Honolulu Marathon

Finally, now that I've stopped working in Deadhorse, I was able to run the Honolulu Marathon in December.  It was a fantastic race.  It was quite warm, but there was enough of a breeze to keep me from being too uncomfortable.  Half the runners were from Japan since it was sponsored by Japan Air Lines.  It was interesting hearing all the runners around me speaking in Japanese.  It was such a huge race and since it has no time limit or participant limit, it attracts a lot of walkers.  I was in the middle corral but even then, there seemed to be mostly walkers and very few runners.  That was the most difficult part of the race for me. I wanted to run, so was forever maneuvering around all the walkers.  I figured at some point I would finally be ahead of all of them, yet even in the finisher chute, I was still working my way around walkers.  I'm not sure I'll even have a finish photo because just as I crossed, three men with gigantic flags walked right in front of me and the flags completely covered my entire body as I crossed the mat.  That was ridiculous!  But otherwise it was a really fun race.  I was a little slower than usual but still not terribly slow.  I didn't start feeling really exhausted until the last couple of miles.  I made the mistake of not bringing more energy gels, figuring they would have some on the race.  But they only had water and Gatorade.  I drank more water than on any race I've ever done, since it was over 80 degrees once the sun came up.  I loved the race and might want to do it again next year.

Diamond Head

I'm having a wonderful time in Hawaii.  I'm here for the Honolulu Marathon but of course, enjoying Oahu while I'm here.  Nice swims down at the beach, and a visit to Byodo-In Temple.  The weather was nice so I hiked to the top of Diamond Head and back.  It's not very long but is quite steep and mostly a collection of steps.  The view from the top is spectacular.

Palmer Happy Run

It was snowing so hard at my house that I seriously questioned whether I really wanted to go do a 5 mile run in the dark. But it was a wonderful run.  It's cold, about 25 degrees but dead calm and it was snowing fairly hard the whole 5 miles.  In places the snow was getting kind of deep and in other spots quite slippery.  So I was even slower than I usually am.  But I really didn't care. It was a great workout and just magical being out there in the quiet darkness with the falling snow.  There were only a couple other runners who chose to do the 5 mile long run, and they quickly passed me. So I was basically alone the whole time.  I like the wild and free feeling of running alone in the dark in a snowstorm.  It's a beautiful sensation.

Boycott Black Friday Day 3

What a gorgeous spectacular day to be outdoors!  It snowed about 4 or 5 inches last night and was still snowing lightly most of the day,  I felt a little better today but still gave up sooner than I had hoped.  I ended up running only 7 laps when I hoped to run at least 8 or if things went well, 10.  But towards the end of lap 7 I started getting dizzy and even ended up vomiting.  I took that as a cue to call lap 7 the last one!  I ran an extra .6 miles to bring my total for the 3 day series to an even 50 miles. 

This has been extremely tough for me.  I'm just not used to running in snow.  It's slippery because of the ATV ruts, so I spent lots of time just trying to keep my balance.  After the first lap, I grabbed my ski poles and ran/walked the whole way using them to help with my balance.  I have had very painful low back pain for the whole three days.  The poles definitely helped to keep me steady.

I loved this race and plan to do it every year if I'm home.  Happy Malamute Running is a fabulous local running organization and I always love their races.  They also put on the Hatcher Pass and Archangel Marathons that I ran this summer.  They gave us special gifts each day for running.  Friday we got a Malamute hat, Saturday some holiday socks and today a very soft blanket.  Nice gifts to keep us warm after being out in the snow for three days!