Race reports · 2023 · Marathon Readiness Series 2 of 5 · by Jay
Runner's HI 20K: the distance steps up, and so does the heat
Race two of five. 12.4 miles in September, when the trade winds drop off and the humidity stays up.
This was race two of five. A 20K is about 12.4 miles, which is nearly a half marathon, and it comes in the hottest month of the year here.
September
People who don't live here usually assume the middle of summer is the hot part. It's hot, but the worst of it comes late. September is when the trade winds drop off and the humidity stays up, so a run that starts at 5:30 in the morning is already sticky before the first mile. Every race in the readiness series is a heat race, this one's the hottest, and it's the one where the distance steps up at the same time.
The 20K opened a September that also had the Waikiki 2.4-mile swim, the Honolulu Century Ride, and the start of zone 2 training in it, which is a lot of month. It worked because the 20K was a long run with a bib and not a race, and because the long ride and the long swim landed on different weekends. I ran 1:36:52 and Michelle ran 2:10:21, and neither of us was pushing.
Eating on the run
Fueling mattered here in a way it hadn't at the 15K. This was the race where we ate while we ran, trying out whatever was going to be in our pockets in December, and drank at every station whether we felt like it or not. Twelve miles in September is a rehearsal for the marathon's exposed stretch out toward Hawaii Kai, which is also flat, also hot, and also where a lot of people's days fall apart, so we wanted to find out here what our stomachs thought of what was in our pockets rather than out there.