Oh, de doo-da day

Sunday I got back into the running thing officially with another half-marathon. I realized I hadn’t done one since I arrived on maui so I figured it was time. This race was actually really fun – it was small in size (about 1000 people), it was very very flat, and we started early enough in the morning (5:30am) to avoid most of the heat. It was also nice and scenic, starting at the Whalers Village in Kaanapali, heading down to Launiopoko along front street and back up to the Village. Parking was a problem as it always is on the Lahaina side of the island, but other than that it couldn’t have gone better. Well, unless I had trained harder. In a couple of the pictures I snagged off the photo-peoples’ website I look especially soaked, but rest assured that’s because someone had a hose at the last water stop and was hosing people down. I can safely say that person is going to heaven.




Saturday was the next big event – the 26 mile paddle across the Molokai channel. It was similar to the Great Kahakuloa race I wrote about last, but instead of hugging the coastline we started on Maui and ended up on Molokai. I’d never been to Molokai and I hope to get back there someday and see the sights. But the day went without a hitch, honestly. Oh wait, there was one hitch. Normally we have 9 people to a crew so that we can rotate 3 people into the boat every 15 or 20 minutes. We only had 8 show up. So each person spent more time in the boat than they should have. We were all pretty hammered at the end of the 4 hours or so. But we made it. We hadn’t ever been in ocean swells like that before so I’m sure we worked a lot harder than the more experienced crews. But we made it!

At the end of the race they had food (like the end of any good race), and then we caught the ferry back to Maui. Good times. Basically there’s one more race to finish up the season – from Molokai to Oahu. It runs about 41 miles or so. Things tend to get expensive the longer the race; you have to think about airline tickets, hotels, escort boat fees, entry fees, a rental car, all of that stuff. We’ve got a couple guys working on getting sponsorships for our crew. But barring not having enough money to cover the race I’m all for it. Then comes the end of the racing season (whew!) and I can start getting some alone time with the solo canoe – so far I’ve only been out on it once. So sad.

Anyway, life is good. Oh, and here’s a picture of a lizard who was just begging to have his photo taken.