The journey to 26.2 miles begins with a single step

It’s 4 a.m., and I am prone on that low wall that separates Ala Moana Beach Park from Ala Moana Boulevard. I’m kept awake by repeated instructions, blaring in English and Japanese, to move out of the park and onto the roadway.

“Why am I here?” never enters my mind. I just know that I am where I should be, even though it is nearly absolute I will not accomplish the goal I’d set years prior. Not today, anyway.

It was in the works for about five years, this crazy idea of running the Honolulu Marathon again after 40 years. And I was on the right track: walking first, then gradually building up weekly jogging mileage. My nutrition was better, too, and I lost about a pound a week for around 25 weeks. I even entered road races. I was a runner again … much slower, but a runner still.

After completing the 13.1 Hapalua half-marathon last year, I was right on schedule.

Then, boom: Foot, knee and shoulder injuries. True, you don’t run on your shoulders, and that was the ailment to least affect my training. The worst was a nasty bronchitis attack earlier this year.

The base I’d been building since 2012 gradually eroded and I never regained momentum. I’d run a couple of miles a couple of times a week, and then find excuses not to push beyond that. I couldn’t get back to when a week without a 10- or 14-mile run was rare, when I had to force myself to back off and take a day off now and then.

As Sunday approached, I knew the chances of me finishing it were nil. But I also knew I would be there at 5 a.m., at the starting line.

Well, actually, not quite at the starting line.

When you’re among the 27,000 citizen runners (and walkers, and guys on stilts), you might not actually hit the starting line until 20 minutes or so after the pros have already started dashing through downtown and circling back toward Waikiki and beyond.

The fireworks go off precisely at 5, accompanied by Bon Jovi’s “Blaze of Glory,” and many of the people around me are taking pictures. They might as well, as there’s nothing else to do because we can’t start moving forward for another three minutes.

Most of those around me are from Japan. There are little kids and old ladies. Many seem to be teammates of some kind, including a bunch wearing blue Santa hats. I ran this thing in four hours in 1977, but the folks who estimate a finish time of eight hours are now my athletic peers — or, in many cases, superiors; a lot of them walk faster than I run. Also, unlike me, most of them will cover the distance they signed up for.

At 5:19, we finally get to the starting line. About half of the people around me start jogging and the other half continue walking.

For a while, I’m behind an older man wearing a T-shirt that reads, “I’m Tom, a stroke survivor, cheer me on.” I yell, “Go Tom,’ and he raises his left arm, fist clenched. It’s my favorite moment of the day.

Second favorite is on Kalakaua, where a woman smiles and holds a sign that reads, “You Are All Winners,” with presumably the same in Japanese under it. I’d forgotten how many people line the course just to watch and cheer on the marathoners, even the back of the pack. And the volunteers, 20,000 of them, all gracious — even when someone walking a 20-minute-mile pace throws an empty paper cup on the ground instead of into a nearby trash bag.

Honolulu Marathon president Jim Barahal told us last week that the “Start to Park” 10K would follow the same course as the first 6.2 miles of the marathon, with the same finishing area, Kapiolani Park. You just get to skip that little 20-mile Hawaii Kai swing. I asked if it would be OK if I just went down the “Start to Park” finishing chute, even though I had registered for the marathon and not the 10K.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “You won’t be the only one.”

Yes, there were some brief thoughts about Yogi Berra and forks in the road and Robert Frost and roads not taken. But since my body now feels after 6.2 miles what I remember it feeling like after 26.2 in 1977 — and I am not writing this from a medical tent — I made the right choice.

I crossed a finish line, but technically I’m a DNF (Did Not Finish), for the first time in my life. No medal, no finisher’s shirt … I could probably get myself a malasada, but that would be shameful. Coffee’s for closers.

Still, it’s a good day.

Sometimes, you just get yourself to the starting line, and anything beyond that is gravy.

I’m looking at Sunday’s 6.2 miles as a good start on training for next year’s 26.2. After 40 years, I can wait one more.

Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783. His blog is at Hawaiiwarriorworld.com/quick-reads.