I couldn’t let February end without a race. For the third time in the 40 year history of this race, I lined up for the 7 a.m. start of the Great Aloha Run, ready to make my way from the Aloha Tower to Aloha Stadium.

The Aloha Run is not a typical distance, measuring out at 8.2 miles. I used it as a 10-miler in my marathon training schedule and added a mile warmup before the race and a slightly shorter distance for my cooldown.

Around 12,000 people including military contingents participated. This year, the Skyline was open and began running to Aloha Stadium at 3:30 a.m. Conveniently, shuttle buses began running at 4:30 a.m. from Aloha Stadium transporting runners to the Start at the Clock Tower in downtown Honolulu.

We stood for the National Anthem followed by a Hawaiian blessing, then we were off. The temperature was 79 degrees F, but felt much cooler with the trade winds coming off the ocean. You won’t see much in the way of photos of the course which runs down the Nimitz Highway, a fairly bland stretch of road in an otherwise beautiful Hawaii.

I was planning to do a pace around 9:30, but felt great and picked it up a bit. Thankfuily, a good stretch of the course is located under overhead highway and Skyline tracks, blocking the sun which can become strong even at 8 a.m.

The course is mostly flat until the last mile or two and that bit of change felt good to my legs. I prefer some ups and downs to a perfectly flat course.

My finish time was 1:15:39, for a 9:14 mile pace. I placed first out of 34 women in F75-79. Age group awards are not given (only top 3 male and female finishers) since this is a community fundraising event and for many participants it is more oa an 8-mile block party where you see many friends and other fundraisers along the way.

All in all a good course with convenient transportation getting thousands of people to the start. The Great Aloha Expo is held the weekend before the Monday race (President’s Day) at the Blaisdell Center downtown. It’s worth an hour or so of time to check out the booths and activities.

In past years when I did this race, there was more activity at the finish with a post-race party, live music etc. in the Aloha Stadium. This year, that was scaled back, probably a vestige of the Covid era and continued caution.

Good race. Time to go home. Maybe I’ll return to repeat next year.

How is your racing going?