As the temperature limbos lower every day, many Alaskans make plans to vacation somewhere warm. Maybe you're eyeballing that February direct flight to Hawaii. Or perhaps you'd settle for a visit with relatives back east.
If you haven't made any commitments yet, I strongly recommend signing up for a race. Practically anywhere you wish to go, there exist races of all calibers, distances, and price tags. Alaskans trek to popular races such as the Boston, Twin Cities, and New York marathons, but there are smaller, local races to sign up for as well. Whether a race is the heart and soul of vacation or just the cherry on top of a bottomless beach side pina colada, it can add a great element of accomplishment and, yes, fun to traveling.
I just got back from an Outside race, and am newly re-converted to vacation races. Here's why.
Inflated sense of purpose
I'm all for gluttony. My lifelong symbol of relaxation is the twisty straw, preferably protruding from a beverage sipped out of some tropical husk. However, my love of twisty straws actually increases after a major physical event.
Signing up for a race allows me to create a problem and then solve it. In life, where so many problems exist out of my control, a race is a physical ordeal that I can plan for. I break the race into milestones and then I systematically overcome them until I feel ready for my big event.
Combine this self-invented obstacle with vacation and I have a winning combination. Racing while away is a clever sleight of hand for friends, co-workers -- and especially me. It makes my vacation suddenly seem noble instead of indulgent. The race provides a point of accomplishment in the middle of all the basking. I certainly earn my beverage sipped with a twisty straw.
Not just waiting around
At one time in my life I gazed longingly at the calendar waiting for vacation, like a child at school watching minutes tick by. With a race vacation on the horizon, there is not enough time for me to pine. There is training to do.
Each day the calendar gives a different command. Run this many miles, swim this distance, go fast, go slow, go long. Each training day is an opportunity to think forward to race day itself, with a mixed sense of excitement and apprehension. Early on, it's clear I have much more work to do and it's good that race day is a ways off. As the days and months wear on, a toughness emerges -- especially because living in Alaska guarantees some of the hardest training around. While some racers train in accommodating climates, I brave frigid weather and ice fog.
Or, I endure a slightly slippery parking lot to get to the gym. Either way, it pays to have a goal to pursue during a long winter. There are also bragging rights earned once race day arrives and I descend on a town from far away. Other racers know I'm Alaskan because I am wearing a tank top while everyone else wears long sleeves, and I start sweating buckets and panting once the temperature rises above 60 degrees.
Luckily, there is my next favorite part of race vacations:
Anonymity
I love the small town that is Alaska, I really do. I love knowing that wherever I go I will see someone I know. I'll run into a friend on the street. If I forgot to call someone back, I will see them at Kaladi's. If I am sick and shuffling to the grocery store in pajama pants for sudafed and orange juice, I will run into my state senator.
It is lovely to sometimes take a vacation away from neighborliness. Racing plunks me in the middle of a foreign community in a foreign town. I finish my race away from the coverage of the local paper. I go back to my anonymous hotel, and drink beer from the comfort of my anonymous king size bed while Superman zooms around on the flat screen TV.
Racing provides a break
Traveling can be full of logistics and noise. There are airplanes carrying crying children, buses, rental cars, the seductive pull of my glowing smart phone to distract me from where I actually am. A race forces me to shove all that aside.
Race day is a frenzy of getting to the starting line. However, once the horn goes off I just follow a course. I don't need to think. I have a chance to actually look around and think thoughts, to notice where I am. Later on, the race provides a memory that's not just another restaurant or lounge chair. The race is distinctly a part of the place I visited. I remember smells, how the air felt, the other runners and volunteers, and the scenery.
Where will my next vacation race be? Hawaii? The one in France with all that wine and sausage? What about this mountain race that runs clear across the (small) country of Liechtenstein -- or maybe it would explode my mind a little to run through Tokyo?
I haven't decided yet. Let it get a little bit colder and darker. I'll be motivated to put something sunny on the calendar; a race vacation that earns me my finisher's medal at the end.
Alli Harvey lives, works and plays in Anchorage.