Running for Life

Through the darkness, the faint blue glow of the alarm clock lit the cinder-block walls around me. My legs twitched—heavy, restless from two days of racing. 6.2 miles swimming, 261.4 miles cycling. The only sounds: snoring from the next room, wind through the garden, and my heart pounding as my body worked to recover.

I lay awake thinking about what came next. Fifty-two point four miles. I'd run thirty in training once—close enough to feel the edge, not close enough to see beyond it. If I missed the twelve-hour cutoff, that would be it. Two days of racing would end as a story that didn't get told. DNF.

My dad slept in the adjoining room at the Kokolulu retreat in Hawi. All night I used the path to the outdoor bathroom—drink, pee, hope everything was working right, drink again. I tried to picture tomorrow, but my mind raced: How could I possibly finish in time?

At 4:45 a.m. I got up feeling surprisingly ordinary—like any early morning run—except for the nervousness and nausea. At the hotel I ate a banana, coffee, some bread, then we drove quietly to the start.

Thirty-five of us gathered in the dark. Jane Bockus, the race director, called us into a ring. Prayer. Gratitude. A conch sounded to the four directions—north, east, south, west. Fifteen minutes later a simple horn cut the dark, and I was putting one foot in front of the other down the road toward Kawaihae.

The first miles felt manageable. Support vans leapfrogged ahead. My dad jogged with me for 15-20 minutes—just like when I was a kid. It felt surreal, but with everything hanging over me, I couldn't say that. I just said, "You're pacing too fast... now too slow."

Between Hawi and Kawaihae, first light came slowly. Ocean to my right, hills to my left. Each mile the van would be there: bottles ready, a nod, a handoff. "How you feel?" "Good." "Go."

Then the wheels came off. With the heat building, I switched from water to Gatorade. Mistake. It sloshed in my gut. More water, more sloshing. Salt tabs didn't help. Nausea. Dehydration. My pace slowed. For over an hour I struggled until suddenly my stomach emptied, water absorbed, and my body started working again.

At the halfway point—one marathon down, one to go—I couldn't wrap my head around it. How could I feel this good and still have another marathon ahead?

But I'd lost time. The sudden crisis terrified me. What else could go wrong? The mental challenge became worse than the physical one.