HNL Week 3: Yowsa.

Distance: 7.0 miles

Time: 1 hr 21 mins 44 sec

Route: Home - AA Trail - Pearl Harbor - Kamehameha Hwy - Ford Island - USS Utah Memorial

Welp, here we go again.  Training for my last marathon.  I know I've said it before..."yadda yadda, last marathon, yadda yadda".  This truly it.  I figured, what better way to go out than the Honolulu Marathon?  I signed up back in January when the price was right and when life hadn't happened yet. 

I have to be honest, this training has been hard.  I'm not mentally in the game and I need to be.  I had been enjoying my cross training days more than my running days and that really can't be a good sign.  I have all the excuses: I'm tired, I'm busy, I'm only 5 months post-op, I'm not as fast as I want to be, blah, blah, blah.  That's just it though...they're all excuses.  Physically, I know that I can do this.  Emotionally and mentally, I need to slap myself back into reality and kick my Debbie Downer and Negative Nelly to the curb.  This morning's run was definitely a good slap back into reality.

I woke up at 5:15am and got ready.  I left the house a little after 5:30 and hit the trail.  When I hit the trail, it started to rain a bit.  I smiled because I knew it would feel good later.  I was having a hard time getting into a good rhythm.  I took a small walk break at 2 miles to shake off the feeling being off.  I ran through the Makalapa Gate and onto Kam Hwy.  I started running up the Kam Hwy hill and decided to take a slug from the Camelbak...only, I was getting nothing.  I kept trying and still nothing.  Finally, I slowed to a crawl and tried to figure out what wrong.  Turns out the nozzle on the mouthpiece needed to be aligned in the right direction.  Yep, who has two thumbs and is a genius?  This girl. 

I ran down the hill and I saw the Ford Island Bridge in the distance.  Of my favorite places on the run is between the Halawa Gate (Pearl Harbor...only open on the weekdays) and the Ford Island Bridge.  You run past the Arizona Memorial, you can see everything in the harbor and Aloha Stadium is to your right.  It was about this time that it started to rain again.  I got to the bridge and all of a sudden my stomach just started cramping.  My initial plan was to run down to the Pacific Aviation Museum, as they had a really cool thing on display outside and then loop around the flight line and cool down to the Utah.  Sadly, that didn't happen.  I made it over the bridge and then I had to walk thanks to the cramps.  I decided to just head over to the Utah...it would shorten my route, but at that point, I didn't really care.  I was able to start jogging a bit when I hit the Navy Lodge.  I hit the Utah and then did a few loops around the neighborhood to make sure I got the distance.  Mark and the kiddos came to pick me up about 15 minutes later.

This was a run that I was just happy to get through.  I needed this...it reinforced that I won't give up...even when everything in my being is screaming at me.  I know that it was only 7 miles, but it was a good reality check.  Onward and upward from here!  :)