Race reports · 2023 · by Michelle
Akahai Half: a January half, three weeks after a marathon
We didn't race it. It was on the calendar so the long run would survive the holidays, and the same week had a Kuliouou hike in it.
Three weeks after a marathon, a half marathon is either a dumb idea or a very specific good one, and I'm going to say ours was the second, even if I'm only mostly sure of that. The Honolulu Marathon was December 11, and then the holidays did what the holidays always do to a routine person, which is take the routine away and give nothing back. The first week of January was about getting the routine back rather than about fitness, and the Akahai half was on the calendar mostly so the long run would have a reason to keep existing while everything else recovered.
So we didn't race it, we ran it, with no time goal, a stop at every aid station, and the whole idea being to finish feeling like there was more in the tank. That's how I wanted to feel three weeks after a marathon, anyway, because the fitness was still there and the recovery wasn't, and racing on the first without the second is how I'd have spent the spring on the couch. I've already got a couch and I don't need more time on it.
The same week had a Kuliouou hike in it. That's a ridge trail on the east side that goes up and then keeps going up, and the way down is a leg workout I underestimate every single time. Hikes count as training here in a way they don't on the mainland, as the climbs are real and so is the heat, and both the half and the hike are in the video, which was week three of the vlog year, with the routine back and no hole in the calendar.
Jay's watch says 1:53:55 for the half. I wasn't on Strava yet that January, and the race's results aren't posted anywhere we can read, so my time isn't on the card.