As many of you know, Alaska is the land of the “Midnight Sun.”

Today’s official sunrise/sunset times:

Sunrise ~ 4:38 a.m.

Sunset ~ 11:19 p.m.

In the summer, there is an abundance of daylight. Here are some recent photos I took at various times throughout the day.

What it looks like at 4:00 a.m.

(looking east)

(off to the west)

And then of course, the sun is high in the sky the rest of the day.

You can see by 9:00 p.m. it is still very light out!

(off to the west)

I took this picture at 10:00 p.m. last night. It looks darker than it normally is because it was cloudy, but 10 p.m. doesn’t look much darker than 9 p.m.

(I didn’t stay up any later than that–sorry.)

However, when I did wake up at 2:00 a.m. to go to the bathroom, I pulled out my camera and snapped a few pictures. I probably looked absolutely ridiculous!

2:00 a.m.

This is as dark as it gets during the night! It never gets pitch dark outside right now.

So there you have it! And as you can probably guess, these pictures (and pictures in general) do not do justice. And even experiencing it during a one-week summer trip here doesn’t do justice. Not until you actually live it do you really understand!

Click here if you want to see just how dark it gets during the winter! (Those pictures of snow just made me shudder!)

Today’s Run

Distance: 10 miles (with 7 miles at marathon pace)

(I am shooting for 8 minutes/mile for my marathon pace, but I’m sure today I was running closer to my half-marathon pace of 7:45.)

Time: 1:20

I wasn’t super pumped to go and run outside today because it was raining, but then I thought back to all those bitter cold mornings this winter when I was wishing it was raining instead of snowing, so I knew it wouldn’t be worse than that!

I made sure to put a hat on, which makes a world of a difference when running in the rain! And within a few minutes, I nearly forgot it was raining, I wasn’t chilled anymore, and I was feeling great!

~~~~~~~

On a side note, I did end up bruising a little from the Graston Technique I had done yesterday to my IT band. It is tender to the touch, but it did not bother me at all when I was running, which I was very glad about.

The black tape on my leg is to help keep my IT band in alignment. The chiropractor put it on, and I will leave it on for 3-4 days.

I’m off to spend the evening with Craig. We have a date to watch the second half of The Bachelorette from Monday night on Hulu!