Run With Garrison

Aloha Everyone,
The past 2 weeks of training after my fun double 50k weekend has been a little rough. I have taken 4 days totally off and my weekly mileage sat around 66 and 43 miles each week for these 2 weeks. I only put in 2 solid efforts in the past 2 weeks. Last weekend, Jeff and I ran out to Dog’s house and back for a fun 20.7 miles. Wow, Jeff is fit and he kept the pace on target but it wiped me out for a few days afterwards. My other effort was today at the Hapalua Half Marathon here in Honolulu.

The course for the Hapalua starts at the Duke statue and runs a flat 9 miles around town before heading back for a lap around Diamond Head. The elevation gain/loss in the last 4 miles is around 700 feet. After 3 days off this week, I was a bit curious to see how today played out. I know I am in pretty good shape so I figured I would try to run a smart and even race. At the start line I saw local runner Joseph Bariyanga and I figured that I would try to keep up with him today. Joseph seems to run very even and often passes me during the second half of some local races. He is also a bit faster than me–if I can keep up, I knew a good day was possible.
It had been raining all night in on the island but things seemed to dry up a bit for the hour prior to the race start. No wind, perfect conditions with a race start at 6am. Unfortunately, around 5:58, the sky opened up and it absolutely dumped rain for most of the race. I was running with my iRun visor so I was able to keep the rain out of my eyes. The gun went off and I just stuck with Joseph around 6 minute pace. We stayed close thru about 5-6 miles and then he gradually pulled away from me. However, he was always in sight and I used him as my target for the rest of the day. My 5, 10, and 15k splits were 18:24, 37:29, and 57:19.
Over the course of the day, I was able to maintain focus pretty well and every time it really started to hurt (which was often) I just kept my thoughts positive and tried to keep my foot on the gas. I felt strong on both climbs in the last 4 miles and I feel that I ran a very complete race. My final time was 1:21:21, around 6:12 pace and I finished 9th among the non-elite racers and 2nd in my age group. This time is my fastest half marathon in Hawaii by 1:28.
Fun Fact: The gentleman who beat me in the 40-44 age group today won the 1993 Honolulu Marathon, the 2001 Boston Marathon and was the 1996 Olympic Silver Medalist at the Marathon– Bong Joo Lee from South Korea.

Anyway…sorry for the brief report, time to head to dinner:)

The plan for the next few weeks is to get my mileage back up and prepare for my monster April with the Oriflamme 50k April 6, North Shore Marthon April 14, Mt Diablo 50k April 20, and the Krakow Marathon April 28.

One final note–Pauline put in her first 18 miler today!!!!!!! She is working on a post for all of you to check out about her journey so far. We are hoping to get it online in the next few days.

Happy Running and have a great week!
Michael