HAWAI'I

State #38 Hawai'i

Hibiscus Half Marathon

Honolulu, O'ahu, Hawai'i

In my previous blogs I have talked a lot about goals.  If you have read any of these posts you will likely understand that I am rather goal oriented in my life and as it pertains to running.  It is not at all uncommon that my goals change over time.  In most instances, I achieve my goals and continue to "raise the bar", effectively increasing the goal to be able to achieve more and more as I progress.  There are a few instances, however where the goal changes altogether into a new direction.  

As you may recall, I have goals and mini goals, and then new goals.  Concerning the 50in50in50 goal, I am on track and projected to complete this goal by June 2020.  Hawaii was state #38 and it is now complete.  One of my mini goals for this "project" was to run 1:30 for a half marathon which is a 6:52 per mile pace.  So far, I have only been able to muster a pace of 7:21 per mile which translates to 1:36.  I, by no means think that this is bad, but it is not quite enough to achieve the goal of 1:30.  At this point I still have twelve more races (13 if you include Washington DC.) to be able to achieve this goal, but it appears as if I am not progressing as rapidly as I had hoped.  It is possible that I am not going to be able to achieve this goal in the time frame that I have allotted.  I certainly have not given up, but I am facing the reality that it may not happen.  This is a tough pill to swallow, and I will continue to work toward this goal, but it seems that I will have a significant amount of work to accomplish this goal.  Maybe, just maybe it is possible that this goal may need to change.  As I type this, it just "sounds" like a copout.  I guess we will have to see.

One of the goals that have snuck in to this endeavor is to spend some time enjoying the different parts of the country as I travel around, especially when I bring my family along with me.  There was no way that my wife and kids were going to allow me, without a fight, to go to Hawaii without them... and I very much enjoy having them along.  So, off we went to Hawaii.  Valerie, the kids, my mom and Grampi.  We decided to spend a week on Maui prior to the race in Honolulu.  Aside from the snafu's of traveling American Airways to Hawaii and being trapped in Tempe, Arizona far longer than anyone would hope, we really had a great trip.  There was a fair amount of relaxation as well as a bit of adventure.  For an entire week, we were on vacation.  There was no race, there was no work, there were no pressures of our everyday lives.  My mom secured a beautiful house for us all right on the beach.  We could not have asked for or imagined a more beautiful venue to spend our time.

The sunsets were nothing shy of incredible.

We went on a waterfall rappel trip where we rappelled down three separate waterfalls and hiked through the forrest.... somewhere 1/3 the way up the road to Hana.

We took another tour, a sunrise tour up to Haleakala.  We arose early, and when I say early, what I mean is 2:30am.  We took the tour bus up to Haleakala and watched the sunrise.  It was spectacular.   

From there we road some mountain bikes back roughly 26 miles down the winding roads from the mountain top to Paia.    It being an extremely small world as it relates to the people, we happened to see our former next door neighbors on Maui - Steve and Ellen Short.

  We explored the beach and saw all sorts of critters. 

We had a private tour in some nice snorkeling spots, with some cliff jumping.

One of the reasons for this trip, aside from vacation and my race, was Keeley's graduation.  Keeley was given the option of participating in one of the homeschool group's graduations, pr having her own, "private" graduation.  As you might imagine, she chose to have her graduation ceremony in Hawaii.  We had a nice little ceremony at sunset on the beach.

In all, we had a very nice time.  I do not believe that any of us were terribly happy to leave.

Of course there was a race on O'ahu, so we packed up and headed over to Oahu and spent the day ond evening on Waikiki Beach and at the Marriott.  The next morning we got up and walked over to the start of the race.    The race was not my best.  Although I did train every day while we were in Maui, I was not able to keep the pace that I had intended.  The temperature was about 75ºF at the start and began to rise from there.  The sun comes up early this time of year, although if I am being hones, I am not certain the heat and/or humidity had much to do with my lack of performance.  Maybe I was still on vacation.    I was able to finish, with a time of 1:49:49.  Not exactly what I had hoped for, but  in retrospect, I had a really nice time in our 50th state for a week and am happy to have had an opportunity to spend some good quality time with the family.

As I type this, I am in Jackson, Wyoming after my next race (state #39) that was yesterday.  The Grand Teton Half Marathon.  I am on my way to Seattle for the week, and I will update you on this race later in the week.  Spoiler alert... ELEVATION!!!! UGH!!!!.