Hapalua 2024: fourteen minutes back, in April heat

The 2023 Hapalua is where we learned the lesson about going out too fast in Waikiki, and I learned it the hard way, which is the only way I seem to learn anything. The 2024 race is what that lesson looks like on a sheet, because Jay came in nine minutes faster and I came in fourteen minutes faster, on the same course with the same Diamond Head in the middle of it.

Fourteen minutes is a lot on the same distance, the same heat, and the same hill, so what changed? Mostly I didn't run the first 5K like it was the whole race, and that's about as far as the strategy went. I went through 5K in 32:31 and 15K in 1:39:53 and finished in 2:18:53, and there isn't much more to the race than that, though it took me a year to be able to say so.

Jay ran 1:43:11 for ninth in the 50-54s, which is 7:52 a mile in April heat, and I'm proud of him and a little annoyed about it, which is the normal ratio in our house.

Five weeks later was the Honolulu Triathlon, and seven weeks later, Honu.