The Great Aloha Run was . . . Great!

Ok the subject line is corny because the creative juices aren't flowing so well.  We have come down with colds.  We thought our sore throats were caused by inhaling excessive amounts of vog during Monday's Great Aloha Run but the sore throats have turned into full blown colds.  [Vog is volcanic smog that covers the islands when the Kona winds blow from the east versus the normal trade winds that come from the south and west. The change in wind typically goes unnoticed if one is just traveling through but it sends residents running to their doctors complaining about respiratory problems.]

But we're not complaining about the vog; we want to tell you about the race.  The Great Aloha Run's tag line is Ke Kukini Me Ke Aloha Pau'ole (the race with compassionate love).  The 8.15 miles starts in downtown Honolulu and ends in Aloha Stadium (home to UH football and the NFL Pro Bowl).  We woke up at a very early hour (3:45) to park at the stadium and shuttle downtown to the start.  After making a ridiculous number of bathroom stops (which is what happens when you have too much time to linger near the starting line) we waited in the dark for the race to begin.

Race organizers said 27,000 people had entered this 27th running though online results list just over 19,000 finishers.  It was a very walker-friendly event that even included a stroller-entry division.

3,500 service members ran in formation along the left side of the course.   During the first few miles they kept up the chanting but some formations started to disperse around mile four when slower guys couldn't keep up.  (We didn't see too many girls but the ones we saw never broke formation.)  Here's R running next to Coasties.  We were never able to pick up on what was being chanted but it was motivating nonetheless.

This was definitely the smelliest race we have experienced starting with the fish smell at the piers in town, then the garbage odors when we ran under the highway, compounded with the stench of sweaty boys running in close proximity to one another. We were actually glad there were no trade winds to blow the smells around!

There were the usual characters that are found in road races:

Not sure what this guy was supposed to be.

A running store carried a balloon Chinese dragon.

And a fun stadium finish:

It took us quite some time to find each other after the race to be able to fully celebrate our times.  The maps given out in advance showed a meeting place that did not actually exist so it took almost 90 minutes to finally find one another!  Sadly, by then, the high from finishing had somewhat diminished.

But we both kicked butt on this fast course with two small gentle hills.  A finished in 1:05:17 (736 out of 19,221) and R finished in 1:21:17 (sub 10- minutes/mile - a first for that distance!).

Now let's go get some breakfast!