Honolulu Marathon 2009
When we walked the 2004 Honolulu Marathon, it was a bit of a whim. We had completed 4 half marathons that year, and had trained for them. We were starting to make the transition from walking to jogging until our legs gave out, and walking the rest. We’d never been further than 13.1 miles, but I had this crazy notion that we could do it. I knew Mr Diva would resist, so I made sure to tell him how many people in their 80s had finished the previous year. Married people fight dirty. He took the bait. How could he not? We were vacationing in Hawaii for both our birthdays, and his just happened to coincide with the marathon, so I signed him up and called it a “gift”. By the time marathon morning rolled around, I had the flu and was coughing uncontrollably, and running a fever. We still managed to finish in under 7 hours. That was the beginning of the marathon madness.
Since then, Mr. Diva has been talking about repeating the marathon for his 50th birthday. I think the goal was to go back better and stronger, and finish with a better time, despite being in a new age bracket. That is not what happened. Mr. Diva has never been a fan of training. His idea of training is signing up for a race every couple weeks. We did just that for most of 2005-2007, but in 2008 injury, work and family made it necessary to take time off. The combination of injury and lack of training was pretty much fatal for me, and not much better for him. But there we were in Honolulu with our running shoes, so why not suffer through it?
We got off to a good start, no flu, no fever, no coughing. Instead of walking at a 16-17 minute pace, we were jogging at 13-14 minute pace. We passed the 10K mark with an average pace of 14, it was closer to 15 by the time we reached the halfway point. After that, things just slowly went to pieces. In 2004, the weather remained overcast for much of the morning, and we finished faster than we started. This time it was bright, sunny and warm. The trek back to Waikiki from Hawaii Kai got slower and slower with each mile that passed, even though we felt like we were making the same effort. Our finish time was 7:15, without the lengthy break we took to rest and change socks in 2004. Age and training matter. If you are planning to walk/run a marathon without training, don’t wait until you are 50.