6:00.

I got up, made a cup of tea, showered, and did my morning stretches.  By now, my digestive system seemed to have stabilized, so I went downstairs to eat breakfast.  I was still reluctant to put food in my system, but I knew I needed to eat.  I was feeling frail.  I also needed to start rehydrating.

I stayed at the hotel all morning.  I did some exercises, but I wasn’t ready to venture out until lunch time.  There was a pre-race pasta feed in a tent outside Flattop Pizza.  I skipped that in favor of having pizza inside the restaurant.

It was a large meal.  I didn’t know if my digestive system was still fragile, so I went back to the hotel to lay low for a while.  It was a shame to be in Alaska and not do any sightseeing, even within the downtown area, but my priority was saving my strength for the race.

The same tent used for the pasta feed was also used for the meeting of the 50 States Marathon Club.  The club meeting started shortly after the pasta feed was done.

One of the things they do at reunions is recognize people who have recently finished a round of marathons in all 50 states.  I completed my fifth circuit of states in 2024 at the Route 66 Marathon.  This was the first reunion I attended since then, so it was my chance to talk about my journey.

After the meeting, I had a light dinner and went straight to bed.  I slept for more than 10 hours.

Sunday, August 16

Sunday was race day.  The race started at 8:30 AM in front of Humpy’s Ale House.  That was close enough that I could walk to the start.

The temperature was in the upper 50s, and it was cloudy.  I had been worried about the possibility of rain.  It rained during the night, but it didn’t rain at all during the race.

For a Boston qualifier, I needed a time of 4:05 or faster.  A month or two ago, that time would’ve been unthinkable.  In the last two weeks, I’ve had some encouraging training runs, and I also had encouraging race results at the Minnesota Senior Games.  It was far from clear if I could run a marathon in 4:05, but if I squinted just right, I could convince myself it was plausible.  As long as there was a realistic chance, I had to give it a try.

All of my recent training and all of my recent races have been in hot conditions.  The cool conditions in Anchorage gave me the best possible chance for a BQ.  If nothing else, it was my first good chance to test myself.

I lined up behind the 4:00 pace group, and I stayed close to them for the first mile.  We started out on downtown streets.  As we left the downtown area, we ran down a steep hill, and I accidentally got in front of the group.  As we got onto the Coastal Trail, I let the group get ahead of me again.  By the end of the first mile, the pace was already starting to feel tiring.

Our pace for the first mile was a little fast, but it’s worth noting there was a lot of downhill running in that mile.  In the second mile, I fell back from the group to try to find my own pace.

For the next few miles, we had good views of the bay.  I was focused on running, but other runners have reported seeing beluga whales from this part of the course.

To finish in 4:05, I would need to average 9:20 per mile.  My watch tends to give me splits before I reach the mile markers, so I needed the splits from my watch to be a few seconds faster than that.

After falling behind the pace group, I was running by myself.  There were lots of people  running with the 4:00 and 4:15 pace groups, but only a handful of runners were in between.  I was in no man’s land, so I had to pay more attention to my effort to stay on a consistent pace.

Mile one had been faster than nine minutes, but the next two miles were 9:12 and 9:15.  After three miles, I was already coming to the conclusion that this pace was unsustainable.  It was already feeling too tiring.  In particular, I was breathing much harder than I normally do during a marathon.  My aerobic capacity still isn’t what it used to be.

I knew I wouldn’t stay on this pace, but in mile four, I only slowed down a little.  I ran that mile in 9:20.

A hiker on the trail pointed out a moose in the woods.  If there’s moose on the trail in front of you, you need to stop and wait for it to leave.  This one was far enough off the trail that I could keep running.

Because I was determined to try for a BQ, I didn’t bring my phone with me.  I didn’t want to be carrying any extra weight.  For the first time, I regretted that decision.  I couldn’t take any pictures.

Looking ahead of me, I could still see the 4:00 group.  They were going up a hill.  I had already run up and down a few smaller hills, but I could see that this one was going to slow me down.  Sure enough, three other runners passed me on the hill.

After that, there was another hill that also slowed me down.  I knew mile five was going to be slow, but it was still discouraging to slow down by more than a minute.  I ran that mile in 10:34.

After that, I had to find a pace that I could sustain for 21 more miles.  I settled into a pace of about 10 minutes per mile.  I was still working, but this pace wouldn’t break me.

We were running a long out-and-back on the Coastal Trail, which is a paved bike path.  When I saw the first runner coming back, I saw from the color of his race bib that he was doing the 49K race.  It surprised me to see a 49K runner ahead of all the marathon runners.  The 40K race started 30 minutes earlier, but their out-and-back was five miles longer.

I eventually started to see other runners coming back.  At first, there were just a few.  Then I saw the 3:30 pace group.  Before long, I would also see the 3:45 and 4:00 groups coming back.

I was almost to the 8-mile mark when the 4:15 group passed me.  At my current pace, that was inevitable.  Shortly after that, I reached the turnaround.

Coming back, I started to catch up with runners who had taken the early start.  Other than them, I wasn’t seeing a lot of runners going in my direction.  Mostly, I was seeing runners who were still on their way out.  Every so often, I saw another pace group: 4:30, then 4:45, then 5:00.  The groups were getting smaller.  One pacer only had one runner with her.  The last one I saw was by himself.

Just past the 11-mile mark, I encountered a hill that was steep enough that I had to walk most of it.  I had been keeping my pace pretty close to 10 minutes, but in that mile, I slowed to 10:36.

At the halfway point, I was on pace to break 4:20, but only because I had started with four faster miles.  At my current pace, I expected to finish with a time in the 4:20s.  My new goal, at this point, was to keep my time under 4:30.

Just before the 15-mile mark, we left the Coastal Trail to turn onto the Chester Creek Trail.  Now we were doing an out-and-back on this trail that took us across the city.

The half marathon started at the same time as the marathon, but their course didn’t go very far on the Coastal Trail.  They did the out-and-back on the Chester Creek Trail, but not the out-and-back I had just finished on the Coastal Trail.

Immediately after turning onto this trail, I started to see half marathon runners who were on their way back.  The first time I saw a marathon runner coming back, I did the math.  He was on pace to break three hours.  Faster runners had already gone by.  Shortly after that, I saw a 3:00 pace group for the half marathon.

The first four miles on the Chester Creek trail were relatively flat.  I had an easier time keeping up a consistent pace on this trail.

Although we were running through the city, we rarely saw any buildings.  We were running through the woods, so it felt like we were in the wilderness.

I was about two and a half miles from the turnround when I reached a junction in the trail.  There were arrows pointing to the right, but there was another trail that went to the left.  This is where I missed a turn the last time I ran on this course.  This time, the turn seemed pretty obvious.

After making that turn, I saw a long hill heading up to a bridge over the freeway.  This hill was steep enough that I had to walk most of it.  That resulted in another slow mile.

As soon as I reached the bridge, I resumed running.  After crossing the freeway, there was a brief downhill section, but there were more hills from there to the turnaround.

I once again started to see pace groups coming back.  I was still two miles from the turnaround when I saw the 3:30 group.  When I saw the 3:45 group, I was only a mile and a half from the turnaround.  Before I got there, I would also see the 4:00 and 4:15 groups.

When I saw the 4:15 group coming back, I started watching for the turnaround.  There were several turns on this section, and I couldn’t see the turnaround until after I came around the last bend.

As I made the turn, I checked my time.  I was three quarters done with the race, and I was now on pace to finish in about 4:23.  I was pretty confident I could keep my time in the 4:20s, but I still had to come back over the hilly section.

As I came around the first turn, I saw the 4:30 group.  I wasn’t expecting them to be so close to be.  I was determined to stay ahead of them, but I still had six and a half miles to go.

The next mile was another slow one, because of the hills.  Coming back up to the bridge was another hill, but in this direction, it wasn’t as tough.  After crossing the bridge, I had a nice long downhill section.  I used that to get back on pace.

After that hill, the trail leveled off.  All the way back to the coastal trail, I was able to keep every mile under 10 minutes.

Signs for the marathon and half marathon were every mile.  Signs for the 49K race were every 5K.  When I saw the 45K sign, I knew I had only 4K to go, since both races finish the same way.  Then I saw a 46K sign.  I realized then that the 49K race would now have signs every kilometer.

With about two miles to go, I turned back onto the Coast Trail, which would lead us back to downtown.  The next mile was slightly uphill, but I was able to keep up my pace.

Near the end of that mile, I saw several signs in rapid succession.  First, I saw the 47K sign for the 49K race.  Then I saw the 25-mile sign for the marathon.  Then I saw the 12-mile sign for the half marathon.  After that, there was a one mile to go sign.

I did a time check.  I would easily break 4:30, but I would have to work for it.  I remembered how much downhill running there was in the first mile.  Now I had to run all of that in the uphill direction.

I ran through a tunnel where I was greeted by a guy playing a saxophone.  He was playing “I Wanna Dance With Somebody.”  Right after that tunnel, the hill got steeper, and my quads started to ache.

I was forcing myself to run uphill, but then I reached a short bridge with loose boards.  That was too uncomfortable for my aching quads.  I had to walk across the bridge, but then I forced myself to resume running.

I knew when I made the next turn, I would start up a steeper hill on city streets.  The approach to the turn was also slightly uphill, and that softened me up.  When I turned the corner and started up the steeper hill, I had to walk most of it.  Two other runners went by me.

After that hill, I was finally able to run the rest of the way.  When I made the last turn onto Fifth Avenue, I could see the finish line.

A runner passed me on my right.  He looked too young to be in my age group, so I didn’t make any effort to race him to the finish.

I finished the race in 4:22:53.  It was nowhere close to a Boston qualifier, but it’s my fastest marathon since March.  I’m not there yet, but I’m making progress.

Fishing is a big part of the local economy, so instead of finisher medals, they called them “fishiner” medals.  People sometimes think that’s a spelling error, but it’s deliberate.  I placed first in my age group, so I got an extra medal to put on my ribbon.

I also got a mug.

After the race, I went to the beer garden, where I saw several other members of the 50 States Marathon Club.  It had been cloudy all morning, but as soon as I got to the beer garden the sun came out.

I don’t need to fly home until tomorrow.  After getting cleaned up, I went to dinner at one of the local breweries.  I didn’t go back to the one where I got food poisoning.

Race statistics:

Distance:  26.2 miles

Time:  4:22:53

Average Pace:  10:02 per mile

First Half:  2:09:44

Second Half:  2:13:09

Place in Age Group:  1st

Marathons/Ultras in 2026:  29

Lifetime Marathons/Ultras:  601

I Think I understand Why I'm Not Getting Enough Iron

This is a follow-up on yesterday’s post about anemia.

As I mentioned in my last post, my anemia could be a nutritional issue, or it could be a symptom of some other medical condition.  I’m now fairly optimistic that it’s a nutritional issue.

There are two sides to that.  I need to get enough iron in my diet, but I also need to absorb the iron I’m eating.  I think I’m getting enough iron, but I don’t think I’ve been absorbing enough of it.

To absorb iron, it’s important to get enough vitamin C.  I don’t think that’s a problem.  I eat a lot of fruit, including tangerines and cherries, which are both good sources of vitamin C.  I also take a multivitamin that included vitamin C.

There are a number of foods which can interfere with the absorption of iron.  That’s where I think my diet has been a problem.

I think like an engineer.  For most of my life, I was a software developer.  A big part of my job was diagnosing and fixing problems.  If something used to work, but now it doesn’t, the first question I ask myself is, “What changed?”

I made major changes to my diet 15 months ago.  I used to be on a typical American diet.  Now, I’m on a Mediterranean diet.  If the dietary changes I made 15 months ago were causing problems, why did I only recently start having problems?  With that in mind, I started to look for more recent changes in my diet.

Yesterday, I started taking an iron supplement.  When I read the instruction sheet, I saw this: “Some foods like eggs, whole grain breads, cereal, dairy products, coffee and tea may made this drug not work as well.”  I also read elsewhere that coffee, tea, and dairy products can inhibit the absorption of iron.  That’s when the light bulb went on.

I’m not a coffee drinker, and I seldom eat eggs or cereal.  I drink tea in the morning, but that’s not a recent change.  I’ve been drinking tea for years.  My diet includes whole grain breads, but that’s also not a recent change.  What did change recently is the volume of dairy products I consume.

In January, I started drinking warm milk in the evening to help me get to sleep.  Most nights, I drink one cup of milk.  Some nights, I have a second cup.  Drinking a cup or two of milk each night was a big change to my diet.

The timing makes sense.  I started drinking a lot more milk in January.  Since then, I haven’t been absorbing enough iron.  By March, I was starting to have some disappointing race results.  By April, I was much slower.  Every month since then has been worse, as my iron levels kept declining.

In addition to taking an iron supplement, I’m making a few changes to my diet.  The biggest change will be eliminating the evening milk.  Instead, I’ll drink tart cherry juice, which also helps with sleep, but won’t inhibit absorption of iron.  It’ll actually help with absorption, since it’s a source of vitamin C.

I’ll still drink tea, but instead of 3-4 cups per day, I’ll cut back to one or two.  I'll still drink tea with breakfast, but instead of drinking tea with my lunch, I’ll drink orange juice, which also gives me more vitamin C.

With these changes, I should be able to absorb enough of the extra iron.

I haven’t ruled out other possible causes of my anemia.  I still plan to have a colonoscopy to screen for colon cancer, but I’m hopeful that’s not the problem.  I would’ve been due for a colonoscopy next year anyway.

Before I can get better, I first have to stop getting worse.  Recently, I’ve been getting significantly more tired from one month to the next.  Hopefully, my iron levels will now stabilize.

It’ll take longer to actually feel better.  It takes time to produce red blood cells.  I expect it’ll take at least a few weeks before I start to have more energy.  It’ll probably take a few months for my iron levels to get back to normal.

I have several races scheduled next month.  Those will still be slow.  Summer races tend to be slow anyway.  I’ll be content just to finish.

My more important races aren’t until the fall.  By then, I’ll hopefully be feeling better and running stronger.

One of my biggest goals every year is to qualify for the Boston Marathon.  Right now, I can’t come anywhere close to running a qualifying time.  Fortunately, I’ve already qualified for next year’s race.  Qualifying for 2028 won’t begin until September, and I’ll have almost a year to get a qualifying time.  I can afford to be patient. 

I Finally Understand Why I'm Feeling So Sluggish.

For the past few months, I’ve been feeling sluggish and having poor race results.  I’m finally starting to understand why.

I first noticed a drop-off in my race performance earlier in the year.  In most races, my goal is to run a Boston-qualifying time.  In early 2025, the time I needed to beat was 3:50, and I was doing that consistently.

Later in the year, I had moved into a new age group.  I only need to beat 4:05, but I still tried to run faster if I could.  I was consistently running times in the 3:50s, and on a good day I could get into the 3:40s.

By the beginning of this year, I was still running qualifying times, but I could no longer get under four hours.  The only time this year that I’ve broken four hours was at the Mt. Charleston Marathon, which has more than 5,000 feet of net descent.  On a course like that, I expect to be 20 minutes faster.

In March, I had my annual follow-up with my cardiologist.  A year earlier I learned that I not only had high cholesterol, but I had more arterial plaque than more than 90 percent of other men my age.

I mentioned my drop-off in performance to my cardiologist.  I wondered if I wasn’t getting blood to my muscles as efficiently because of all that arterial plaque.  She said it doesn’t work that way.  If I was slowing down, it was either my training or just the result of getting older.

Just to be on the safe side, she ordered a stress echocardiogram.  It showed no abnormalities.  All my images looked normal, and my vital signs were normal.  That was at the end of March.

Since then, my performance has dropped off dramatically, and I’ve sometimes felt tired just doing normal daily activities, like walking up stairs.

It started with the Albuquerque Marathon.  I was hoping to get my second BQ in New Mexico.  The elevation in Albuquerque is about 5,000 feet.  I expect to be at least five minutes slower at that elevation, so I knew I would need a good race.

I started out on pace, but I was intensely out of breath.  It didn’t feel like I was at 5,000 feet.  I felt more like I would expect to feel at 8,000 feet.  I held the pace for eight or nine miles, but then I had to give up on a BQ.  After that, the rest of my race was like train wreck in slow motion.

My next race was in Newport, RI.  That’s at sea level, but it’s a hilly course.  I was hoping to finish in four hours, so I could quickly get on the road to drive to Boston.  I started with the 4:00 pace group, but I fell behind on the first hill.  I caught up on the downhill, but I had the same experience on every hill.

After about five miles of repeatedly falling behind on hills and catching up later, I finally couldn’t catch up again.  I ran the rest of the race on my own pace.

Later in the race, on another hilly section, I had to start taking walking breaks on the hills.  I was blowing up badly.  I eventually finished in 4:40.

Two days later, I ran the Boston Marathon.  After blowing up in Newport, I knew that race would be slow, but I was still surprised how slow I was.  It was my slowest Boston Marathon ever.  It was slower than the year I race-walked the whole way, and it was slower than the year that I had only six weeks of training.

My next race was the Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati.  I had two weeks to recover from Newport and Boston, and that’s usually enough.

This was another goal race for me.  I was hoping to get my second BQ in Ohio.  The course is somewhat hilly, but the hills all come in the first half of the race, when I would still be fresh.  I’ve qualified for Boston on this course before, so I knew it was possible with a good race.

Early in the race there are a few bridges.  Those were tiring, but I was staying on pace.  The toughest section was a long hill between the downtown area and the zoo.  I knew I would fall off the pace on this section, but I was hoping I could make it up later.  I lost too much time.  By the time I finally crested the hill, I knew a BQ wasn’t happening.

Near the halfway point, the 4:10 pace group caught up to me.  I ran with them for a few miles, but that pace was still too fast for me.  I dropped back and slowed down, eventually finishing in 4:32.  Earlier in the year I was disappointed that I couldn’t break four hours.  Just a few months later, I was 30 minutes slower.

It got much worse.  My next race was the night Marathon in Luxembourg.  That race has a tough uphill section later in the race, but I was struggling long before I got there.  Even on smaller hills, I needed to take walking breaks.  In that race, I couldn’t even break five hours.

Since then, my races have all been on difficult courses or in hot conditions, so I expected to be slow.  Still, my results have been somewhat alarming.  At the Icefjord Midnight Marathon in Greenland, I needed almost all of the seven-hour time limit.  I was the last official finisher.  It was the first time I ever finished last in a marathon.

In the Jackal Marathons, I was always one of the last finishers.  There were never more than two people finishing behind me.

It’s not just my races that have been slow.  My training runs have been really sluggish.  I start a run feeling like I’m running at a somewhat spirited pace.  Then I see my first split, and it’s much slower than I was expecting.

I’m not a young man any more.  I know my days of effortlessly running an eight-minute pace are over.  Still, there’s something wrong when I’m putting in the same effort and my pace is slower than 12 minutes.  That's not run/walk.  That's my running pace.

I feel like I’m totally out of shape.  I’ve kept up my training, yet every run feels like it’s my first run in six months.

I’m still doing the same strength training exercises that I’ve done for the last few years.  When I run a marathon, I don’t get sore muscles, nor do I feel sore the next day.  The leg strength is there.  I just get tired.

A while back, I was talking with one of my sisters.  She asked me if I’ve been tested for anemia.  At the time, I didn’t think that was likely to be my problem.

More than a year ago, I switched to a Mediterranean diet.  I rarely eat red meat now, and that’s one of the best sources of iron.  I eat a lot of salads with spinach, and that’s one of the better plant-based sources of iron.  I take a daily multivitamin, and I assumed that had some iron.  When I discovered my multi didn’t have any iron, I decided it was finally time to see a doctor.  I didn’t know if was anemia, but I felt like there had to be a medical reason.  The rapid drop-off in my cardiovascular fitness couldn’t be fully explained by aging or any recent change in training.

I had a doctor appointment yesterday.  After discussing my symptoms and my medical history, the doctor ordered several lab tests.  The first result to come back was the blood counts.  My red blood cell count, hemoglobin, and hematocrit were all low.  My ferratin was also low.  Those are all indicators of anemia.  My blood just isn’t carrying as much oxygen as it should.  That completely explains my poor race performances and how sluggish I’ve been feeling.  It’s a real relief to know that there’s a medical explanation.

All of my other test results were normal.  One mystery was solved, but the next question is why I’m anemic.

I’m hoping my anemia is just a result of not getting enough iron in my diet.  It’s also possible I’m not eating the right foods for iron to be absorbed well.  If it’s just a nutritional issue, that would be the best-case scenario.

The worst case is that my anemia is a secondary symptom of some other underlying medical condition.  One possible cause could be colon cancer, so I need to have a colonoscopy.  The earliest I could get an appointment was August, so I won’t know any more until then.

In the meantime, I’ll be taking an iron supplement.