Race reports · 2022 · by Michelle
The marathon Jay never wanted, for a 50th he did
I watched the 2021 Honolulu Marathon and said we should run it for Jay's fiftieth. He'd never liked running. We trained anyway.
I'll be honest about how this started: Jay didn't want a marathon. He didn't like running, he'd never run past eight miles, and he'd built a pretty comfortable identity around not being a marathon guy, which he'd tell you himself, and he has. Then I stood at the 2021 finish line and said we should do it next year, for his fiftieth. I don't know what I expected him to say, but there's no good argument against a birthday, and he didn't find one, so that was that. We signed up two days after I said it out loud, back in December 2021, and then spent the year making the long run exist to earn it, because that was the deal I'd made with myself as the one who'd opened my mouth at that finish line.
The year
The training wasn't dramatic, it was consistent, which at this age is the only kind that works, and honestly it's the only kind I'm any good at (routine-based, predictable, that's me). It was dawn runs before the day job, and the long run built through the spring until a half at Hibiscus in May proved that 13.1 was possible. Then the long run kept building through a Honolulu summer, and long runs in August here start in the dark and finish in full sun with the humidity already up.
The race
The Honolulu Marathon starts at 5 a.m. at Ala Moana, in the dark, with fireworks. From there it goes through Waikiki, up and around Diamond Head, out the long flat exposed stretch toward Hawaii Kai, back the same way, and over Diamond Head again to finish at Kapiolani Park. There's no cutoff, which is one of the reasons it's the right first marathon for people who aren't fast, because nobody sweeps you and you finish when you finish, and I needed that, because I was not fast. The second Diamond Head, around mile 24, is where you find out whether the training was enough, and the flat part before it, in the sun, is where you find out whether you ate enough, and I was asking myself both questions out there.
We finished! Jay came in at 4:22:02 and I came in at 5:42:20, and those are the official chip times and the first two numbers in the log. I was slow and I knew it, but standing in Kapiolani Park with a medal on I didn't care even a little.
What it changed
Everything on this site exists because of this day, and the marathon itself was never really the point. What it proved was that a long day was survivable at 50 for him (by three days) and 42 for me, with the right shoes, the right food, and a plan written in pencil, and I did enjoy that medal. A year later we ran it again, with a camera.