Tag: honolulu marathon

Dreaming Big Again: Honolulu Marathon 2018

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I took a bit of a hiatus from race reports at the end of 2017. I got so caught up in working out and fitness that, in truth, in probably got a little unhealthy. By the time I finished those marathons, I had a crazy amount of work and I was just trying to get my life back together. By the time I had a moment to breathe, I was so removed from the races that it felt difficult to write at all.

So, an update. Last December, I ran two marathons within six days of each other, at 3:54 and, wonderfully, 3:49:30 for a small PR. The Hawai‘i Bird Conservation Marathon is a tiny race that’s net downhill, and I felt blessed I could PR 6 days after a warm Honolulu race.

Now, so I don’t repeat the mistakes I made, let’s talk about 2018.

Intro

I came into this race with a lot of cautious optimism. I’d had a good few weeks of training, and was feeling really strong as a runner.

This year, I opted to not run the Hawai‘i Bird Marathon. It was a tough choice, and I had been planning on running it all the way up until this past November. Then, I got invited to an awesome weekend in Sonoma, CA, that felt sort of once-in-a-lifetime. It was a tough choice, but in the end I think it was the right one. One of my goals for 2018 was to stop doing things out of obligation, so when the time came, I decided to do what made me happy instead of just what I had “agreed” to do.

In the end, though, I made the right choice. It meant that I was able to really focus on this race as a benchmark for how my training was going so far. That also meant a new race strategy. I’ve always been an very conservative runner. It’s a mixture of things– fear of bonking or hitting the wall, residual fear from my injury a few years back, and my general worry-wart attitude always mean I tend to pull back so I don’t die before the finish line.

This year, however, I decided to be more strategic about my racing and go out faster then I had in a while. My eventual goal pace for Revel Kūlia is under an 8-minute-mile (which seems absurd to me right now), but I’ve been able to steadily hold ~8:30 in my distance training runs. I decided to go out trying to hold that 8:30 pace for the entire race, just to see what would happen.

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Running Towards Hope

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A confession: I’ve been hurting the past few days.

Nothing crazy, but I’ve been waking up feeling particularly tight and painful. I couldn’t figure out why: did I have rhabdo (I clearly didn’t.)? Did I need to break in my shoes more? Had I pulled something? Of course, at a certain point, it hit me that three months of three-a-days with very sporadic rest wasn’t a particularly healthy strategy and that the amount of strain I had put on my own muscles was likely just catching up with me.

So, after a painful 5k on Thanksgiving morning, I took the day off yesterday, since I knew that I had to go out and do my twenty-miler sometime this weekend. I rolled out last night, went to bed early, and prayed that this morning I’d magically feel better when my feet hit the road.

Spoiler alert: I didn’t. At least, not at first. I woke up feeling fine and, despite gusting winds and periodic storms, the cool weather boded well for me. This was a good day to go out and do the damn thing.

I was bummed to discover, though, that after a few miles I was still tight. My shins were screaming and my hips ached. What is going ON?! I mentally wondered to myself. I kept having to stop every half mile to try and stretch out to make the pain go away. I kept trying to breathe into my muscles, but I was really struggling to make this run work.

Then, right around mile 3, my arm grazed a pole in just the wrong place, tearing a huge hole in the sleeve of my favorite shirt. I groaned and stopped. “BRUH!” I yelled at the sky, at God, the way only a young, Catholic, CrossFit asshole can. What’s the deal? I asked. Do you want me to stop and turn around? What do you WANT from me?

I stopped, stretched, and breathed for a second.

I heaved a heavy sigh, and the questions came back to me: Are you present? Are you here? Are you listening?

And thing is, I knew the answer: No. I was caught up in my head, stewing in anger over some things happening in my life that had nothing to do with the run and, frankly, were out of my control. I had been holding all the anger and sadness in my body for days now, and was parsing through it during those first few miles.

I shook my head, frustrated that all this negativity was still affecting me. I shook out my body again, and continued to parse through my thoughts. After a few minutes, I came back to two questions for myself:

  1. As frustrated as I am, can I let it go? Could I accept that even if something is unfair, it may also be what’s right? Am I able to say a silent prayer of gratitude for the surfeit of love and light in my life and walk away?
  2. Even when we are working through anger, can I still act with kindness and love? Can I center on that and find forgiveness? Am I able to stand up for myself and name my hurt while still ultimately knowing that, in the end, compassion is the place I am moving towards?

As I looked at these questions, I knew what my answer had to be. Even if I didn’t feel like living up to them, I knew that the only way I could stay true to myself was to recenter myself with these questions as the compass. I knew that, if I could say yes to these things, I would be okay, and able to come back to the place of unfettered love and joy that makes me who I am.

So, I prayed for strength and grace, and began to run towards forgiveness. It wasn’t easy– forgiveness encompasses all the sadness and frustration of grieving.

As I ran, though, I thought about the rainbow I had seen that morning. In Christianity, the rainbow is the sign of God’s promise to His people after the great storm. It reminds us that, even when the rain comes for forty days, we ultimately believe that the universe will bend towards justice and good. It’s a reminder that, in the end, things will be better.

I kept running. In a lot of ways, forgiveness is an act of hope. It’s moving with the belief that hurt has occurred, but does not need to be dwelled in. It’s understanding that the only way to move past pain is with love. It’s knowing that we can move past pain in the first place.

With each step, God asked if I trusted that things would be okay. With each step, I affirmed that the answer was yes. Each step was a silent prayer of gratitude and hope, a testament to my faith that things would get better.

As I ran, my body loosened up. My hips settled a little more. I breathed a little more deeply. I knew that, even if this wasn’t going to be easy, I was going to get through it. I was going to be okay.

So, what’s next?

Well, I have two marathons within six days of each other, because that’s what I like to do. I’ll be running the Honolulu Marathon and then, later that week, run the inaugural Hawai‘i Bird Conservation Marathon. Since the latter is an all-downhill course (I know), I’ll be taking Honolulu nice and slow to see what I can do later that week.

Of course, I haven’t been training for any of this. I’ve been running, sure, but until today my longest distance has been 10 miles. Today was hard and painful (running into the wind for those last 6 miles didn’t help). So, honestly, if I can finish both of them with a smile on my face, I will be amazed and happy.

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This Is What You’ve Worked For: Honolulu Marathon 2016

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It has been, in truth, far too long since I last wrote. 

I have a whole list of posts on the docket– things I have started writing, things that explain my absence, things that have been on my mind.

I hope to get to them, I do. For now, here are a few thoughts on this year’s Honolulu Marathon.

Pre-Race Thoughts

The Honolulu Marathon always feels like a homecoming of sorts.

This is my third year running the marathon, and since most of my races involve a plane ride to new and sometimes different climes (last year’s CIM was a brisk 39 degrees for much of the race! Quite different from Honolulu’s consistent 70-85 degree weather), it’s nice to have a course that I’ve trained on all year and a race that I can run from my apartment as my warm-up.

This year, I admittedly felt a strange bit of pressure about the race. After 6 years of marathon racing, I’m pretty quiet about my races now. I might share a post or two the day before a race, but I’ll generally keep runs to myself, lest I set myself up for epic failure.

That wasn’t so much an option this year. After sharing my running journey with KITV, plenty of folks knew I was running. I’m not fancy or anything, and I made it a point to say that I didn’t have a time goal this year, but I wanted to have a good showing at the very least.

I’ve been running pretty consistently at a 8:15-9:00 pace this year, and I secretly had hopes of hitting another sub-4 time at Honolulu (my previous being CIM last year). I had come so close at the Kauai marathon, and Honolulu’s course is far less hilly. Still, I didn’t want to throw my hat into a ring I hadn’t trained for, so with the exception of my boyfriend Chase, I kept those hopes to myself.

I had a hard time fitting in my twenty-miler over the weekend. Cheesy, but I rarely get to sleep in with my guy since we both work early morning jobs, so my willingness to, say, wake up at 4:45 AM to run twenty miles when I could just snuggle with him, has waned. So, I did another mid-week long run, fitting in my twenty-miler after work on a Tuesday, 10 days before the race.

I felt good going into the race, but I’m always one for cautious optimism, so I got my bib and just hoped for the best.

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The photographer made me giggle hard. It worked.

Race Report

Admittedly, I haven’t had a race go this smoothly mentally in quite a while. After a nice two-mile warm up from my apartment to the course, I shook out my pre-race jitters and felt ready to go.

The highlight of my morning was having one of my former students find me before the race! She was running her first marathon on her own, so we talked story before the race started. That was exactly the kind of mental boost I needed pre-race: a reminder of the excitement and joy encapsulated in this sport, and the kids who help me feel this way off the course.

Some Key Takeaways From This Year’s Race

  • The Honolulu Marathon is just a really fun race. You see families running together, folks who have flown in in ridiculous outfits, locals just going out there to try something new. It really felt like there were more spectators on the course this year, and Honolulu does an excellent job of having great volunteers the entire way. For me, this is incredibly helpful as a runner. It makes a race fun and spirited, which helps me keep a positive mindset throughout the race. The Honolulu
  • I wish Honolulu had pace corrals and that folks self-monitored where they start. It’s probably my only small issue with the race. I always have to fight through folks who are walking and taking photos in the first few miles. Don’t get me wrong– if that’s why you race, that’s great! But please, don’t start towards the front of the pack! Move towards the back/sides so those folks who are trying to make good time have a clear path.
  • Still, the course is gorgeous and well-managed. Really, I don’t know if Honolulu gets credit for being such a well-timed and mapped race. Not too hilly, great weather (Hawai‘i is always unpredictable, but December is probably the best bet), fuel and medical stations well-manned and consistent throughout. I always feel like I’m in good hands with this race.
  •  This is me being an old race curmudgeon at this point, but knowing the really course pays off. For me, this being a hometown race really gave me an advantage as far as mentally preparing for what was to come. It was also a reminder that I have to study the course before I race! I used to be all fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants, but I’m seeing now how useful it is to know what’s to come. Study!
  •  Train and plan for the toughest circumstances as far as fuel and hydration go. I had 5 or 6 friends talk about hitting the wall this year, and some folks blame watery Gatorade and humid temperatures. I was fortunate to miss this, and I think it’s for three reasons:
    •  I pretty much always train and plan for the apocalypse for Hawai‘i races– I don’t train with water or fuel so that on race day I run better than I train.
    •  The day of the race I follow a tip from my old SRLA race director: drink water and electrolytes at every aid station until at least the halfway point. This allows me to get ahead of any cramping issues before they happen. At the half point, I start assessing at every aid station what I think I need.
    • I’m very careful about eating and drinking in the week before the race. I start upping my water and sodium levels early on. The night before the race, I chugged some of boyfriend’s leftover Pho broth after my customary vermicelli bowl (thanks PHO’hana!), and I think the extra salt came in handy!
  • Racing without music is still the best option when I can. It sounds impossible to so many runners, and definitely was (and at times still is– I used it at Kauai when I struggled mentally) to me when I started, but I really think being super mindful as I ran helped me avoid cramping too.

I kept a solid 8:30-9:00 pace throughout. I was clocking right around 8:45 for the first 6 miles and decided if I could stay in that area throughout the race, I’d finish feeling good. Admittedly, the course generally flew by. My mental game felt strong, I smiled looking for folks I knew on the course, and just enjoyed the race. I was able to wave to and talk to some friends who were spectating, and see a few friends as I came back around from the halfway point. That’s the kind of stuff that makes racing really fun.

I finished at 3:53, 19th in my category, just shy of my PR and an 11-minute course PR! I think I could’ve hit a new PR, but since it wasn’t my plan, I didn’t push some of those early miles outside my general comfort zone. Plus, Honolulu is a hillier and much warmer course than CIM. So, I’m happy I finished with a smile on my face instead.

At the end, some former students were handing out medals. They clapped when they saw me. Needless to say, I lost it.

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Thanks Honolulu Marathon for the great photo!!

Reflections

At the end of the day, a marathon isn’t just a race, it’s the culmination of the months, weeks, hours of training you’ve put in to get to this point. Every mile you’ve run is a step toward the eventual finish line of the marathon.

For me, this third Honolulu marathon truly felt like a reward for all the hours of training. Every step of that race was built on other training runs I had put into that course. Every mile that I felt good at was a reminder: this is what you’ve built your body to do. This is what you’ve worked for. Enjoy it.

As much as I’ve been trying new sports, I think one of the reasons I come back to distance running isn’t just about the space I make for myself or the meditative calm I find, but it’s also because there a few sports that so completely test whether you’ve trained and prepped for this moment. Running for that long is incredibly humbling. There is very little room for plain luck in a marathon. You need to put the hours in to be successful. No matter how gifted you are as a runner to begin with, trying to take down 26.2 is a test even when you do put in the work, much less without.

Is that, at times, difficult? Of course. But it also makes crossing that finish line only that much sweeter. screen-shot-2016-12-26-at-8-44-37-pm

Running Home: Honolulu Marathon Race Report and Running Back-to-Back Marathons

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Hey! So, as I wrote about a few weeks ago after PRing at CIM, I ran the Honolulu Marathon the next weekend! And it was crazy! And somehow I lived! It was a crazy week after and things aren’t as fresh in my memory, but I wanted to make sure I documented some things for future reference.

The Lead-Up

I flew home the Monday after CIM and felt tired and painfully sore. My legs kept cramping, and everything was tight. I could barely walk at some points, and stairs were ridiculous. Honestly, I was legitimately concerned I would be unable to run the race. How will my body be able to recover in time?! I thought. I was sure I would fail.

I knew that if I wanted to have a chance, though, I would need to push past this fear and not give up. I foam rolled every day and often, even using a muscle stick while teaching during class. I covered my legs with ice packs while I slept, mostly on my knees and hips where I had ached during the end of CIM. I stretched consistently.

I also immediately began regearing my diet towards building back as much muscle as I could. I focused on carbs and protein: a lot of teri-chicken bowls (a dish from Goma Tei that’s rice, chicken teriyaki, and an over-easy egg), green smoothies with flax and chia seeds, and any lean protein (mostly chicken and turkey) I could get my hands on. I also used dotFIT Amino Boost a few times during the week to try and aid in the recovery process (the UFC gym I train at loves dotFit, and they had a sale a few weeks back. I’ve been consuming this after every workout for the two weeks prior to CIM, as well as immediately after CIM).

On Wednesday, I ran a few miles to the convention center to pick up my bib. I had been walking fine that day, but a few steps into running I was surprised at how tight everything felt. My knees ached, and I knew I was going to need to loosen everything in my body if I wanted to try and run this. Even as I was running that warm-up, I was unsure if I could do this.

Still, once I got to the convention center and my body loosened up a bit, the mood there was contagious. It was full of folks who were so hyped to do this race, and I realized how lucky I was to live here and get to do it for an incredibly affordable price.  I decided to smile and give it my best. IMG_7681

The rest of the week, I just did my best to not get in my head, foam roll, and ice consistently. That was the best I could do.

 

 

 

 

 

The Race

Just some brief thoughts, since this race flew by fast:

  • I ran to the starting line from my boyfriend’s apartment– about a two mile warm up. It sounds nuts, but I’m so glad I did. It enabled me to stretch and start the race at my best
  • I found my friend and coworker Marc and his wife Si before the race. Normally, I’m big on solo racing (and I admittedly didn’t start with them), but I’m so happy I said hi and tried to be social. I think, as someone who generally has social anxiety, I tend to take these situations, make them an even bigger deal in my head, and shut out folks completely. Then I remembered that racing is fun, and I should celebrate with folks I care about!
  • It was hot. So hot. By the time we were at mile two, I was dripping in sweat (though I’m a generally sweaty person). I made it a point to get water and electrolytes at nearly every opportunity since I ran this race without any supplemental water.
  • There is something so wonderful about running a “hometown” race. Not only because you know the course so well (I make it a point to train along the course throughout the year), but because it’s awesome to see your home through the eyes of people loving it.
  • This was the first race I did entirely without even considering music till the last half mile. I’m proud and amazed that I no longer need it, since a few years ago I definitely would never think to run without music. It was extra great because I was able to cheer my fast friends David and Kali (who was amazing enough to shout for me as she had an amazing race and placing in her age group!), and hear my coworker Marybeth and her family cheer me on the course.
  •  I was pacing solidly under 9:30 (even an 8:35 mile at one point, though as soon as I saw that time I slowed my roll) until mile 19. I even had some crazy dreams about trying to beat or match my previous course records. That dream floated away at mile 10 when my legs began to ache.
  • My data is here, and you can see where the wheels started to come off. My legs started locking at mile 19, then completely shut down at mile 21 and crept to a walk-run. I thought I’d be upset, but I just decided to smile and enjoy the course when I had to walk. “This is a beautiful day to run,” I thought as I moved. Then, I saw a woman running who was talking to herself, and laughing as she apparently felt better about her time than I did. She inspired me and made me think of the first time I had run this course, so I worked to try and draft off of her as much as I could. I made it to mile 23 when some boys with icy hot appeared magically. Thank God for them.
  • I finished the race at 4:10, only about 5 minutes longer than my course PR. I saw stars after though, so didn’t take any personal photos. I walked about a mile away from the course to meet my boyfriend (I had asked him not to try and find me at the finish line since I didn’t know when I’d finish) and nearly collapsed. Thank goodness for him and official race photos.

     

  • I was surprisingly not too sore after! I foam rolled and iced a ton immediately after. I’ve only tried to run a few times after and definitely still feel pretty tight and sore, though, so I’m planning on taking it easy for a bit to recover from a ridiculous week of racing.

 

What’s Next?

Great question! Who knows?!

No, I’ve clearly given it some thought. I think trying to hit a 3:30 marathon would require more training and discipline than I’m willing to give right now. I obviously still love running, but I also don’t want to burn out on what I’d like to be a lifetime activity. I’ve been focused on marathoning so intensely for the past few years: first to get back into it, then immediately after to sub-4.

Now, I think I’m going to try and switch up my goals a bit. I’m considering trying to hit a 1:30 or 1:40 half-marathon time and try to start building more speedwork into my life.

In addition: I actually auditioned on a whim for a local production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and got cast as Tintinabula! It’s a small, non-speaking featured role (I think I may have a dance solo? Maybe?), but I’m so excited. I haven’t done a musical since I was 17. That will take up much of my spring, so it’s a good way to force me to rest.

 

Overall, 2015 was a very successful year for running and fitness. Now, though. We rest and celebrate. Happy Holidays!