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blue and yellow balloons. Bunched together behind the starting line the runners are boun-
cing up and down looking anxious, eager, intent, but mostly everybody looks ready to go.
A few Lady Patriots have elbowed their way to the front. Dress ranges from a fashion
plate in gold chains, cropped top and full makeup, she's stylin' and she knows it, to a
middle-aged guy with a mop of gray hair smashed to one side and pillow creases still on
his cheek. There are dozens of groups wearing matching T-shirts who look like everything
from yuppies, head bangers, gang bangers and church groups, and one guy in a hat with
big yellow wings sprouting from the sides.
Somebody sings the national anthem, Dr. Art von Hippel, who pioneered open heart
surgery in Alaska, announces the start, and the bang from the starter's pistol barely
reaches my ears before the first racers are across the line.
The serious runners are a joy to watch, a seamless integration of muscle, sinew and
bone, a smooth, graceful stride, they're not even breathing hard. The not-so-serious run-
ners are kind of painful to look at, their stride is somewhere between a gallumph and a
gallop and they're breathing so hard they sound like Darth Vader. It's a swift-moving river
of humanity down Alumni Drive and out to a left turn on Providence Drive, where An-
chorage Police Department officers Kevin Ehm and John Daily are standing post. “We've
got several officers in the race,” Kevin says. “There's one coming up, and we're going to
point out to him that several infants made it here before him.” Asked if there have been
any security problems, he speaks of having to turn back the belly dancers from driving
down the blocked-off section of the road. It's tough to be the bad guy on a day like today,
“especially to the belly dancers,” John says. “If I had to run off the ugly clown guy, that'd
be okay.”
Ah yes, the belly dancers. For the last twenty years Heart Run participants have been
cheered up the race's only hill by Linda Sahara and her Middle Eastern Dancers. They're
late this year—“the cops confiscated our camels,” Linda tells everyone—and one runner
shouts when he sees them, “You're here! Now it's a Heart Run!” Linda and her eight dan-
cers clang their zils and do their Xena Warrior Princess imitation ululation. “We're here to
encourage all forms of exercise,” Linda says. “Running is good! So is belly dancing!”
Two Turkish visitors who don't speak English but are wearing easily translatable grins
cosy up to have their picture taken.
