Maui Run for the Whales

Last week Jacob and I traveled with my family to Hawaii to participate in Maui’s “Run for the Whales” half marathon. We were super excited to get out of the snow and enjoy Hawaii, but we were really nervous about the race. We had been trying to train, but it was too icy to run outside and so we had to battle for treadmills at the gym. Needless to say, we weren't as prepared as we hoped we would be by the time we got on the plane. It was a long plane ride.

Running a half marathon in Hawaii was very different then running a half marathon in Moab. It started the day before when we wanted to drive the length of the race so we could see what kind of terrain we would be running. The problem was that the map they gave us for the race was only 7 miles long. At this point we began to question the validity of the race, but we decided to keep our mouths shut and enjoy our shortened run.

We arrived around 5:45 to check in and get ready for the race to start at 6:30. I decided to bring my phone on the race to provide some motivating tunes, which meant I could also document the whole thing. Somehow I landed number 6. I worried that they had the wrong impression about how fast I was going to run this.

It really was a beautiful area, as we waited for the race to start I snapped this one:

And we did wait! The race didn’t start until 7 something… and when we all finally headed to the start line, I looked back and realized there were probably only 200 people actually running this race.

I decided I would document the race every few miles and grab some footage of how we were doing. We were still feeling pretty good at mile three:

Soon after mile three we discovered where the other 6 miles of the race were hiding. They were going to make us run the top 6 mile loop twice. We were not very happy people because we didn’t want to run the same terrain twice and we did not want run up the giant hill we had just conquered again. I won’t post those videos because, well, it wasn’t a happy time. We were revived around mile 8 when I looked out at the ocean and I saw a whale! I was so excited I started yelling to Jacob about it, and the other runners around us kind of laughed. But hey, that was exciting and I needed something uplifting at that time.

I will post one more video of the finish. It’s a little ridiculous, and I’m not really sure why I’m posting this on the internet for everyone to see….

We finished, and that’s the important thing. Try not to look at our finish time in the video, it's not that great. After the race we had a pretty great trip. We took surf lessons,

I wish you could see Jacob's face better because it's absolutely hilarious

^ I love this picture of Stephen...

went whale watching, we zip lined through the mountains, swam at the hotel's awesome pool with huge slides and the world’s only water elevator, drank fruity drinks out of pineapples, and went scuba diving.

^ this is the eel we saw

We didn’t want to leave, and have been regretting the decision ever since.