I thoroughly enjoyed finishing my first marathon, even if it was 1 hour more than projected. Conditions were great, not a lot of support, but enough.

I did no, let me repeat no hill work for this marathon. I figured it was my first and I just started running, so I just wanted to get speed back to my legs(I still know I can get faster than a 7:20 5K pace that I'm at now). I only drove the course the day before the event and thought I'd just absorb the hills. I was wrong. I physically bonked at mile 11. I started to cramp in both quads everytime I tried to run over a quarter mile. That said, at mile 12 I thought I wouldn't finish the race. I had no muscle buffers to counteract lactic acid and I thought I would go into heat exhaustions w/ intractable cramping. I kept going though and had a chance to break 5 hours if I didn't cramp up a bunch in the last 2 miles. Just wait until next time

No hill work and no compensating for it during the run. I should have just slowed my pace in the beginning to 10:00, and walked the hills.


I've been told by a lot of people who came here to run this race for the first time that this is the hardest race they ever did. Most of them got over 10 marathons under their belts.
The Kilauea Volcano Marathon is supposed to be harder...good thing I did this on first, and I'll also have the Kailua Kona Marathon under my belt by then too.