If you like surprises in your races, the 21st renewal of the Hilo marathon was just for you.
Jason Brosseau, 32, was in Honolulu on Friday as part of a meeting he attended at Hickam Air Force Base, and afterward he made up his mind to enter the race. He flew over Saturday night, boarded down in a hotel room, won the race in 2:53.43, almost a 10-minute gap to the next finisher, then he flew back to his base at Colorado Springs on an 11 a.m. flight.
Not bad for a guy winning for the third time while competing in only his 10th marathon.
Lindsay Gasik, 28, a Puna resident, may have done him one better, winning the women’s side in 3:19.51 — good for seventh over all at a pace of 7:37 — in the first marathon in which she has competed.
She was trailed by Amy Young, 34, a science teacher at Hawaii Academy of Arts and Sciences, four minutes behind (3:23.57), who was running in her second marathon.
Newcomers rejoiced.
“It’s a pretty great feeling,” said Brosseau as he headed toward the airport, “especially not really knowing the course that well, but I knew it started uphill so I was thinking about a pace, about not doing too much too soon.
“We ran into the rain forest and that was new experience for me, it was pretty cool, but the thing was, there was a light mist and it seemed kind of slick so that was a point where I felt I needed to be careful.”
When Brosseau made the turn at Mile 8, he could tell he had at least a two-minute lead on the pack. After that, he may have thought of the time he won the Rock ’n Roll Marathon in Las Vegas in 2013, or the Air Force marathon in 2015, now the idea was to just keep up the pace. His watch told him he was averaging 6:30 per mile up to the 21st mile and he finished with a sharp 6:37 pace.
Brosseau wouldn’t promise to defend his title next year, owing to his Air Force schedule.
“I’d love to be back, I’ll try to,” he said, “but I’m not exactly in full control of my schedule right now. If I can make it back I’ll try to spend more time; met some great people here.”
Gasik said while this was her first marathon, it was her friend, Young, who got her interested in distance running.
“She inspired me to go longer and faster, and I was so excited to see her on the course today, it was great,” Gasik said.
“Yeah,” Young said, rolling her eyes and teasing, “she was there and said, ‘So great to see you,’ and then whoosh, she was off.”
Gasik could have been better prepared and she could have run a less stressful race, but maybe that will happen next year.
“I didn’t know the course at all,” she said, “no idea where I was going and as far as a strategy? I didn’t have a strategy. My strategy was to finish, that was about it.”
There’s a little more to it than that. It wasn’t like Gasik just woke up Sunday morning and decided to try running a marathon. She’s been running for 18 years, since the age of 10 when her mother would shoo her out of the house.
“She’d say, ‘You got too much energy to burn, go run three or four laps,’ and I’d do it. I liked it, I liked the distance aspect to it.”
Since then, Gasik has run in 5Ks, 10Ks, and half-marathons. She is a distance runner who, for a variety of reasons, never entered a marathon.
“Sometimes they’re expensive, sometimes the dates didn’t work out, it’s something I’ve thought about doing before, it just never clicked.
It all clicked Sunday when she was trying to run an 8:30 per-mile pace, which she shattered by almost a full minute.
“I was definitely kicking it pretty hard at the end,” she said, “then about 60 yards or so from the end, I dropped my phone and had to get it, so that was another little disaster along the way, I guess.”
But will the thrill of her first marathon victory in her first marathon bring her back next year?
“That’s a long time away from now,” she said. “I guess, sure, but we’ll see.”
One guy you can almost bet on to be back again is John Kunitake, 75, who won his age group in the half-marathon with a time of 2:02:52.
It was the 377th age group win for the Hilo resident and former jockey who started running at age 38 in Detroit when he was still a thoroughbred jockey and thought he might give the run a try just to stay in shape.
“I’ve been doing this ever since,” he said, then with a wink he added, “I’ll be here next year, you can count on it, if I’m still alive.
“My goal is to get to 400 age group wins,” Kunitake said. “I can get it for sure in the next 25 years, but I don’t know which is harder, getting to 400 or getting 25 more years.
“I guess I’ll find out,” he said.