Great Aloha Run 2012

3:30am, pitch black outside, the rain has been on and off all night, and I woke up to go for a run. As crazy as it seems, this has been planned for months and I was anxious to get going. It's Great Aloha Run day!

I got out of bed, drank some water, and did some stretches for about 10 minutes. A quick jump in the shower fully woke me up then a light breakfast consisting of a whole grain bagel with peanut butter, a banana, water, and some more water. I packed my stuff, grabbed my shoes and headed for Aloha Stadium.

Crowds of people were congregating at the stadium for the run. I remember my buddy Waimea talking about possibly meeting by the box office so I decided to check it out before catching the bus to the starting line downtown. And what do you know, there he was. Kalani and Marlon showed up a few minutes later then the four of us jumped on a bus.

We got to downtown Honolulu at about 6am. The run starts at 7, plenty of time to warm up and stretch out. Kalani and Marlon went their own ways while Waimea and I found a spot alongside the crowded streets to warm up. There we ran into Sheri, who was wearing a trash bag. I thought she was using it as a poncho in case it rained but later on she told me it was to keep her warm until the race starts. Hey, beats having to ditch a jacket.

10 minutes until start time Waimea and I made our way towards the front of the crowd. The National Anthem played and I could feel the energy in the air change to a buzz of calm anticipation.

The start was signaled with three shots from a mortar canon which shook the air, the ground, and my chest. Love that thing, just awesome! The crowd lurched forward to begin the run and then immediately halted. There were lots of people (about 30,000 signed up for the run) so we had to wait a bit and slowly make our way to the start line. From where we were at it took about 3 to 4 minutes to reach it. Then we were off!

Waimea and I got into a steady stride as we gracefully weaved through the crowd. Eventually we got separated. I went left to get around some people, he went right, and when I looked up he was nowhere in sight (hey that rhymes!). Ok, no problem. Just keep running.

I continued to weave and cut through the crowd. Military squads were to the left doing their custom sound offs: left..right...left, right HELL YEAH! Runners' spirits were high and I was enjoying it. 2 miles passed before I knew it. At one point I made my way through a group of runners and found a lane to run in, I looked up and there was Waimea. We stuck together while the road was wide and we had space to run.

We passed by what I thought was a hydration station (a snazzy way to describe people handing out cups of water) but they weren't handing out water. Instead they were handing out roses. Roses? What an odd thing to pass out during a run. I was running next to a girl who took one and I heard, “Oww! It has thorns!” I couldn't help but laugh. Why even pass out roses? Throughout the rest of the run flower stems and rose pedals littered the roads. Anyway, Waimea and I continued to hold a steady pace but I soon lost track of him in the crowd again.

Going into the third mile the course goes along Nimitz Highway directly beneath the H1 Freeway. The freeway overpass creates a cool acoustic effect, the sound offs from the military squads ring out louder, and the shuffling of runners feet almost sounds like drums. It elevates the energy level for sure. It's awesome, made me feel like I was in a Disneyland ride.

A purple balloon dragon

The run was going well. Around mile 3 the military squads dropped back and I became more focused on how I was running. I felt good and I felt like I was holding a pace to finish in under an hour, which is my goal. However, that quickly changed around mile 4.

That familiar burning sensation began to ignite in my legs. My pace slowed a little. I had to settle into my stride and try to get my rhythm back. I grabbed some water at the next hydration station. The water was cool and invigorating. My legs burned but only slightly, my rhythm felt good, and I felt like my speed increased to what it was during the first few miles. I think I just caught my second wind.

Then mile 6 came. It was like slamming head-first into a brick wall. My legs were on fire, lungs burned, breath was heavy, and my pace had slowed noticeably. I continually told myself keep going, you can do it, don't quit, just keep swimming (from Finding Nemo). As I was doing this the song Don't Stop Believing by Journey randomly popped in my head. Fitting.

Soon after the 6 mile mark I reached the first incline. Man that sucked. I was struggling. I pumped the arms to keep the legs moving. Then I heard a familiar voice call to me. It was James. He mentioned if I was still pushing to finish in under an hour. I said something between gasps of air, don't really remember what I said but I think I swore. James said, “ok you can do it. Come on, I'll pace you for a bit.”

James took the lead and sped up. I pushed it to keep up with him. He carried me for the rest of the incline and onto the following decline when he waved me forward and I passed by. His help came at the perfect time. James, if you're reading this, thank you. I was close to cracking and your help kept me going.

Mile 7, just a little over 1 mile left. Thank god! At this point, the fire in my legs raged. My lungs continued to burn, my back was feeling sore, and now my stomach was churning. My running form had almost completely broken down. Miserable, absolutely miserable. I was operating on sheer will power alone. Just end, make it stop, make it over, I don't want to be here any more. I was somewhere between wanting to cry and vomit.

Entering Aloha Stadium, trying to hide
that I feel like crying or puking

Good news came into view as I rounded a turn: Aloha Stadium. It's almost over. About half a mile left to go. This is where I would normally open my stride and speed up but I was so worn out, feeling so utterly defeated that all my strength went into just keeping my legs running at whatever pace they were moving at.

As I entered the stadium parking lot I heard another familiar voice call out “Greer!” There was Charlene with her camera. She shouted and cheered me on as I passed by. Much like James, it was another well-timed moment. The motivation gave me a very needed boost to keep going and speed up for the finish. I dug in deep, ordered my legs to move faster, and turned onto the ramp leading into stadium. The final stretch is about a 100 meter decline that flattens out onto Aloha Stadium field, somewhere near the end zone or 10 yard line. I opened my stride and pushed it across the finish line. It's over! Thank god, I'm alive!

Kalani was at the finish line. When I tried to say something to him I immediately broke into a coughing fit (yep, still coughing). A few minutes later Waimea finished. We made our way through the stadium to get our free t-shirt, bottled water, coconut water (very nice), and a banana. I could barely walk or even keep my head up. I lost track of where everybody went. I didn't care much though. I just meandered around in a zombified state hoping my legs wouldn't lock up. Eventually I met up with everybody. After stretching and massaging my legs a few times the fire inside them let up and walking became more manageable. Although I expect them to be sore tomorrow.

I finished the run in 1 hour and 4 mintues. Well off my goal of finishing in under an hour. I could do the positive thing and be all optimistic about it by talking about how despite my training not being what I wanted it to be and possibly having a lung infection I still posted a personal record for the Aloha Run. But honestly, I feel really disappointed. Setbacks or not, I did not reach the goal.

This year's Great Aloha Run was, in a word, brutal. I struggled. There were parts where I wanted to quit. I wanted to give up and just walk the rest of the way. Will power and help from friends is what got me through. So again, thanks. And a well-deserved congrats to all who finished the run.

Up next is the Warrior Dash. A 5K muddy obstacle course. Each finisher is given a viking hat and a beer and the event is followed with a celebration concert. Should be fun!

back: Charlie, Marlon, Greer
front: Jen, Waimea, Sheri, Ernest aka Waldo, Charlene

Great Aloha Run Training - Week 7 & Final Thoughts

It's here! The Great Aloha Run begins in 12 hours. This was my last week of training and, just like my entire training plan, it had it's ups and downs. Let's get into it.

Monday – I was feeling good so I went for a 4 mile run around Diamond Head. It felt good. My form was a little rusty at first but it smoothed out in less than a mile. I didn't want to push the pace so instead I focused on maintaining a smooth stride but I decided to pick it up the last half mile. My finishing sprint was pretty decent.

Tuesday – A little concerned because my legs are burning more than expected from Monday's run. In fact, they burned a lot and it was tough walking and moving around. I still did a workout though. For the first time in over a month I went to jiu-jitsu. It went pretty well. I did a few drills and then sparred for half an hour. I didn't get tapped out but I was on the defensive for most of the time. Good fun though.

Wednesday – My legs still burn from running but I can almost walk normal again. I did an hour of stretching at home for a workout. Things were going pretty well until today. My sinuses began acting up on Tuesday and it carried over until today. The reason: Valentines Day! My office was full of flowers, I don't do well with flower. Makes my allergies go nuts. Eyes water, nose runs, sneeze like crazy. Combine this with a small vog attack a few days ago and my cough is back again....yay!...Damn.

Thursday – The legs stopped burning, thank god. The recovery took a lot longer than expected which tells me one thing: I'm in for a load of pain after the Aloha Run. Anyway, I did about 30 minutes of stretching for a workout.

Friday – no workout but I began carbo-loading. I've been reading up on different ways to load up on carbs for an event and found a 3 day carbo-load that fits me. I eat the same amount of food as normal but aim to have 70% of my food as carbs. Made some spaghetti, got me some whole grain bagels, broccoli, carrots, grapes, and bananas. Nutrition should be good...now if this cough will go away over the weekend...

Saturday – no workout, resting and carbing up. I went to the Aloha Run Expo to pick up my race number. I talked to a few vendors that tried to sell me stuff. I got the feeling most of them didn't really know what they were selling because they talked as though they were just reciting a script. Only the guy selling the reusable hot/cold packs and my friend Charlene knew a lot about what they were selling that they could actually talk about it, instead of just tell you about it. By the way, that cough hasn't gone away and doesn't feel like it's going anywhere soon.

Sunday – Slept late last night so I woke up at 8:30am to hopefully start feeling tired and get to bed by 9 tonight. No workout today. Continued eating carbs throughout the day and generally relaxed. I'm starting to yawn and feel a bit tired (it's a little after 7:30pm right now) so I should sleep okay tonight. Tomorrow it's on!

I've had about two months to train for the Aloha Run. I made up a training schedule that blended swimming, jiu-jitsu, long-distance runs, and mid-distance runs. Yeah, none of that happened. Injuries, illness, and vog made me abandon my original training plan and improvise a way to maintain my fitness while recovering. Oh yeah, I'm still coughing and expect to run with it tomorrow.

My goal is to finish the Great Aloha Run in under one hour. Even though my training was less than optimal I still believe I'm capable of achieving the goal. I know I can run the distance. I know I can hold a fast pace. I just need those things to come together tomorrow. I expect it to be tough, painful, and I'm going to have to push myself to keep going. But it's going to be fun! I actually am looking forward to runningn next to the military groups and listen to their sound offs. Actually that's part of my strategy.

The plan is to get to Aloha Stadium early, by 4:30am, to catch the bus downtown where the start line is. I want to have plenty of time to warm up, stretch, and make my way towards the front of the crowd (last year I started in the middle and spent the whole race weaving through people, don't want to do that again). The military starts first followed by the general public. Each military team runs as a group in their own designated military lane and each team has their own sound off. I like to listen to them. I match my pace to them, listen to their sound off, then run up to the next team, and repeat over and over. That usually carries me for the first 3 or 4 miles. Only when they're gone do I really feel like I'm running and I'll be halfway through the race.

Most of all though I like to enjoy the buzz of the event. And the sense of accomplishment at the end feels nice too. It's going to be a good run. Best of luck to everybody running and thanks to those who have read my blogs.

Passion Fruit

Seeds planted will grow,

Let it ripen perfectly?

Or take a bite now?

So I was watching Oprah the other day (yeah, yeah, whatever) and something caught my attention and has held it ever since. On the show she interviewed George Lucas and they briefly talked about what makes a person successful. That thing – which has been echoed on replays of Steve Jobs interviews lately – is passion. “Follow your bliss, follow your passion is the way for you to be the most successful and empowered person.” That's what Oprah said. George basically says to listen to yourself, not to peers, authority figures, or culture. You only need to listen to yourself, something shared with cartoonist and writer Hugh MacLeod. Interesting of course, nothing new, but then Lucas went on to talk about how you can find what your passion is. That's what caught my attention.

Lucas described it as, “when you wake up at 7 in the morning and start working on something then when you go grab a bite to eat you realize it's 7 at night. That's your passion.” Ok. Awesome. There's some sort of baseline to figure it out. So I thought about it in hopes of having some self-discovery about what my passion could be...one problem: I've never had a day like that with anything in my life, ever. Damn! So what's that mean? Am I passionless? Am I some heap of flesh with no drive to apply myself to anything? That would suck...

But no I don't think so. Not accepting that. Mainly because I rarely have that much time to work on one thing of my choosing. There's my job, errands, social plans, and other obligations. Perhaps taking Lucas literally isn't the way to go. So I thought of a different way to look at it: The few times I do have an entire day for myself, what do I do with it?

The last free day that comes to mind was a Friday. I had the day off of work. I slept in to 9 or 10am, made myself breakfast, then went to Starbucks to work on my story. I was there for 3 or 4 hours. I finished the chapter I was working on and did some editing on some previous chapters. Then I went to train jiu-jitsu. After rolling I went home and read a book.

Another day I had to myself was a Monday, another day off of work. Again, I slept in, went to Starbucks and worked on designing a blog and worked on my story a little. When I got home I read a book.

When I think about other days I had off along with free time on the weekends there's one common thread: I work on my story. But is this a passion or is it being diligent on an endeavor I began a year ago?

This brought me to another question: Is passion something that one discovers for themselves or can it be chosen?

I've been pondering the questions in this blog for over a week now (dang Oprah, so thought provoking!) and I can't come to any answers. I can't positively say writing is my passion, or storytelling. What I can say is that I choose to spend my free time engaging in those things. As for passion being discovered versus a choice...that may be too deep to tackle in one blog. Plus I've been pondering it for so long that I may never post this if I wait until I come to some conclusion. Maybe it's one of those the question is more important than the answer things. If anybody reading this has any thoughts please share. I'd love to know your thoughts.

Check out a clip from Oprah's interview

Great Aloha Run Training - Week 6

Last week I was able to get back to a few workouts and I was able to maintain that momentum this week. Here's how the training went:

Monday – I did about forty minutes of stretching. My flexibility has increased nicely since I started stretching more seriously. By no means does that mean I'm flexible though. I can touch my toes easily enough but my back and hips are still very board-like.

Tuesday – I tried doing an Insanity workout. A friend of mine gave me the entire Insanity program and I've been watching what the workouts are like thinking about trying out the whole 60 day program. So why not try one out? I did an interval workout. It's just a little more than half an hour long and it was intense. My calves were shot before the warmup even ended. I had to take several breaks throughout the workout, sweat was dripping all over the floor, and when it was all over I had to clean my floor. It was a good workout. The only complaint is how sore my calves were from it. In fact they're still a little sore as I write this blog...and it's Sunday!

Wednesday – Swim time at Manoa! My friend James is sticking to his swimming routine. I continued to give him some tips on swimming technique and he asked me what kind of drills he could do to improve his stroke. I told him about the finger-drag and the catch-up. Finger-drag is where you keep the tips of your fingers in the water as you bring your arm out of the water during the recovery phase of the arm-stroke. The drill works on the recovery phase because your elbow should be the first thing out of the water and it should always be higher than your wrist. Catch-up is where you start in the streamline position with both arms out in front. One arm is held in the streamline position as the other does an entire arm-stroke. When that arm completes the stroke and returns to the streamline position you switch arms. This drill is meant to work on maintaining good streamlined posture so you move more easily through the water. As for my workout, I hit a pretty good stride. Usually at the Manoa pool I swim no more than 200 meters at a time...I get tired and need a rest. But this time I felt good and was able to do a few sets of 300 meters, and once for 400 meters. In total I swam 1800 meters, a little over a mile. Not too bad with a pair of burning calves.

Thursday – I planned on swimming at the Salt Lake pool with some friends but it was canceled because the pool's heater was broken. Probably a good call because that water is cold enough even when it's heated. Instead we went and ate pizza for dinner. Another good call!

Friday – Rest day, no workout.

Saturday – I did a brief workout at home consisting of push ups and core exercises. Been a while since I've done push ups, I was pleasantly surprised it wasn't too hard. I did 100 total. The core exercises included crunches, and some jiu-jitsu drills (triangles). Just a quick workout.

I searched "cardio" in Google Images and found this.

Sunday – I did some stretching for about 15 minutes then did the P90X abs workout. It's 16 minutes of non-stop core work. Only once I've gotten through the entire thing without taking a break. Today...lots of breaks! I'm expecting my abs to be sore tomorrow.

I didn't go for a run this past week but the workouts I did were pretty good. The way I swam on Tuesday gives me confidence that my cardio is still there. That was never really an issue. Since I began training for the Great Aloha Run I've believed that my lungs will hold up fine. My legs will fail before my lungs do. The Aloha Run is in one week. I want to get at least one run in early this week, do a few other workouts, and then stop by Friday to give plenty of time to rest and recover. Should be a good week!

Great Aloha Run Training - Week 5

The vog has subsided, the air has been clear all week, and thank god! However, just because the air cleared up doesn't mean my lungs did. Still had a cough all week. Wasn't as bad as before, but still there...irritating. But I did manage to get a few workouts in.

Monday I continued with the stretching routine. Check out last week's GAR training blog for more details about it. It's been about 2 weeks since I began dedicating an entire workout to stretching but I already see improvement in my flexibility. When sitting with both legs extended in front of me, I can easily reach my toes and if I curl forward my forehead is only an inch away from my knees. Before I could only reach my toes after a warmup.

Tuesday was a rest day...and a cough day. Really miss running and jiu-jitsu.

Wednesday the cough was pretty light so I decided to go for a swim. I met Waimea and Kalani at the Manoa pool, an Olympic size pool (50 meters in length). Waimea swims, Kalani doesn't...one day we'll get him in the water. Our other friend James was in the water doing laps. He's only been swimming for one month and I gotta say he's doing pretty damn good. I played coach a little bit and gave James some basic tips like keep the legs together to stay streamlined and bend at the elbow during the arm-stroke to engage the back muscles. He'll be a strong swimmer in no time. For my workout, I did about 800 meters, all freestyle. It was my first workout in almost a month...fricken tiring! Before I went to the pool I watched some videos of Ian Thorpe, an Australian Olympic gold medalist. He has one of the most efficient swimming styles of all time so I try to mimic it. If you watch any his Olympic races you'll notice he's the fastest one in the water but his arms move the slowest. He has a very smooth freestyle.

Ian Thorpe swimming freestyle. Check out this video to
get a better look at his style

Thursday was another swim. This time at the Salt Lake pool, which is a short-course pool (25 yards in length). I like the short-course because I can do more flip-turns, those things are fun. I also use the short-course for speed work. I did a few 200 yard swims at a moderate pace followed by some speed swims. I did a few 100 yard builds. I start off at an easy pace and go faster each length. The last length should be almost a sprint. Then I did a few 100 yard intervals: 1^st length easy, 2^nd length fast, 3^rd length moderate, 4^th length sprint. I swam a total of 1200 yards.

Friday was another rest day. I felt good about getting back into the pool the last two days. Unfortunately, my cough was a little worse today. Some friends were having a bbq that night but I decided not to go in order to rest and sleep early. I really want this cough gone.

Saturday I woke up feeling really good. The cough was a lot lighter and there was almost no congestion in my chest. What a relief! No workout today.

Sunday and the cough is almost gone. I did another stretching workout. I also cleaned my place a little. Figured less dust and germs would mean better health.

The Great Aloha Run is in two weeks and I haven't ran in about 3. I figure my cough is mild enough that I can try a light run this week. I'll definitely make my way to the pool again.