Marathon Postmortem 5: Honolulu

Five is a lot of marathons to write about. All the typing gets tiring after a while. Around the 4 or 5 mark they really start to blend together. If I were to keep running a marathon every year, this is probably where I’d quietly put down this postmortem habit. Then only the dozens of people I told in person would know that I ran the Honolulu Marathon last month. But for the first time in years, I don’t know when my next race will be, so I’ll get a break anyway. Then again, maybe the reason I’m less excited about writing this one is that there’s no “next race” to apply my takeaways from this one to.

This is by far the most consistently I’ve prepared for a marathon. That’s not to say it’s the best or the most intensely I’ve trained. I was so consistent because I didn’t change much from my regular running schedule. It also may be the first time I haven’t broken the Golden Rule of Marathoning and done something totally different in the race than in training.

The Honolulu Marathon is a mess. It’s not much smaller than Boston¹ and not remotely as well organized. You’re supposed to start in one of four color-coded groups by projected pace, but in reality, everyone just packed toward the start whenever they arrived. Since I was late and made the mistake of using the bathroom, I got trapped on the wrong side of a canal and had to start on a bridge towards the back of the pack.

At the scheduled 5am start, I was ready to start pushing through people or at least shuffling forward, but for some reason, there’s a fireworks show right at the start, so everyone else just stood around and watched. It took me 10 minutes after the gun to get to the start line.

Even then I was mostly weaving between other runners (and walkers) for the first 4-5 miles, and it wasn’t until after the 10K finish that I was able to run normally. I was still passing people through the first 20 miles but started to slow down around mile 22. Those last few were painful as promised, but I only walked a handful of meters. Maybe I could have run a few minutes faster if I’d started closer to the front, but overall I don’t think I could have paced it much better. My second half split was only 2 minutes slower than my first.

Towards the end, my goal of “have fun” was joined by “don’t let this be your slowest marathon”. I succeeded at both goals in 3 hours 22 minutes, making this my median marathon time, barely edging out my finishes in Boston 2024 (3:25) and Madison 2021 (3:26). What can I say, I’m consistent. It should be less of a surprise given how little I’ve ever changed my training plan. At least this time I didn’t walk too much which is a win.

It was also a good enough finish that I wasn’t disappointed about it, and I could focus on being proud of my two friends who ran their first marathons. Undoubtedly the top highlight was watching them finish their first marathon. I’m very proud of both of them.

There were a few other highlights too. There’s a section from mile 11-15 on the way out that’s on the same road as mile 18-22 on the way back, so I got to see the leaders when they were 10 miles ahead of me and my friend a few miles behind. I found a couple guys to chat with (one from Seattle) on the first climb around Diamond Head. And there were volunteers handing out Vaseline on popsicle sticks with multilingual signs telling you not to eat it.

The conditions weren’t perfect, but they were much better than I expected. Since it started so early, I hardly got any direct sunlight, though I still poured water on myself at every aid station. A small price for the sunrise, the fog in the mountains, the surfers from Diamond Head, and the rainbows. It was mostly nice and flat. The crowds (or lack thereof) were much better than in Boston. For how early it was, a surprising number of people came out to watch from their front yards, but there wasn’t the constant overstimulation.

I’m not sure what’s next. Like I said, I am a little tired of marathons. I did a sprint triathlon this Summer which was really fun. I want to do more of those and maybe an Olympic length. I also prefer trail races. I ran the Enchantments in October, and I got a very tempting promotional email for a 100 Mile trail race in mid-July. But that would be stupid.

It occurs to me that my favorite part of road racing is getting to run fast with other people which I haven’t really gotten to do in these past 2 marathons. In Honolulu, I was passing everybody the whole time, and in Boston I was getting passed. Aside from those 2 guys, I didn’t stick with any group for too long. It’s just too hard in these huge races. If I continue doing road races, I think I’ll drop down to 5Ks and work on speed before building distance back up. And even after that probably aim for smaller marathons.