Hapalua Half: Hawaii's half, and what it taught us

The Hapalua calls itself Hawaii's half marathon, and it earns the name with a big field, a Waikiki start, and Diamond Head in the middle. The start line is already warm in April, which is about what June is going to feel like, so by this race the cool part of the year is over. The course goes out of Waikiki along the water, up and around Diamond Head, and back. It's the same climb the marathon uses, and it does the same thing to your pace at mile eight of a half that it does at mile 24 of a marathon, only with less warning and with a lot more people around you finding out at the same time.

The week before this one had mile repeats in it, the first real speed work of the year, and the week after had what the video title calls a brutal brick workout on hills, because the Honolulu Triathlon was five weeks out and Honu was seven and the bike had to start mattering. So the half sat in the middle of a triathlon build as that week's long run, and since it happened to come with a medal, we took it.

The third-week April video is called "lessons learned from the Hapalua," and we're not going to rewrite it here, so watch it. The short version is the thing every hot half teaches you eventually: the first four miles felt easy because it was early and the air hadn't warmed up yet, and the last four were where that caught up with us. For me it added up to 1:51:51, 8:33 a mile, with the splits on the card. For Michelle it was 2:33:22, and the same climb was waiting for her at the same mile.

For anyone flying in for a Honolulu race, this is the one we'd point to, because the field is big enough to feel like an event and it's a full 13.1 in real heat. Honolulu is not a recovery week, and that page is worth reading before you book the flight.