That time of year!

It's coming up on the second Sunday in December so that can only mean one thing! No, not just two weeks left in Christmas shopping, but the annual running of the Honolulu Marathon!

This will be my fifth sign up and fourth running. Missing the race in 2007 was a good thing with the bad weather and the timing chip problem that plagued the event that year. Helping at the starting line in 2008 gave me a different perspective on the race.

This year I'm excited in that with the help of Nike+, I've been keeping tabs on my running over the past year and seen improvements. While I don't expect to run the full course, I have done up some longer runs. Something amazing happened, at least amazing in my book, once I hit the 250 mile total run distance I noticed that I wasn't gasping for breath. I would loose energy but not have a heaving chest gasping to try to make up for the shortage of O2 entering my system. The clothing should be better with the socks and running shoes. The coconut hat will rock the course again this year!

Today I picked up my runner's packet at the Honolulu Marathon Expo. Disney was there promoting their Walt Disney World and Disneyland marathons. Had a good conversation Katie who was working the booth. I dropped the hit that since they are launching Aulani, a Disney Resort and Spa next summer that it would be really cool if they would be one of the race sponsors. Hopefully they'll be on the sponsor list next year.

My bib number is 3282. On Marathon day, December 12, if you'd like to follow me, and my exploits, that number put into the honolulumarathon.org web site will give you my times as I pass main check points along the course. The starting time is 5am so that would be 10am east coast and 7am west coast time.

To the people who have made comments on my different social networking sites with words of encouragement, Mahalo! I'll try to post pictures and updates along the course so keep an eye out. Afterwards I'll give an update. The main goal this year is to beat 7:51, my best time to date but I would really like to make it under 7 hours. We'll see!