Jerold Chun, 58, finished his 45th consecutive Honolulu Marathon in high spirits despite nursing a hamstring injury and a large blister on his foot.
Running marathons is like life, said Chun, who was one of 26,003 entered in Sunday’s Honolulu Marathon: Sometimes the most important thing is that you show up, and finish what you started.
“I finished in 5:37:37. That’s a snail’s pace to me, but it’s still a win since I finished with a hamstring injury,” Chun said. “I had a tough time out there today. I changed my gait and took out my insoles to finish without aggravating the injury. I ended up with a blister, but it was absolutely worth it.”
Evidently, Chun’s sentiments are shared by thousands. Despite the 5 a.m. start time and a grueling 26.2-mile course some 20,442 finishers crossed the line — making the event one of the nations’ largest.
All runners and walkers shared a common goal to finish the race, but their motivations were as varied as they were.
Christine Youngblood, a 29-year-old from Houston, got up at 3 a.m. for months to train so she could complete her first marathon in under five hours. Youngblood was so happy with her time of 4:47:38 that she cried at the finish.
“I’ve trained for this for 226 days,” she said. “It was just a magical day.”
Wahiawa resident David Schultz, 24, ran to honor fallen soldier Cpl. Andrew A. Aimesbury, who died Dec. 9, 2015, following live training exercises.
“Completing this race was significant for me,” said Schultz, who finished his first marathon in 5:05:02. “I did it for my buddy ‘Ranger.’”
The pursuit of good health was the primary motivator for Jon Kulhanek, 55, a first-time marathoner from Alaska, and his wife, Paula Kulhanek, a 47-year-old who was one of 4,222 finishers in the Start-to-Park 10K companion event.
“We were going to run the marathon together, but I got pneumonia so I switched to the 10K,” said Paula Kulhanek, who walked her first Honolulu Marathon last year after losing 75 pounds. “Hopefully, we’ll be back next year. It’s a super fun race with great energy. We loved the Santa passing out hugs when we ran by Murphy’s Bar & Grill.”
Chun, who ran his first Honolulu marathon at age 13, developed his passion for the event as a member of a well-known local family running team assembled by his father, the late Hing Hua “Hunky” Chun. The eight-member team — Hing Hua Chun, his second wife, Connie Beltran Chun, and his three boys and her three girls from prior marriages — came to be known as the “Hunky Bunch” because the family’s composition resembled the popular TV show “The Brady Bunch.”
In addition to running the Honolulu Marathon, Chun said, the bunch ran the Boston Marathon together. During their peak year the bunch ran more than 25,000 miles collectively and wore out 24 pairs of running shoes.
Chun is the last member of the “Hunky Bunch” still running in the Honolulu Marathon, and he’s one of only two runners, the other being Gary Dill, who can claim to have run in all 45 races. Dill, who lives in Honolulu, ran the race in 8:59:15 at a 20:35-per-mile pace.
“I remember when there were 10 runners who had run them all, then seven, then five. Now it’s down to only two,” said Honolulu Marathon President Jim Barahal. “It’s like a survivors club. I think once you become one of those people, it kind of takes on a life of its own.”
Chun, who now lives in La Jolla, Calif., said his Sunday pace of 12:53 per mile was a far cry from his best Honolulu Marathon time. He recalls finishing the race in about 2 hours and 48 minutes sometime during the 1970s.
“My family were considered reasonably good runners back in the day,” said Chun, who won the Oahu Interscholastic Association 2-mile championship in 1977 as a Roosevelt High School senior. “Now I’m the only one still crazy enough to keep doing it.”
Chun said he runs in memory of his father, who ran the marathon 25 years in a row and only stopped in 2002 after succumbing to lung cancer.
“My dad loved the marathon. When he was alive, I enjoyed coming home and spending time running with him,” he said. “Now running is a way to remember him. I plan to keep coming back.”
Chun, who is a professor and senior vice president at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, said he shares his doctor father’s philosophy that running is “a great way to stay active and in good health.” He’s determined to stay on track even though he’s had all kinds of race-day challenges — from the year he ran with the flu to the one where he was recovering from a car accident.
”The Honolulu Marathon is a metaphor for life. Things happen, but you just get through them, you do it,” Chun said. “It’s really a celebration of life.”
