Hard Hot Highway Repeats and a Maunawili/Old Pali HIghway Loop

I've been running the approx. 35 mile hard highway loop from Kailua to Hawaii Kai and back for the last few weeks.  Lots of night stuff, hot late afternoons and desolate makapu'u light repeats in the middle of the night.

Maybe four of these little jaunts in the past two weeks.  It gets a bit hazy when one is going out on Wednesday and again on Ssaturday or Sunday, and then getting in late at night, blown out and zonked.

But it seems to be helping my knees, believe it or not.  And it's good for my mind, again, believe it or not, as it is helping me deal with my mother's passing and the nasty last day of suffering she had.



I'm not doing anything fast. I can't.  But its a constant power walk kind of pace and the route is averaging me eight to ten hours depending on the number of repeats I do, and the time I spend taking a break at my friends Sue and Richards in Hawaii Kai.

This last Sunday, the 27th of May, I went out with Zedoc my Maui buddy and we did about 30.  Starting from the bottom of the old Pali Road in Nu'uanu, we walked up it, cutting across the new highway to stay on old road to the Pali, then down to the Maunawili Demonstration Trail, out to Waimanalo, out and back the Ditch Trail, back up, over and along the Old Government Road to the trail that heads off along the base of the ridge and peaks of Olomana and back toward the Pali Highway.

The trail comes out on the Luanahills Golf Course Road, and then we followed the Old Pali Highway up to the Junction, across the new highway, and back up along the old road, back under the highway, and
back onto the Old road to the top of the Pali and back down the way we had come up from the cars.

I believe this all took us about 9.5 hours.  We did between 4-5K of elevation, and some nasty single track along the Maunawili Trail as it is very overgrown in places.

So in a week I've done the Road for about 70 and then the trails with Zedoc for another 30, not to mention a 10 miler for George's benefit run. (It was billed as 8.5 but I'm not buying that!)  So its an honest 100 miles in a week, and maybe 130 to 150 in two weeks.

I'm holding up OK.  The knees are sore at times but not too bad. I think the tendons are getting stronger. The hard routine is letting me sleep better.  But I'm still feeling my mother's passing, and the hassles of dealing with her possessions and the medical bills.  Its a bitch....sometimes I wish I could just stay out on the trails and run.

Aloha!