Do's and don'ts · January 15, 2023 · 2 min read
Sign up a year out if you have to. Then build the long run.
We registered for the marathon two days after Michelle said it out loud, with 8.1 miles as the longest either of us had ever run. The date got us started. The long run is what got us to the finish.
The internet will tell you to sign up first so you can't back out. We did exactly that, and it worked, and we'd still tell you to be careful with it.
How it went for us
Michelle watched the 2021 Honolulu Marathon from the sidewalk and said we should run it the next year for Jay's fiftieth, and a couple of days later, when registration opened for locals, we signed up. At that point the longest either of us had ever run was 8.1 miles, we'd done a 5K or 10K here and there without enjoying them, and both of us had spent years in the Army hating every mile the Army made us run. The date did its job, because it turned a marathon into something that existed on a calendar instead of something Jay had decided he'd never want.
The date wasn't the plan, though. We started in January with 1.5 miles one day and 2 the next, walking three days a week to break it up, with no real idea what we were doing. The long run got to 8.5 miles, maybe 9 at most, then came a half marathon at Hibiscus in May, then past the half through a Honolulu summer, then through the readiness series to a 30K in October, and the marathon in December was only real because of that. If the half had gone badly, we'd have moved the marathon to the next year and been fine with it, because nobody was keeping score on a fiftieth birthday except the guy having it.
Every race since
Every distance since has followed the same shape, where a race we could already picture finishing got us ready for the one we couldn't. The half was the bridge to the marathon, the Olympic tri in May 2023 was the bridge to the 70.3 two weeks later, and the 112-mile Dick Evans ride in August was the bridge to the full-distance bike leg, the same way the standalone marathon was the bridge to the run at the end of the full. A bridge race tells you the truth about the next one before the next one can hurt you, and that's the reason we keep doing it in that order.
Why this matters more after 40
At 30 you can bluff a distance, be sore, and finish, and in your forties and fifties the bluff has consequences that last weeks. A body that hasn't done the long run doesn't have the tendons, the eating habits, or the pacing sense to survive a bad day at a long distance, and the bib doesn't give you any of that, only the long run does. So sign up if the date is what gets you moving, and then treat the long run as the thing you actually owe the race.