Marathon #43: 2026 Anchorage Mayor’s Marathon

I'm thrilled to share that this weekend I ran the 2026 Anchorage Mayor's Marathon, my 43rd marathon overall and one I have been looking forward to for a long time. Not only did it cross Alaska off my list on the journey to running a marathon in all 50 states, but it was my strongest race of the year so far…

The Mayor's Marathon is run on the weekend of the summer solstice, and it has earned its nickname as the Midnight Sun marathon. This far north, on the longest day of the year, Anchorage gets nearly 19 hours of daylight! The sun barely dips below the horizon, and it doesn't truly set until close to midnight. There is something special about toeing the line knowing the day will never really go dark. We started at 7:30am on Saturday morning, and the sun was already high and bright in the sky.

The forecast was about as good as a marathoner can hope for. It was sunny and clear with a 0% chance of rain. This was a welcome change after the rain-and-wind battles I fought at Detroit and Big Beach earlier in this stretch of races. The temperature started at a crisp 56℉ and only climbed to about 64℉ by the finish, with a low dew point and just a gentle 8mph breeze off the water. Better still, the course spends most of its miles tucked into shaded trails through the woods, so even as the sun rose, I was running under a cool canopy for the majority of the race. I could not have asked for friendlier conditions.

I came into this one fit and healthy for once, having strung together a clean training block with no illness or injury derailing my long runs. Because of that, I set goals I actually believed I could chase, building my plan around a 3:15 target:

• C Goal: 3:15:00
• B Goal: 3:10:00
• A Goal: 3:05:00

From the gun, I locked into a controlled rhythm right around 7:00/mi and just sat there. The opening miles ticked by like a metronome—7:03, 7:03, 7:01, 7:04—with my heart rate parked at a comfortable 153 the whole time. The only early hiccup was a climb on mile 6 that pushed me to 7:12, but as soon as the trail tipped back down I rolled right through a stretch of 6:53–6:56 miles without any extra effort. I crossed the half at 1:34:16, feeling strong and very much in control, which is a feeling I have been missing in my recent races.

What I love about looking back at the splits is how flat that bar chart is. Outside of the one hill on mile 6, every single mile of the race fell between 6:47 and 7:12. No blow-up, no death march, no yo-yo of speeding up and crashing. Just 26 miles of the same honest, repeatable effort. After a string of marathons where the second half turned into a survival shuffle, running this evenly felt like getting an old friend back.

This is not a flat course, though. The Mayor's Marathon weaves through Anchorage's greenbelt and trail system. Comprised of The Tour of Anchorage trail, Chester Creek, and the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail, the course racks up nearly 1,000 feet of climbing along the way. After dropping down to the coast early on, the course grinds steadily uphill from around mile 11 all the way to a high point above 320 feet near miles 17–18. That is exactly where a marathon usually starts to unravel, and where my heart rate began its slow climb from 153 up into the 160s.

But here is the part I am most proud of: I never once stopped to walk. Not at a single aid station, not on a single hill. Not the whole way. If you have read any of my recent reports, you know that has not been the case lately. Detroit, Big Beach, even Grandma's all had me taking walking breaks in the back half just to hang on. This time I kept my feet moving the entire 26.2, grabbing water on the run and pushing right on through every climb. As the hills bit and my heart rate drifted up toward 168, I just told myself to hold form and keep turning the legs over.

Even better, I had something left for the finish. Coming off the high point and back down toward the city, I actually got faster. Mile 23 was deep into the part of the race where I am usually falling apart and was my single fastest mile of the day at 6:47. I closed out the last 10K by reeling people in rather than getting passed, and ran my final mile at 6:55. My two halves came out almost dead even (1:34:16 out, 1:35:54 back) on a hilly course, which is about as well as I know how to execute a marathon.

I crossed the line in 3:10:10, an average pace of 7:15/mi. That landed me right on my B Goal, just a hair over the 3:10 line, and well inside my 3:15 training target. The 3:05 A Goal slipped away by a few minutes, but honestly, I am not the least bit disappointed. My average heart rate of 159 and the way I finished tell me the fitness is there, and that sub-3:05 is squarely in reach on a flatter day.

The result that really made me smile, though, was the placement. I finished 19th overall out of 820 marathon finishers, and grabbed 3rd place in the Male 40–49 age group, an actual podium spot! A little bittersweet detail: my time was almost identical to Grandma's Marathon a year ago (3:10:22 there vs. 3:10:10 here), but the two races could not have felt more different. At Grandma's I faded and walked my way to that time… here I ran every step and felt strong doing it. Same clock, completely different runner.

And of course, no marathon is complete without a trip for my traditional post-race tattoo to increment the tally. That's 43 and counting!

Alaska was one of the harder states to get to on my 50-state quest, and to finally check it off with my best-executed race in a year made the trip more than worth it. Next up is marathon number #44 in Hartford, CT. Stay tuned!