Honolulu Marathon Plus

Rob and I met at the Pumping Station in Makiki at 7:00 PM on Saturday night and headed up toward the Trail Head.   It was raining so hard the water was coursing down the road about 2 inches deep.  We were soaked in a matter of seconds.  It was not a good Omen. But it was HURT trails, so what can you expect on a weekend in December?   Well, the answer to that question is,  'A bit less than we got!'.

It was so miserable when we started out that we agreed to head off on a Reverse Trek loop of 10 miles with the unsaid option of doing more when we reached the Map Room.  We started up the Hog Back and it was muddy.  It got muddier toward the top, but the rains let up a bit and we pushed on.  Cross over was a mess in many places and the treck down toward Center Trail was a long sluice of mud and slop.

I was using poles.  My knees are not happy with me and I find the poles take the strain off my legs a bit. I used them on the Peacock and it made a difference.  In the slop it was even more effective.  But be warned, if you use poles over rough terrain it puts a lot of strain on your shoulders, and you need to do a lot of training with them, and perhaps some weight training to go distance.  If you don't you will end up with a neck turning radius of perhaps five degrees, the rest just tight and painful.

There was a moon out, but we hardly ever saw it.  But a bright beautiful full moon that lit up the road when we hit the top of Nahuina and crossed Tantalus Road.  We had a momentary view of the west of Oahu, shrouded in low clouds, lightening and thunder wacking away far out on the other side of Pearl, and up into the high hills of the center of the island.  The most violent part of the cell had missed us, but we were still getting intermittently drenched.

The Kalawhahine was in bad shape and there were many places where I would not have known where I was if I had not know where I was a minute or two before.  The land scape was confused and disturbed, with branches down and the trail torn up.  The mud was deep and the streams were flowing, and showing signs of a major purge just a short time before our passage through the area.  We were lucky and had missed the worst of the storm.

Rob asked me 'The Question' before we hit the Map Room.  I knew it was coming and had been dreading the answer as I was not in the mood for a full twenty miles of the slop and slip routine. The first five miles had been very arduous, and as difficult as I had experienced over that section.  I was soaking wet, worn out and beaten down by the weather and the trail.

"I'll do one or the other, Rob, but I'm not going down into both of the valleys.  You pick it, Manoa or Nu'uanu,"  I replied.  Rob hates Manoa so the answer was a forgone conclusion.  At the map room we took the right that took us down to Pauoa Flats, and then a left at the three way onto the Nu'uanu Trail.

The mud was soft and deep in many places, and the fern was heavy with water and hanging over the trail, repeatedly dousing us in icy cold showers.  As we made our way up onto the ridgeline the winds picked up chilling us that much more.  We ground it out to the bench, and the cautiously negotiated the slick downs of  Five Minute Hill, then making it to the bottom we took the sharp right and suddenly found ourselves moving through gray misty curtains of ragged clouds that were lingering in the gulleys and washes of the upper Nu'uanu.   It was a surreal landscape first ragged and rocky and then suddenly slick and muddy along steep banks that fell off into the blackness and night mists.

There was no sense in getting more than a few steps ahead of ourselves. as the trail had changed so rapidly.  We pushed down into the valley cautiously making time where we could and treading lightly along portions of trail that seemed uncertain of themselves.  The long switch backs of the enchanted forest were a welcome respite and we were relieved that we the more obvious dangers had given way to long trenches of mud and slop.  Then, after the relatively easy park-like terrain of the norfolk pines we moved into the bottom draws and hollows surrounded by the last remnants of the hau tree forest that has grown there for an eon.  Here the trail became a mass or sloppery roots and muck, broken by the occasional muddy and wet wash.  All around us the hau grew in great long twisting limbs, turning in on itself and creating a almost impenetrable mass of vegetation.

It was down in the hau, during the battle of Nu'uanu, with Kamehameha's army pushing hard up the valley that Namakea, brother to Kaiana, both traitors to Kamehameha's cause,  found his bloody end.  Fighting as any Ali'i of high rank, he had stood unarmed agaist five spearmen.  Catching the first thrown spear he had managed to deflect the second and third with alacrity, but the forth had been thrown with the third and had pierced his thigh, mortally wounding him.  Despite the injury he had stood his ground knocked the fifth spear aside as well.  Then, unable to continue the fight he and his wife had slipped into the hau tangles in search of a hiding place where she could tend to his wounds and he might die in peace.  

As he fled into the hau forest, two of his cousins, who fought on the side of Kamehameha recognized the patterns of his Ahu'ula, feathered cloak, and followed him into the labyrinth. There they called out to him, enticing him out of hiding with promises of food and drink.  Namakea was no fool, but he was deeply thirsty, and the long day of fighting had left him in deep hunger.   He and his wife came out of hiding and joined their cousins in a small clearing in the dark tangled web of hau.   There the group ate taro, drank awa and talked of the many good times they had shared together.  

Having eaten their fill and consumed all their awa  the conversation became grave and the men spoke of Namakea's sudden turn in allegiance and the fact that he and his cousins had faced each other on the battle field not three hours before.   His cousins looked for a way to overlook these facts, and Namakea's wife pleaded with them to honor their blood ties with their cousin. But in the end the cousins were reluctant to ignore  Namakea 's transigence, and decided the only course was for  Namakea  to die.   Namakea  sat propped against a twisted bough of hau, unmoved.  He was not afraid of death, nor had he expected any thing less than what his cousins had decided upon.  He would have done the same if their situations were reversed.   So without a great deal of ceremony, the macabre play was ended and with one cousin holding him down, the other twisted his sling cord around  Namakea 's neck and garroted him, and in recognition of thier shared ancestory the cousins were quick and efficient in their execution, and the great Ali'i  Namakea  died quickly and with little pain, deep in the heart of the hau tree jungle that still grows along the trails of lower Nu'uanu.

"If conditions remain like this, coming through here in a few weeks,"  I joked to Rob,  referring to the HURT 100, "either one of us may welcome the services of Namakea's cousins."

There comes a time in a run where conversation dies, thought hibernates, and the feet keep moving just because there is nothing else to do.  The climb out of Nu'uanu was one of those times.  We pushed on quietly through the wet dark night our miseries silently ignored if not unfelt by our numbed bodies. The across the top, and back toward the Manoa Cliffs trail, or was it the Kalawahine?   All I know is we finished the last five miles and I wiped it from my memory.

I got home, showed, ate a small breakfast, rested just a bit fearing I'd fall asleep, and then I got dressed and walked down to Ala Moana Park for the start of the Honolulu Marathon, the other half of the 'night's' festivities.

The weather had cleared, the rains were gone, but the clouds remained. As I got closer to the Park there were others, marching like zombies toward the slaughter.