Race reports · 2023 · by Michelle
Windward Half Marathon: the pretty one, the humid one
Every half on this island is a heat race by mile nine. This one's green enough to make you forget that for the first eight.
This was the third race of March and the longest one, and by then I was tired of alarms. It's a half marathon on the windward side, which is the side of the island that looks the way people picture Hawaii before they get here, with green mountains, wet air, and a course pretty enough to distract you from the fact that the humidity over there is higher than in town. By mile nine every half marathon on this island is a heat race, and this one is a heat race with a view. Does the view help? For eight miles it did, and after that I stopped looking up and started looking at the road in front of me. The mountains looked the same at any pace, so I picked the one I could hold and stayed on it, and that came out to 2:19:46 for me and fifth in my age group. Jay ran 1:52:17 and was second in his.
March 2023 went 10K, 10K, half, in consecutive weeks. Three races in a month is a lot for anybody, and for a person who needs her routine it was three weekend mornings in a row that didn't look like the other weekend mornings (I noticed, and I didn't love it). It only worked because the half was the one we ran at anything like real effort, and even that was a long run with a bib rather than a goal. All of it was the spring build toward the Hapalua in April and the Honolulu Triathlon in May.