Honolulu Hapalua Half Marathon

Art had signed up for the Inaugural Honolulu Hapalua Half Marathon last year before he knew that Jon and Sarah would be coming to visit at this time.

Art wanted Jon to race with him since they'd never run in a race together.  Jon was hesitant because he'd not run such a long distance in a long time.   Art said he could just run slowly with him and do it for fun. 

So here we were again getting up at 3:45 in the morning on Sunday to head out to Waikiki for the 6:00 Start Time.  Poor Sarah is still battling her cold, but wanted to be there for the father and son event.

I was amazed that Sarah was able to pick them out in the 2,600 runner crowd.  After the race started, Sarah and I went back to the car and fell asleep.  I can't believe we actually fell asleep!  We got up JUST in time to rush over to the finish line to see Jon come in.

Jon's official time was 1:51:19.  He placed 285 of the approximate 2,600 runners and 48th out of 159 men in his age group.

A little later Art came in flashing his special sign for his granddaughter in Illinois.  His official time was 2:13:45 and he placed 577th overall and 13th of the 30 men in his age group.

Here they are together... elated and laughing about the wind pushing them back as they ran up a hill at the 9 mile mark.

We are continuing to have unseasonably harsh weather in Hawaii.  We really dodged the bullet in Maui and were so sorry to hear about the devastation on Kauai.

The cool weather for the Hapalua was ideal for the racers, but the wind made it a challenge.

 

Wearing their medals, they were able to receive their freshly cooked malasadas, bananas, iced coffee, bagels, shave ice and oh yeah.... water!  We sure didn't receive goodies like this at the Great Aloha Run or the Honolulu Marathon two years ago.

Kapiolani Park was packed with runners and supporters!  It was fun to feel their excitement.

They stretched a bit and then we headed back to the car.

Since we still had over an hour on the meter, we decided to walk along Waikiki where we almost never go.

We stopped at the Duke Kahanomoku statue where the race started earlier.

 

We saw mountains of sand where the city was working on dredging sand from the ocean and putting it back on the beach.

We headed back to the car and headed to Zippys restaurant to have our celebration breakfast.  The rest of the day was spent recuperating.  

Jon and Art both soaked their legs in Epsom salts and are feeling quite fine.

Heaven knows what they all want to do tomorrow.  I'm exhausted and I didn't run at all.