I took an early morning flight with Hawaiian Airlines out of LAX. Originally I wasn't planning to run the Honolulu Marathon this year, but I had accumulated enough points for a free flight. I also had enough Wyndham Reward points for 3 free nights stay at a Wyndham property. So all I had to do was get myself to the airport and my expenses for the trip would only be for meals. Anyways for this trip, I once again parked at the Four Points by Sheraton parking lot via SpotHero. From there I hopped on the shuttle over to terminal 5.
I sat pretty close to the back of the plane. My aisle seat was in the middle row, but there were only 3 seats in the row instead of the usual 4 seats. That was convenient since I never had to be bothered to let the person in the middle seat out. During the flight, I watched a couple of free informational shows about poké and Tokyo yokocho. Some of that info will be useful when I go back to Tokyo for the marathon. I also tried to get a little bit of shuteye so I wouldn't be too tired when I landed on Oahu.
Inflight meal
Poké
Tokyo Yokocho
Cookie!
After landing at Daniel K Inouye International Airport, I made my way over to the bus stop to catch a ride into Waikiki. The bus fare was $2.75, an increase of a quarter. I took it over to the Ala Moana Center where I got off to find something quick to eat. In the weeks leading up to this trip, I had been craving some Jollibee, so that's where I went. I got in line and ordered their palabok fiesta with a drink. I was so hungry, I inhaled that pancit in a matter of seconds.
Palabok fiesta
From there I walked over to the Hawaii Convention Center to pick up my race packet. Per the normal routine, I first pick up my bib for the marathon. Then I walked over to a separate booth to pick up the bib for the Kalakaua Merrie Mile. Along with the bib, they gave me a nice looking lavender shirt. After scanning my bib to check that the timing chip worked and picking up a plastic goodie bag, I went into the official merchandise area. It was pretty similar to last year's offerings. I didn't find anything that I thought was worth purchasing. The vendor booths were pretty much the usual bunch. Unfortunately Zippy's was not there giving out free samples of their chili.
Kalakaua Merrie Mile shirt
Time to sign the wall!
After I was done with the expo, I walked over to the Waikiki Marina Resort at the Ilikai to see if I could check-in a bit early. The check-in area was just past the shops to the left of the elevators on the way to the pool. The room wasn't ready yet, so they said that they would give me a call when it was ready.
Check-in here
Check-in
To pass the time, I walked across to the street to the ABC Superette to buy 2 large bottles of water. I then stopped in at McDonald's to eat a local deluxe platter which is one of things that I look forward to eating when I come to Hawaii. It took a while for my food to come out as I was ordering a breakfast platter after the normal breakfast hours. It was every bit as good as I remember it to be. I kind of wish that they would have this available on the mainland. I could eat it every day!
Local deluxe platter
Before I had finished my meal, I received a call from the hotel to inform me that my room was ready. I returned to pick up my room keys. Besides giving me a welcome package, they tried to sign me up for another timeshare presentation with some pretty good incentives. However this time I was determined to decline the invitation. After that, I hopped on one of the fast elevators up to my room. They had put me in a room facing the city on the 21st floor. This place was by far the best place that I've stayed in during the 10 times that I've been to Honolulu.
View from balcony
After unpacking and going through the goodie bag, I then took a much needed shower as I had worked up a sweat walking all around with my bags. Shortly after I had laid out my flat runner, I fell asleep. I didn't bother getting up to eat another meal.
Flat runner
Saturday 12/8
I got up, got ready, and started my jog over to the start line of the Kalakaua Merrie Mile over at Kapiolani Park. Just as I had started my run, I came across a dollar bill on the ground. At times the rain was coming down pretty good. Since I still had about an hour to pass before the start of the race, I ducked into a McDonald's to stay out of the rain and dry off a bit. I then used a portapotty near the start line and waited with a few people under the Kapiolani Park Bandstand to stay dry before the start of the race.
Start line
For this race, I wanted to see if I could run a sub 6 min mile. Unfortunately about a quarter way into the race, I knew that I couldn't hold the pace, so I backed off a bit. The pair of shoes that I wore felt a bit stiff as if I needed to break them in still. In the end, I finished 1 second slower than last year's time. I guess that's not too bad with the warm temperature and high humidity.
Finish: 6:39
Click here for my Garmin data.
Relive 'Kalakaua Merrie Mile'
Finisher medal
Lanikai juice
After getting my medal and bottle of Lanikai Juice, I started heading back to my hotel. I think they were handing out the usual Moon Pies as well, but I didn't see them. However I did see other people with them. In the past two years, I've stuck around to watch the elites run. It was starting to rain, so I decided to not stick around. Once again the rain started to come down pretty good a few times. Before heading up to my room, I went across the street to buy some breakfast at McDonald's. A homeless lady was clowning me when she saw me walk in. She was saying stuff like, "look at this crazy f*cker running a marathon in the rain!" "How are you going to see in the dark while running a marathon at 5am, 3am?" "You f*cking idiot should be locked up in a mental hospital!" On her way out, she tells me, "you're a f*cking idiot!" At first I thought about correcting her in that I only ran a 1 mile race as well as coming up with a clever retort. However I thought better of it since she wasn't wrong. Running at dark o'clock in the rain and paying money for it is a bit crazy. :)
Anyways, I took my local deluxe platter back up to my room to enjoy while watching some English Premier League soccer. After I got cleaned up and was done watching soccer, I started heading over to the Shirokiya Japan Walk at the Ala Moana Center to meet up with a couple of my local friends for lunch.
Local deluxe platter
I first took a lap around the whole place to check out if there were any stands with new food. Nothing new stood out, so I went to my favorite place, Ramen Ono-ya, for a bowl of mazesoba. I usually get their Taiwan Mazesoba, but this time I tried their Miso Mazesoba.
Miso mazesoba
After lunch, my friend and I walked up to the nearby Somisomi to get some ice cream. It had just opened up recently so the lines were usually long. Fortunately for us, there wasn't really a line when we were there. The consensus based on Yelp reviews was that it gets pretty messy if you get it Ah-Boong. So we both got it upside down in a cup. I went with Oreo ice cream with a Nutella filled taiyaki topped with some Cocoa Pebbles and a macaroon. It was not bad. However since I don't have much of a sweet tooth, this might be a one-and-done thing for me.
Upside down Nutella Oreo ice cream with Cocoa Pebbles
After that, one friend headed over to the convention center to pick up his race packet. The other friend walked with me over to the Consolidated Theatres Ward Stadium 16 to see if we could catch a movie. I wanted to see the advance showing of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Unfortunately the showing was completely sold out. I eventually bought a ticket for Creed II which was almost 2 hours away. My friend wanted to keep me company, but I told him that it wasn't necessary especially if he didn't like the Rocky franchise. Besides I'm quite the introvert. I'm perfectly fine watching it by myself. During the wait, we did go inside Dave & Buster's to check it out. I must be getting old and becoming a fuddy-duddy as nothing looked like fun. :)
Eventually I said goodbye to my friend and waited inside the lobby of the movie theatre. The movie was mostly disappointing for me because of the portrayal of Adonis Johnson/Creed. I thought that Adonis had worked out his whiny attitude in the first film. Unfortunately they continued that story line even further making his character quite annoying and frustrating. In the first movie, I felt bad for him. This time around, he just came off as a whiny little bitch. However I did like the development of Viktor Drago, the son of Ivan Drago. Viktor was first portrayed as a menacing blue-collar boxer showing little or no emotions, but as the movie progressed they showed more of his life story. I'm pretty sure they didn't want a carbon copy of the Rocky IV story where Drago was the clear cut villain where we knew next to nothing about him. In the final boxing match of the movie, I found myself rooting for Viktor to win instead of Adonis.
Creed II
On the way back to my room, I stopped in at the ABC Superette to buy some Powerade for tomorrow's race. I also stopped in at the McDonald's to pick up dinner. I used the mobile app to buy two Quarter Pounder Deluxe burgers with the second one being $1. After finishing off both burgers, I laid out my flat runner.
Quarter Pounder Deluxe x2
Flat runner
Sunday 12/9
I really had trouble sleeping, so I was up most of the night. I got ready and headed over to the L&L Hawaiian Barbecue building over at the Ala Moana Beach Park. This year the race organizers were trying to control the entry points into the starting corrals, so some of the locals had designated this place instead of the usual location by the tennis courts as the spot for the pre-race Marathon Maniacs photo. They set 4:15 am as the meeting time. I got there just a few minutes late and they had already taken the photo. They were nice enough to gather the remaining folks and take another one.
Marathon Maniacs pre-race photo
A couple more Maniacs showed up as I was ready to head over to the starting corrals. The few of us walked on over. We bumped into another well-known Maniac in front of Ala Moana Center just before the fencing started. Some of us had startled looks on our face for this photo since the nearby cops were yelling at people to move out of the way for an emergency vehicle to get through.
More Maniacs
From what I saw with the new fencing, they were mostly trying to prevent people from crossing over the timing mats to get into the starting corral. They tried to get people to line up in the proper section of the corral based on the bib color. They announced this both in English and Japanese, but once again no one was following the instructions. Another new thing for this year was that the starting line was marked by columns instead of a banner across the street.
Start line
In all the years that I've run this race, I've never stop to look at the fireworks. However for this year, they didn't go off as long as they normally do. They announced that this was a compromise to the noise complaints received from the neighboring residents.
It was a pretty standard Honolulu Marathon for me. However if I could change anything, it would be the pair of shoes that I had brought with me. It just didn't feel like the shoes had much cushion to them, so it felt like I was working harder than I should. Then to make matters worse, the trade winds were pretty strong once I got onto the H1 Highway. It was rather demoralizing to run into that kind of wind. It was strong enough that it blew off my visor. Thankfully there was a bit of a respite once I reached Hawaii Kai. Once I started heading in the opposite direction on the H1, it was a much smoother sailing back to the finish line at Kapiolani Park. I did have to deal with some leg cramps during the last 3 miles which made it a bit tougher to make it in under 5 hrs.
Sousaphone player
Finish line
Finish: 4:59:09
Click here for my Garmin data.
After crossing the finishing line, I got my finisher medal and shell necklace. My goal was to finish in just under 5 hrs. I barely made my goal with less than a minute to spare! I slowly wobbled over to the tent to get a malasada and a banana. I then picked up my finisher shirt before heading back to my hotel. This year's shirt was a hot pink color. Throughout the years, I always looked forward to collecting the finisher shirt at the end of the race.Relive 'Honolulu Marathon'
Finisher medal and shell necklace
Malasada
Finisher shirt
After getting cleaned up, I relaxed on the bed and watched a bunch of TV. I waited until my appetite had returned before going back out to get some lunch at McDonald's. This time I stuck mostly to the $1 deals available on the mobile app. I took the food back to my room to enjoy.
Cheeseburger $1.50, McDouble $1, and Medium Fries $1
For dinner, I was planning to eat at McDonald's again, but the app wasn't working. So I made the walk over to Ala Moana Center to find something to eat. I found myself back at Jollibee. This time around, I got the palabok fiesta with 2 pc Chickenjoy and pineapple juice for my drink. The gravy was mmmm mmmm delicious with the fried chicken!
Palabok with 2 pc Chickenjoy
Monday 12/10
This resort had one of the earliest check-out times at 10 am. That's not a problem for a morning person like me. However since my flight was pushed back into a late night red eye flight, I had a lot of time to pass before catching my flight home. After checking out, I walked across the street for breakfast at McDonald's. I just had to get the local deluxe platter one last time. :)
Local deluxe platter
After finishing breakfast, I made the walk over to the Hawaii Convention Center via the Ala Wai Promenade. Once I got there, I took the escalators up to the third floor to pick up my finisher certificate and the newspaper with the list of finishers. These days they also send you a PDF file so you could print the certificate out for yourself, however they still want to bring you in to try and get you to purchase some souvenirs.
Ala Wai Promenade
Finisher certificate
From there, I walked over to the Consolidated Theatres Ward Stadium 16 to catch a movie. This time I saw the Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. I wasn't impressed with the last one and this one was a continuation of the same thing... always trying so hard to impress the audience with too much CGI. Also the story so far hasn't been very original. I've read and seen this story before elsewhere. It was called the X-Men. Professor Charles Xavier was Albus Dumbledore opening a school to teach mutants/wizards to use their powers for the good of all including non-mutant/muggles and Magneto was Grindelwald wanting to make sure that mutants/wizards were not mistreated with preemptive strikes. I'm hoping the story will change a bit for the next movie, but I won't be holding my breath.
It was raining off and on as I started heading back towards Waikiki. Originally I was going to go to Walmart to buy a bottle of water and some Kona coffee to take home. However instead I went inside the Target store that I believe had just recently moved into the Ala Moana Center at the corner of Kapiolani Blvd and Keeaumoku St. I much prefer shopping at Target, plus I still had a bunch of gift cards that I needed to use. I was pretty dang thirsty from all of the walking around that I had been doing.
Water
I then walked all the way into the middle of Waikiki to eat an early dinner at Marukame Udon. Since it was between lunch and dinner there wasn't the usual huge line. I got a small nikutama in cold broth. I added a kombu onigiri as well as a pumpkin and shrimp tempura.
Small nikutama in cold broth, kombu onigiri, pumpkin and shrimp tempura
Is that Harry Potter?
After finishing my meal, I headed across the street to visit the International Market Place. After taking a loop around the place to check out the shops, I found an empty sofa seat to just sit down and hang out for a while. As it got closer to 7 pm, I walked over to the bus stop in front of the Food Pantry on Kuhio Ave to wait for the next bus heading over to the airport. The bus wasn't crowded for the evening ride over to the airport. It's normally very crowded when I take it during the middle of the day.
Even though I still had a few hours to wait for my flight home, I got in line for the TSA. I made sure to take the bag of coffee along with other food items out of my carry-on bags. Good thing I remembered the coffee, because they pulled it for extra examination. They swabbed the package to make sure that there wasn't any explosive residue detected. During the long wait for my flight, I thought about buying some snacks and a drink from one of the stores in the terminal. Eventually I decided on getting an iced tea from the vending machine to tide me over. I pretty much KO'd once I boarded the plane.
Heading home
Tuesday 12/11
It felt pretty good to have slept the entire way home. The plane landed in LAX at about 6:45 am. After I got back to my car, I drove straight down the dreaded 405 for work.
This year was my 9th consecutive and 10th overall Honolulu Marathon. Looking through my finishing times, I had been fairly consistent throughout the years finishing right at about 5 hrs except for one year with a 6 hr finish where I was dealing with a stress fracture.
2018: 4:59:09
2017: 4:52:23
2016: 4:43:36
2015: 5:13:29
2014: 4:21:30
2013: 4:35:28
2012: 4:47:44
2011: 6:04:05
2010: 5:00:33
2008: 4:49:34
Originally it was supposed to be one and done, but I just kept going back. You could say that I even looked forward to the trip every year. Nowadays I can see the entire course in my head. It has been fun eating and running through Honolulu every December for the past decade, but I'll be taking a break so that I could run other races. God willing, I plan to return for their 50th race in 2022! Aloha!
