The Great Aloha Run

After months of training race day had arrived! 8.14 miles along the highway from Aloha Tower Marketplace (the clock-tower that gets blown up in Pearl Harbor) to Aloha Stadium (where the Pro-Bowl is played). My goal was to finish under 1hr and 5min. Let's recap!

My day began at 3:00am, that's when my 1st alarm went off. I turned it off and went back to sleep. At 3:15am my second alarm went off. This time I decided to get up. I drank some water, did some stretches, ate some oatmeal and a banana, drank some more water, took a shower, drank some gatorade...and then drank a little more water. By 4:30 I was on the road headed for Aloha Stadium.

Cars lined the freeway heading into the stadium, over 27,000 people had entered the run. Buses take runners from the stadium to downtown where the starting line is, it's nice to have your car waiting for you at the finish line. I got on one of the charter buses excited for the run and quickly realized that I had to pee really bad...must've been all that water.

The bus unloaded downtown and I made my way to where my friends planned to meet up: The Starbucks on Bishop Street. But first things first...bathroom! After relieving myself I headed to Starbucks and didn't see anybody I knew. Time passed by and still nobody. Apparently I got there moments after my friends had left to make their way ahead of the crowd toward the start line (the lines for the bathrooms were pretty long and that took a while). I was running this race on my own.

The sun had come up and I heard the mortar cannon fire signaling the start of the run. I was quite a ways back in the crowd so it took some time to get to the starting line to actually begin. It's pretty cool how the run is timed. There's a small chip that attaches to your shoelaces and the chip is used to clock your start and finish times. That way everybody gets their own time regardless of where in the crowd they start.

The first three miles went by really quickly. I spent the whole time weaving my way through the crowd dodging walkers, joggers, and casual runners. I wanted to hold a quicker pace to meet my time goal...and I wanted to catch up with the military groups to listen to their sound-offs. Makes a good rhythm to run to. I caught up to them a little after the third mile. I used the military groups to speed up (I didn't have a watch so I had no idea what pace I was running at). I would run alongside one group for a moment, listen to their sound-off, then run up to the next group and so on.

By the 6th mile the military groups were gone and I was back to weaving through the crowd. I was hoping to come across some of my friends by this time but I hadn't seen anybody. My legs were starting to get a bit sore so I had to focus on keeping up the pace. I also started to psych myself up for the last mile and the finishing push. When I passed the 7-mile marker I opened my stride a bit to speed up. The stadium came into sight and as the pain in my legs grew I just kept telling myself it'll be over in a few minutes, the faster I go the sooner the pain will go away, and things like that. I neared the ramp that led down onto the stadium field, 100 yards left and I let my legs go and pushed it to the finish. It wasn't a full on sprint, didn't have the juice left for that, but it was a fast run. When I crossed the finish line the timer was at 1:15:32 (give or take a few seconds). Given that I didn't know where timer was at when I crossed the starting line, I had no idea what my finish time actually was. But I knew it was under 1:15:32, which is better than last year so I felt good.

I just checked my time on the Great Aloha Run website and I finished at 1:05:21. I missed my goal by under half a minute...dang! But it was a good run nontheless. I held a good pace of 8:02 per mile and I love the big-event atmosphere. I met up with my friends after the race. All of us improved our times from last year. Good stuff.

Now I'm at home relaxing. My legs are still sore and they'll probably still be sore tomorrow. But hey, sore legs means I ran hard right?