Honolulu Marathon Mini-Recap

Well, my good intentions of blogging every other day this month, as I said in my previous post, fell through. Sigh. But I'm here now, albeit a bit tardily.

It's only 6:30 a.m. on Monday morning here in Honolulu. It's still dark. At this time yesterday morning, I was at about Mile 9 of the Honolulu Marathon. I was going to post photos of me on the course at Miles 22 and 23, but my memory card doesn't fit into this laptop. And my attempt to buy a computer cable to upload photos from my camera was unsuccesful. So photos will have to wait until I return home this weekend.

Long story short: Since I was treating the marathon as a long training run rather than a race, I ran the rainy, warm and humid (upper 70's) marathon nice and easy, with a finishing time of 4:24:51. I ran a lot of mile pace 9:40's and 9:30's, and I even had a 10:00 mile or two at the beginning because of the crowds.

Towards the end, when E. met me at Mile 22 to run with me, I stopped to stretch and chat several times, take photos, and to drink the Vitamin Water he gave me. That slowed down my overall time. But I did try to push it at the end, running the last 2.2 miles at an 8:17/mile pace.

Deluge: It has been raining in Honolulu for the past several days, and some city streets are flooded. It had stopped raining the day before the race, but we weren't so lucky race day. It started raining in the wee hours, and before I even ran one step of the race, I was drenched.

Picture this: Get in your running clothes, put on your race bib, and lace up your shoes. Get in the shower and turn it on full blast. Stand under the lukewarm spray for 10 minutes. Fully soaked?

Good. Now, run a marathon.

The skies opened up and the rain fell from 2 a.m. until 6 a.m., after the race was underway for an hour (yes, we started at 5 a.m.). I could feel the water squish in between my toes, and because my shoes and socks were so soaked, my feet slid forward at every step and banged against the top of my shoes. Not pleasant.

At Mile 3, I saw a runner actually carry an umbrella in a vain attempt to keep dry. At one point, it rained so hard that the raindrops hurt. And because it was wet, the streets were very slippery with oil, and some were partially flooded. I saw at least two runners fall in the first few miles because of that.

Okay. More later. The sun is starting to rise.

Upcoming: Talking to Jeanne and Susie via cell phone around Mile 11 and the quirkiness of Japanese runners.