2:30 am. Good Gravy, Marie! It’s astonishingly early. But with a 5 AM start time a few miles away at Ala Moana, I thought I needed the extra time to get down there and navigate my way through the masses to get closer to my targeted pace time.
The Honolulu Marathon prides itself on being a no-cut-off timed event so the finish line remains open whether it takes you 2 hours or 20 to finish. All sorts of abilities and goals converge, some a little more aggressive in their pace aspirations. As a result, there’s a crowd in the front; many of these runners will opt to walk from the firework fueled start. It makes the opening miles a live action game of Frogger.
But as I waited to start, I was the living embodiment of a John Lennon song.
I’m so tired… I haven’t slept a wink.
I’m so tired… my mind is on the blink.
I actually found myself head bobbing as I would fall asleep sitting on the curb, jerking myself awake. It was a messy wait for the fireworks.
But somehow I pulled it together to put one foot in front of the other. While 2/3 of the field are Japanese, most were quiet during the National Anthem, though I did hear somebody shush a few chatty folks.
My iPhone takes terrible night shots so there’s not a whole lot of photos from the opening 13 miles. That’s about when the sun rose and things got a bit more easily captured. My running buddy Brian Wright caught me in the opening screens of Frogger and we ran together for five or six miles. We passed the City Lights tour and wound our way back to Kalakaua.
Mom was cheering me on at her spot — she had scoped out a wall seat near the Cheesecake Factory and it was great to have her there cheering me on.
Brian dialed it back after that but I was feeling mostly ok… plus the forecast was for rain to roll in later and I wanted to get as far as I could before that happened. It was a pretty good temperature but deceptive as the humidity was worthy of Richard St John’s warnings — I was dripping wet from the word go and never, ever dried out.
Somewhere on the highway out and back section the sun finally came up. I was bummed that the guy I have in prior years seen dressed as Batman cheering us on in gravelly voiced menace was nowhere to be found.
A nice surprise though was Sean, our server dinner at Chuck’s Steakhouse a few nights prior, spotted me and cheered me on. He actually was there cheering his son on but he remembered me which was oddly touching. I saw him at mile 16 and then again in the finishers’ chute.
Along the way a few fellow runners also spotted me, folks I know from MainlyMarathons or other races over the years. I didn’t see Margaret who is doing her 50th state but I know she’s made it — that’s a helluva an accomplishment.
Miles… and more often kilometers… went by (remember, 2/3 of the 30,000 runners are Japanese snd therefore prefer metric measurements). Here are shots from along the way:
From previous HNL marathons, I knew passing this fountain meant I was in the home stretch. I saw Mom as the finish line loomed but couldn’t get to her with a runner booking it past me and blocking my swerve. But we traded iPhone pics, mom and I. And I heard her ringing her cowbell for me!
Crossing the line, I opted to skip the five or six guys and get my medal from a pretty girl. When I said this aloud, I noticed all the guys finishing behind me queued up to get lei’d. Old joke but there’s truth in it.
Heading into Queen Liliuokalani Park’s grounds, Mom met me and documented my real finisher’s treat — a fresh Portuguese originated but now distinctly Hawaiian donut called a malasada. Fried dough coated in sugar rarely has tasted so fine.
From there a few more photos… another pretty girl, a shot with my pretty mom, and a pretty odd shot with a flock of birds on one side of a banyan tree.
The marathon is in the books and I’ll post here later the recap finisher video we waited around to see in the big Jumbotron. I came in 170th, with a time of 3:21:24.
UPDATE 12/12/16 – Here’s the video:
Strolling back to our hotel, we took the final celebratory shots at the usual spots, spots recently visited just yesterday to honor Mom’s Merrie Mile achievement.
It’s great to be able to share this race weekend with my Mom. Tomorrow we have to go back to reality and the mainland… so the last night in paradise sHoyle have meant only one thing: one more slice of hula pie! Sadly, Duke’s was a madhouse, filled with loud, drunken marathoners and revelers. No seats, no pie. But no regrets.