On December 16, I ran the Hawaii Bird Conservation
Marathon. This was a one-time event on
the Big Island, organized by Bob Kennedy of the 50sub4 club. It started in Volcano and finished in
Hilo. It had a certified course that was
designed for speed, descending 3,792 feet.
The race was also a fundraiser for Keauhou Bird Conservation Center.
This was only the second time since May that I’ve run any
part of a race, and it was the first time since May that I ran a marathon from
start to finish. I wasn’t sure if my
back was 100 percent healed, and I was particularly nervous about running
downhill. I scheduled this race before my back surgery in June. I decided to stick with my plan to run it,
because I needed this race to complete a goal that has eluded me for the past
2½ years.
In May of 2015, I was getting close to finished my second
circuit of 50sub4. I had at least one
marathon finish under four hours in every state, and I had a second sub4 finish
in 47 states. I just needed Utah,
Alaska, and Hawaii to complete my second circuit, and I already had races
scheduled in those three states.
Shortly before my Utah race, I injured the adductor in my
right leg. I had to cancel my Utah
race. I was only partially healed when I
ran my Alaska race. Running with a
hamstring compression wrap, I gave it my best effort, but I wasn’t fast
enough. By the time I ran my Hawaii
race, both legs were injured, and I struggled just to finish.
I spent most of 2016 recovering and getting back in
shape. I got my sub4 finishes in Alaska
and Utah, leaving just Hawaii.
In January, I did a series of four marathons on the island
of Kaua’i. My only chance for a sub4 was
on day one. After that I would have
tired legs. Unfortunately, the humidity
was unusually high that morning (even for Hawaii). I started on pace for a sub four hour finish,
but realized after a few miles that my pace was unsustainable. I had to back off and settle for a slower
time. I scheduled this race, so I could
have one more try before the end of the year.
Going into this race, I was unsure of my fitness. I’ve been walking nearly100 miles per week
and have had good success race-walking marathons, but I had run fewer than 100
miles since May. The downhill course
gave me a chance, but I didn’t know if that would be enough. In the weeks leading up to this race, I
considered doing more running, but decided to stick to walking, because I
didn’t want to risk reinjuring my back.
My top priority was to get to the starting line as healthy as possible.
Thursday, December 14
I flew into the Kona airport, which is on the opposite side
of the island from Hilo. There’s also an
airport in Hilo, but the flight into Kona was more convenient. I arrived at 9:00 PM. There’s a four hour time difference between
Minnesota and Hawaii, so it felt like I was arriving at 1:00 AM. When I booked this, I was dreading such a
late arrival. After recently flying to
Singapore and arriving at 12:30 AM, this didn’t seem so bad. There was one important difference,
however. In Singapore, I was able to get
to sleep as soon as I got to my hotel.
Here, not so much.
I spent the first night at a hotel in Kailua-Kona, so I
could get to my hotel as soon as possible.
Unfortunately, that didn’t guarantee getting to sleep quickly. When I got to my room, the air conditioning
was turned off, and the room felt hot and stuffy. It took a long time to get the room cooled down. In the meantime, the air conditioner was
noisy. I couldn’t get to sleep with the
AC on, so after a few hours of tossing and turning, I got up and turned it
off. By then, the room was cool enough
that I managed to fall asleep for about an hour. Then I woke up and couldn’t get back to
sleep.
Friday, December 15
At 5:00, I finally gave up on getting back to sleep. In my own time zone, it would have been 9:00,
and I’m never able to sleep that late.
It was too early for breakfast, so I went for a walk right after
sunrise. The temperature was in the
mid-60s, which seemed surprisingly cool.
Just down the street, I recognized the pier where tenders
come ashore from the cruise ships. Eight
years ago, Deb and I took a Hawaii cruise.
I remember coming ashore here and going for a run. I couldn’t remember my running route, but I
met a local resident who was also out for a morning walk. She showed me where I could go for a long
walk along a road that follows the shoreline.
I saw lots of runners, and occasionally had views like this.
My room rate included breakfast at a restaurant that was
adjacent to the hotel. I could have
fruit & cereal, bacon & eggs, or banana macadamia nut pancakes. Guess which I had.
After breakfast, I checked out and drove to Hilo. My route took me across the island, past lava
fields and between Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea.
When I started to see trees again, I knew I was getting close to Hilo. I arrived just in time for lunch, which
consisted of a luau pizza at Café Pesto.
Packet pickup was in Hilo, but didn’t start until 2:00. That gave me time to explore the downtown
area and make a quick trip to Rainbow Falls.
After picking up my race packet, I drove to Volcano, where I
was renting a cabin. I expected to get
there around 3:00, but an accident on Highway 11 backed up traffic for
miles. That’s the only road from Hilo to
Volcano. There are no alternate routes,
so I had to sit in traffic for about 45 minutes. That derailed my plans for the afternoon.
The cabin I rented is called Crater Rim Cabin. I chose it for its location near the start of
the race, but it was a nice place to stay.
I had a full kitchen, stocked with breakfast foods and beverages, a
bathroom with an abundance of towels, a bedroom with a king size bed, and a
living room with a table/desk, a few chairs, a spare bed, and a gas stove. It gets cold enough at night that I was able
to get the bedroom to a comfortable temperature just by turning down the
thermostat for the gas stove.
After checking into my cabin and learning where everything
was, I drove into Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. I was hoping to have time to do a few of the
longer hikes. Instead, I got to the
visitor center just 12 minutes before they closed. After leaving the visitor center, I only had
about 30 minutes before it got dark.
That gave me enough time to hike through the Thurston Lava Tube, but I
had to save the longer hikes for another day.
I didn’t want to risk being in the middle of a long hike when it got
dark.
I had dinner in Volcano and got to bed as early as I
could. For the previous few days, I felt
like I was fighting off a cold. Getting
so little sleep Thursday night might have been the last straw. By dinner time, I was having some sniffles
and sneezing.
The elevation in Volcano was 4,000 feet, so the temperatures
there were much cooler than in the coastal areas. During the night, it dropped into the
50s. By keeping the thermostat low in my
cabin, I was much more comfortable for sleeping. Unfortunately, pre-race nerves still made it
difficult to get to sleep.
Saturday, December 16
Saturday was race day.
The race started at 6:00. My
cabin was about half a mile from the start, so I didn’t have to get up
outrageously early. I didn’t get a full
night’s sleep, but I got some sleep, and my cold didn’t seem any worse. I wasn’t congested, which was a relief.
The temperature at the start was 51 degrees, but I knew it
would be much warmer by the time finished in Hilo, since we were descending almost
to sea level. Having a cold can make me
much more uncomfortable in cool temperatures, so I dressed for the cool
temperature at the start, opting for a T-shirt, rather than a singlet. I knew I’d get hot later, but I was willing
to deal with that.
The starting area was a parking lot near the Volcano Golf
& Country Club. I could have walked
there, but I drove, so I could stay in my car before the race and have a place
to leave my jacket. As it turns out,
there was a restaurant next to the parking lot.
It wasn’t open, but we were able to come into the building. It wasn’t heated, but there were tables and
chairs, and we were out of the breeze.
It also had bathrooms.
It was still dark when we started running, so I started the
race with a flashlight. The course was
certified, but there weren’t any mile markers.
I wore a Garmin watch, so I could check my pace, but it was difficult to
read it in the dark.
We started on Pi’imauna Drive, which took as down a steep
hill and onto Highway 11. After turning
onto the highway, we had to go slightly uphill before it turned downhill
again. There are signs along the highway
marking every 500 feet of elevation.
After that first short hill, I saw the sign marking the peak elevation
along the highway of 4,024 feet.
Highway 11 is a busy road, and traffic wasn’t blocked
off. We needed to stay on the left
shoulder, outside of the driving lane.
In the first few miles, the shoulder was narrow, so we had to go single
file.
Although I couldn’t see my watch, I heard it beep after a
mile. That meant it was automatically
recording my split. I shined my
flashlight on my watch and saw that my first mile took 8:14. I was surprised to be running that fast,
particularly since part of that mile was uphill. I realized at this point that
my cold wasn’t going to slow me down. If
I could run at that pace without breathing hard, my aerobic capacity wasn’t
impaired.
I didn’t notice when my watch beeped for the next two
miles. I was preoccupied with watching
the road and the traffic.
Early in the race, I was already noticing some tension in my
left Achilles tendon. Running downhill
can do that. I reminded myself to keep
my stride short and my turnover fast.
At around three miles, we reached an aid station. By now, there was enough light to see, so I
turned off my flashlight and stuffed it into my fanny pack. I wanted to have my hands free for drinking
at the aid station. You could drop off
your light at either of the first two aid stations, but I decided it would be
easier to just keep it with me.
Just after the aid station, we turned onto Old Volcano Road
to go through Volcano Village. This was
one of only four turns on the course.
Each one had course marshals to show us where to turn. Old Volcano Road is less heavily traveled
than Highway 11, so here we were allowed to run the tangents.
At four miles, I heard my watch beep and checked my
split. I don’t know how fast miles two
and three were, but my fourth mile was 7:41.
That was way faster than the pace I needed to break four hours. In fact, it was faster than the pace I would
need to qualify for Boston. I didn’t
have a qualifier for 2019 yet, so I had to consider the possibility that I
could do it in this race. For now, I
didn’t want to push for a fast pace. I
was trying to just stay relaxed and let gravity do most of the work.
A few minutes later, we turned back onto Highway 11. Here, the road appeared to have been recently
repaved. The shoulders were much
wider. Also, there was enough light that
the drivers could easily see us. After
that, running alongside the highway no longer felt nerve-wracking.
Along the highway, there were mileposts. When I reached milepost 24, I noticed my
watch read 6.23 miles. That meant we had
roughly 20 miles to go. We followed this
highway almost all the way to the finish, so the mileposts always came with an
integral number of miles to go. Milepost
23 was 19 miles to go, milepost 22 was 18 miles to go, and so forth. Once I noticed that, I rarely looked at my
watch.
Now, I noticed my left calf was tight. That was less alarming than the tight
Achilles tendon, but the two were probably related.
After mile eight, I heard my watch beep again. It was the first time I checked it since mile
four. I did another 7:41 mile. Breaking four hours seemed like a done
deal. Now, qualifying for Boston seemed
like a credible goal. To qualify, I
needed to a time of 3:40 or better. To
be sure of getting in, I probably needed a time of 3:35 or better. I didn’t take the time to figure out my
average pace. I didn’t want to obsess
about pace. If I learned anything from
last April’s Mt. Charleston Marathon, it’s that the best way to run a downhill race is to find the gait that feels
most comfortable and not second-guess the pace.
I was going much faster than I expected, but downhill races can be like
that.
After 11 miles, I figured out my pace. To break 3:35, I needed to average 8:12. I was averaging 7:41. At that pace, I would finish in the low
3:20s. I realized at this point that I
wasn’t just letting gravity do the work.
I was pressing a little to go fast.
I was beginning to feel some fatigue.
I tried to tell myself to relax and not work too hard.
Although we were mostly running downhill, it wasn’t always
downhill. Occasionally, the road leveled
off or even briefly turned uphill. Mile
13 appeared to be a mostly uphill mile.
As I was cresting the hill, I noticed that mile took 8:05. That seemed surprisingly fast for an uphill
mile. Sometimes, after running downhill
for several miles, a level grade can appear to be uphill. Maybe that mile wasn’t really uphill, but
that was still too fast of a pace.
Just ahead of me, I saw several people in reflective vests
on the shoulder of the road. At first, I
thought they were utility workers. Then
I realized they were race volunteers.
They were standing next to a white line that marked the halfway
point. I ran the first half in
1:41:10. I was on pace to beat my time
from the Mt. Charleston Marathon.
At this point, I knew for sure I was going too fast. I might be in better shape than I thought,
but I wasn’t as well trained as I was when I ran Mt. Charleston. Also, that race had a course that was even
faster than this one.
Shortly after the halfway mark, I noticed the sign
indicating we had passed 2,000 feet elevation.
In the first half, we had descended roughly 2,000 feet. That meant we would still descend about 1,800
feet in the second half. The finish was
above sea level.
I reached a long stretch where the road seemed to level
off. The temperature was in the 60s now,
and the sun was visible above the trees.
We were going through towns, and there was more traffic. Everything seemed more difficult now.
At milepost 16, I had 12 miles to go. Now I was counting down the remaining
miles. I was feeling fatigued, but the
remaining distance was starting to seem more manageable. I was still pressing to maintain my pace, but
I had to take it one mile at a time.
With about nine miles to go, I was noticed soreness and
stiffness in my quads. The rest of the
race wasn’t going to be easy, but I continued to put effort into maintaining my
pace.
At street crossings, there were volunteers to watch for
traffic. The roads were open to traffic,
so we had to follow traffic laws. As I
approached a stop light, I saw it was green, so I sped up. Just before I got there, the light
turned. The car waiting at the light
started to roll. Then the driver saw me,
and I held out my arm. He waited for me,
so I was able to cross. Waiting for the
light would have cost me less than a minute, but I worried that stopping would
give my legs a chance to stiffen up.
That could cost me several minutes over the rest of the race.
I started to notice mileposts in half mile increments. At milepost 12.5, I had 8.5 miles to go. I was slightly more than two thirds
done. From that point on, I was
constantly recomputing the pace I needed to break 3:35. I was slowing a little, but not much. One mile was 8:03. The next was 8:20. That was my slowest mile so far, but at this
point I could afford to slow to nine minute miles. Then I sped up to 8:07. I was really feeling the fatigue, but I
fought to stay on pace as long as I could.
I fully expected to slow dramatically at some point, but I wanted to put
that off until the last few miles. Then
I could afford it.
At milepost 11, I saw glass and other debris in the road
from a car crash. This couldn’t have
been from the accident that stopped traffic on Friday. I was still a mile and a half away from that
crash site. Later, I saw debris from
another crash. The intersection looked
familiar. I had just passed milepost
9.5. This debris was from Friday’s
crash.
With six miles to go, I could break 3:35 by running the last
six miles in one hour. I didn’t feel
like I could take that for granted. I
was hitting the wall. Only the downhill
grade enabled me to keep up my pace. If
my legs got any more sore, downhill miles might start to be slow and painful
instead of fast. I forced myself to push
through the discomfort. I didn’t have a
Boston qualifier for 2019 and wasn’t expecting to get one. Now that it was within sight, I wanted it
badly.
With five miles to go, I saw the sign for 500 feet of
elevation. Know the finish was almost 200
feet about seas level, I realized the course was going to level off in the late
miles. It was also getting hotter. By now the temperature was in the 70s. My goal was within sight, but it wasn’t going
to be easy. I could still fall apart and
slow down dramatically.
With four miles ago, I still had 43 minutes to break
3:35. I just needed a 10:45 pace. After that, I stopped seeing mileposts, to I
had go check my watch more frequently. I
eventually realized the mileposts were still there, but I couldn’t see them
because the highway was now divided. We
were to the left of the southbound lanes.
The mileposts for northbound traffic were on the other side of the
highway.
I ran mile 23 in 9:20.
That was a dramatic slowdown, but it was still much faster than the pace
I needed. I was continuing to build a
cushion. I was reaching the point where
I just needed to keep running. Even if I slowed down, I would get there in
time.
We were now at roughly the same elevation as the
finish. The last three miles were
rolling hills. The hills weren’t steep,
but they were tiring. I had to take them
one at a time.
It’s worth noting that I was impressed with the number of
volunteers. This was a small race, but
there were four or five volunteers at every station, plus volunteers at every
turn or major intersection. There were
also several at the finish line. I think
they outnumbered the runners.
Just past 26 miles, we made our final turn to head to the
finish at a Boy Scouts camp. There was a
bend in the road, so I still couldn’t see the finish line. When I finally saw it, I made one final burst
to the line. When I crossed, I was
completely spent. I wondered if I would
pass out.
I finished in 3:28:13.
I crushed my original goal of four hours. I also got a Boston qualifier with 11:47 to
spare! I momentarily forgot that I
finally finished my second circuit of 50sub4.
That’s the whole reason I ran this race.
Immediately after finishing, I drank a bottle of water. Then I had to sit down until I caught my
breath. When I stood up again, I could
barely walk. I was sweating
profusely. I was aware of the
temperature and the direct sunlight, but I forgot how high the humidity
was. I drank another bottle of water.
Everyone who broke four hours stayed near the finish line to
watch for Bob Kennedy. Bob needed three more states to finish 50sub4. Hawaii was one of the states that had been
elusive for him. As it got closer to four
hours, we all watched anxiously. There
was a big cheer when Bob came around the bend.
He finished in 3:56.
When I finally made it over to the food area, I was
surprised to see how much post-race food there was. They had turkey sandwiches, bananas, apples,
a variety of chips, water, Gatorade, and a variety of soft drinks. I refueled while I waited for the awards
ceremony.
I eventually learned that I was first in my age group. Age group awards were bobble head runners.
Runners who broke four hours (or three hours) received
custom-made silver charms. Runners who
qualified for Boston also received custom-made charms.
Most people stayed in Hilo and had their cars there. My car was at the starting line. There were buses from Hilo to the start, but
not from the finish back to Volcano. I
had to wait until I could find someone willing to give me a ride back to the
start.
I had hoped to go back into Hawaii Volcanoes National Park
and do some hiking. I realized right
after the race I wouldn’t be up to that.
Besides sore quads and an incredibly tight left calf, I also had a great
deal of soreness in my left adductor. I
injured that muscle two years ago, and I don’t want to go through that
again. I plan to be careful with it for
the next few days.
Although I had post-race food, I still had leftover pizza
from my dinner on Friday. After I got
back to the cabin and showered, I had that as a late lunch.
In the afternoon, I went back into Hawaii Volcanoes National
Park. I couldn’t do any hiking, but I
was able to spend more time at the visitor center. Then I went to the steam vents, which are
right next to the road.
Next, I went to the Jagger Museum. Usually, you can see into Halemaumau Crater
from the museum. Unfortunately, fog and
drizzle made visibility too poor to see anything.
For dinner, I went to another restaurant in Volcano
Village. Then I went to bed early. Before a race, I usually have trouble sleeping. After a race, I usually sleep like a rock. This trip was no exception. I really needed that.
Sunday, December 17
I slept well, but during the night the muscles in my legs
tightened up. When I got up, I could
barely move. My quads and calves were
incredibly tight, as was my left Achilles tendon. After a hot shower, some stretching, and
massage, I was able to walk, but just barely.
I’m sure most of those muscles will feel fine after a few days. I’m still a bit worried about my left
adductor. Maybe it’ll also be fine after
a few days, but I’m concerned I may have strained it.
After the race, I wasn’t noticing any cold symptoms, not now
I was congested. The cold is still with
me and will have to run its course. I
can live with that. I’m just glad it
didn’t affect my race.
I have to drive back to Kailua-Kona to fly home, but it’s a
late evening departure, so I still have time to do more sightseeing. I plan to go back into Hawaii Volcanoes
National Park to see if there are any hikes I can do. I think some gentle walking will help loosen
up my legs, but I can’t do anything with uneven footing. This afternoon, I’ll drive back to
Kailua-Kona to do some shopping and eat dinner before heading to the airport.
It’s been almost 24 hours since I finished the race, and I haven’t
noticed any discomfort in my back. I’m
also not noticing any symptoms of a nerve impingement. I’m cautiously optimistic that I made it
through this race without re-injuring my back.
That doesn’t mean I’m going to immediately start doing lots of running. In the short term, I’ll still stick to race
walking. When I eventually add running
back into the mix, I’ll probably start with one day a week.
Race Statistics
Distance: 26.2 miles
Time: 3:28:13
Average Pace: 7:56
Lifetime Marathons/Ultras: 347
Completed circuits of 50sub4: 2
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