The Last Marathon (for now)

Tiffany and KC's United flight was delayed and arrived at 9:05 yesterday evening. KC loved wearing her welcome lei again. It was 10:00 by the time we got home and we were in bed around 11:00.

Art strained his back a bit carrying the heavy baggage. I gave him a foot and back massage so he could get to sleep.


We got up at 3:00 and my brother, Dennis came to pick us up at 4:00. He and Art checked the weather on-line to see a huge rain cloud poised over Oahu.

We drove to Ala Moana for the 5:00 start time.

After dropping Art off near the starting line, Dennis and I went to the City Hall area to wait for him to pass by. It was still very dark.


It was fun to see Hawaii Hale (City Hall) all decked out in holiday trimmings.


A Hawaiian Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus greeted all the runners and several people asked us to take their photo in front of it for them.

Soon motorcyclists went by, then came bicycle riders. The wheelchair racers came next and then the ELITE runners. They were way ahead!

And soon, there was Art! He had run 2.5 miles and looked good. I was relieved.


Dennis and I drove to Niu Valley to catch a glimpse of Art and cheer him on.

We were at the watering station where water and sponges were being passed out. Runners then threw the sponges into shopping carts as they ran by.


I'm not sure what flag this is.


We saw a LOT of runners in a lot of pain. Niu Valley is about the 14 mile mark. One woman stopped in front of Dennis and asked him to stretch out her leg cramp. Incredibly, once he helped her, she continued with the race. We also saw a lot of runners showing obvious signs of knee pain and heat exhaustion.

The race video crew came through filming the runners.

Still no sign of Art and we were getting worried.

We must have been in the ideal spot for stretching because lots of runners stopped to stretch and rest before continuing on.


It was fun to watch the runners dressed in lots of fun costumes. We saw model planes on hats, balloons, a giant soccer ball, etc.


Several ambulances came rushing by with their sirens blaring.

Many more than last year.

Where was Art?

I had visions of seeing him in the ambulance.

And finally, ART! But he did NOT look good. Dennis and I were really worried. Really, really worried. Art hates to quit and I was frightened that he would refuse to stop no matter how ill he might feel.


He went past and we went to Ala Moana to pick Tif and KC up to get to the Finish Line.
It didn't rain after all, but cloud cover was a blessing.

After waiting quite a while, one of Tif's friends called from Illinois to say she saw that Art had made it through the Finish Line. We'd missed him!

He was tired... extremely tired.

KC enjoyed seeing all the fan fare around the Marathon grounds.

Our son, Jon called to congratulate his dad.

Art got his Finisher t-shirt and said words that were music to my ears, "I think this will be my last marathon."

He was too exhausted, felt nauseous and finally agreed that this might not be the best thing for him.

However, this evening... he's feeling better again and is wondering if it really will be the last...

Honolulu Marathon Expo 2010

Well, it's that time of year again. Art will be running the Honolulu Marathon on Sunday. Tiffany and KC are flying in Saturday night. Art says it won't matter because he'll be too keyed up to sleep early anyway.

I'll be struggling to open my eyes at 3:00 and Dennis will pick us up at 4:00 to make the drive into Honolulu for the 5:00 AM Marathon start time.


We went to the Hawaii Convention Center today to pick up Art's bib and racing chip.

Yes, those are real palm trees. I checked.


Mom was surprised at seeing so many Japanese people milling around all the booths. I believe well over half of the 25,000 runners are from Japan alone.

When I asked a question at one booth, the salesman laughed and said, "Oh good, you speak English! And I mean that in a good way."

I wondered what a bad way would be.


Here's Art picking up his number and chip.


He looks mighty happy doesn't he? It's forecasted to be cloudy and rainy. It'll keep him cool if not wet. I made him promise to stop if he feels he is too tired and hitting that proverbial wall. He's 66, for goodness sake! Wouldn't a half-marathon be good enough? Does he have to run 26 miles and 385 yards or 42.195 kilometres?


Mom had fun watching Art write on the runners' Graffiti wall and seeing all the Japanese messages. You'd think we were in Japan.


And of course, he couldn't resist buying some racing gels for Sunday. I wanted him to buy a really big hat to protect him from the sun but it was $40.00 and he refused. Ah well, it's supposed to be cloudy anyway.


Lunch was a carb laden bowl of ramen noodles. Not good for mom or me, but we couldn't pass it up. Ala Moana Shopping Center was decorated with cheerful holiday glitter and color.

I can't believe Tif and KC will be here on tomorrow and that Art will be running on Sunday! I need to go clean their bathroom.