Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
— 37 —
Run from the Heart
TIM MELICAN ROLLS UP
in the Magic Bus and grins. “Wanna ride up front?” Of course I
pile in and Tim puts it in gear and that exact moment marks the beginning of the first offi-
cial rite of spring in Anchorage, Alaska.
It's the Heart Run, in which this year 6,700 participants will bravely bare their Alaska
tans in the year's first pair of shorts and run, trot, walk, and saunter five kilometers, also
known as three miles, from the starting chute in the parking lot of the arts building on the
UAA campus, out Bragaw to Tudor, up to the end of the APU campus and back down the
hill and over the finish line.
“Of course,” Tim says, “you know that the second rite of spring is Cinco de Mayo at
Gallo's.”
I didn't, but it's useful information I tuck away for later.
The organizers of the Heart Run have always been remarkably obliging about drumming
up a nice day for the event but this year they've outdone themselves: a clear sky and a re-
cord high of 62 degrees. We haven't really had a winter this year and everyone can't wait to
get outdoors. The Heart Run is our first excuse to do so en masse, and massing are us, it is
nonstop people from Lake Otis to Alumni Drive. Next to the administration building the
Anchorage Scottish Pipe Band, with six sets of bagpipes, two drums and eight kilts, are
skirling away at “Bonnie Lassie.” A group of red-shirted girls poses near the Pile O' Junk
sculpture next to the UAA arts building. “They're the Lady Patriots Soccer Club,” says
Chris Kennedy, proud parent of Lady Patriot Esther, 12. “This is the before photo. If they
can get them lined up.”
About now you start hearing Bruce Springsteen blasting out of the loudspeakers and An-
chorage newscaster Dave Stroh's voice booming out, “We're thirty minutes away from the
