Honolulu Marathon

This was one of the hottest marathons I've ever run. It was in the mid 80's once the sun came up. We started at 5am so we did get a couple of hours that were a bit cooler. We started at the Ala Moana Park and then basically ran along the ocean front to the back side of Diamond Head then back to the Honolulu Zoo Park. I met up with a couple of my local Palmer friends at just about the halfway point. I think I was able to move a little faster after that. They were mostly walking, with periods of running. Due to the heat we were all doing more of a walk/run than a purely running race. They are always a bit faster than I am when we are hiking. So, likewise, they were moving at a little faster pace than I was. But that inspired me to move a bit faster and I was able to keep up with them. When we reached the last mile, I was starting to feel a little light headed. I generally like to sprint that last mile, but today I just didn't seem to have that in me. They took off and I ended up dropping back and just walking as fast as possible. Although the last few hundred feet I was able to run again. Once I finished, I started really feeling bad and needed to sit down. I got so weak that I ended up spending a few minutes in the medical tent. My blood pressure was really low and I was obviously somewhat dehydrated with a touch of heat exhaustion. But after a short rest, I felt ok again. we elected to take the bus back to our respective hotels rather than walk nearly one mile back.  We got a nice medal and finally a marathon T shirt that actually fits. I'll probably come back next year. I was impressed by how many women were in the 75-79 age group. I'm usually the only one. But in this race, I was number 20 out of 51. Half of them were from Japan. This race attracts a lot of older and slower runners because unlike almost all other races, there is no time limit. Everyone gets to finish. I was very slow this year, and took almost an hour longer than when I ran this race in 2019. But I was so happy to finish.