Hello! Welcome back to The Footprint – and happy Friday.

Best of luck to everyone running the Los Angeles Marathon and New York City Half Marathon this weekend.

📬 Today: We’re off to Hawaii, and talking to the man in charge of the Honolulu Marathon.

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Letting It Run

With less than two miles left of December’s Honolulu Marathon, Erin Kunst was in the midst of the race of her life.

All that stood between her and the finish was the steep road around Diamond Head crater. Scaling it on the way out had been one thing; the return was something else. Her calves were on the verge of cramping.

The higher Kunst climbed, the louder the cheers seemed to grow. “It made me want to cry,” she wrote in her race recap. “They were so loud, FOR ME. Someone they didn't know. Someone who looked dreadful, couldn't return the cheers, and they would likely never see again.”

She kept climbing, ultimately reaching the peak and beginning the welcome descent. Kunst had run the numbers. She knew her goal was within reach. “It's yours,” a man on the sidewalk assured her. “Keep fighting.”

She kept fighting. It would be close – a matter of seconds – but she pushed, stride by stride, along the straightaway. The crowds grew even louder, until she felt her left foot hit the timing strip.

Kunst completed the 2024 Honolulu Marathon in 2:59:17; breaking three hours for the first time, and finishing 62nd in a field which included Olympians and world championship medalists.

She was near the front of a vast pack. Unlike other major races, Honolulu has no time limit. Some 18,800 runners had the space to run their own race – at whatever speed that might be. The last finisher crossed the line in 16:17:16.

In 2017, organizers claimed it was home to both the fastest (2:08:27) and possibly the slowest (16:23:09) marathons recorded on US soil that year.

The lack of a cut-off “says everything about who we are,” Jim Barahal, longtime president of the Honolulu Marathon Association, said in a recent interview. “It opens the race. It's more inclusivity.”

Honolulu can be hot, humid and hard enough (and it was in December) without adding “some externally imposed deadline,” he suggested. As the running boom continues, last year’s marathon had the largest number of entries since 1995.

Barahal, 72, still remembers his first run – probably a mile and back, as a freshman at the University of Michigan – leaving him bent over, out of breath, in 1970. “When you first start running, the marathon seems somewhat unattainable,” he said. But he stuck with it, and in 1973 finished 81st at the Glass City Marathon in Toledo, Ohio.

“It's incredible how one small step can lead to lots of things,” said Barahal. “There's something about what running brings to people that is going to be eternal. And people are always going to find it.”

When you decide to start running, put in the required time and energy to train your body, and drive towards a race, challenge or goal, it offers “a way of approaching life that carries over into everything you do,” according to Barahal. “It gives you an internal confidence and a positive toughness, overcoming obstacles. It helps you achieve more.”

At least, he added, “that's what it gave me.”

Building the fitness required to tackle any significant distance demands a humbling level of consistency. It takes time, will and grit.

A basketball player returning to the court after 10 years might be able to land a few free throws, Barahal reckons. But running, by contrast, is a “very present” sport. “If you didn't run for 10 years, you wouldn't be able to run to the mailbox.”

However fast, or far, “it's a great value for life,” he said. “Toughing it out, and putting yourself in uncomfortable situations, and having the internal resolve to do that.”

At its best, this sport is open to anyone – no matter who they are – to find the benefits beyond the mailbox.

I was among the thousands who ran their own race in Honolulu last December. It was one of the toughest, and best, I’ve had the chance to run. The sunrise alone made it worth the struggle.

Breaking four hours felt like an achievement for me that day, let alone three. Running is a present sport, but it’s also very individual: it rests on your training, your limits and your reality, from one day to the next.

Before dawn that morning, my playlist had shuffled into a song by Jon Batiste. “Be who you are,” he says, paraphrasing a quote often attributed to Oscar Wilde. “Everyone else already taken.”

AROUND AND ABOUT

🏆️ London is set to stage the biggest ever marathon. More than 56,000 runners are set to take part in next month’s race, breaking the current record of 55,646 set by the New York City Marathon last year.

📰 Social media is not real life. Coach and author Steve Magness broke down – on Instagram, of all places – how training approaches that look good on such platforms often fail to work in the real world. "The actual arena is different from the online one," he wrote.

🇮🇪 A trio of Irish athletes made history. Over 36 minutes last weekend Mark English, Sarah Healy and Kate O’Connor each won medals at the European Indoor Championships in Apeldoorn. Healy became the first Irish woman to win gold at a European Indoor event.

👀 Not all runners want to watch running. Four-time Olympic champion sprinter Michael Johnson is gearing up to launch Grand Slam Track next month. Asked if the running boom might help grow interest in the elite sport, he said participation “doesn't automatically translate” into fandom. “People run for many different reasons,” Johnson told the Citius Mag podcast. “And they may not want to watch other people do it.”

📺 ...but good news for those who do: Athlos, the women's track meet which debuted at New York's Icahn Stadium last year, announced plans to return in October.

RECENT EDITIONS

• #05 Listen Up | with three-time Six Star marathoner Thomas Eller

• #04 Family Business | with marathon champion Liz McColgan

• #03 Races and Restaurants | with NYC Marathon race director Ted Metellus

Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think: just hit ‘reply,’ or email me.

Have a great weekend.

– Callum