20,000 race, jog, party in Great Aloha Run

Runners prepare to take off at the starting line of the Great Aloha Run today. About 20,000 people participated in the 8.1-mile fund-raiser. Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer

The gun went off and everyone shrieked.

OK, on one level, everyone knows this is supposed to be a race, but at the Great Aloha Run people are so distracted having a party that the starting gun can take them by surprise.

And this year the size of the crowd on the 20th anniversary run was pretty startling all by itself. About 22,000 people had entered the race and Timers Plus Hawaii said almost 20,000 people finished it, running, walking or riding strollers along the 8.1-mile course, starting at the Aloha Tower and ending at Aloha Stadium. The traffic for those on foot — and especially those unlucky enough to be caught on the choked feeder streets along the route, was overwhelming.

Army Pfc. Tom Gunter and wife Billi from Schofield Barracks had no point of comparison, this being their first Great Aloha experience. At this time last year Billi was fresh from delivering young Christian, who now reclined in the jogging stroller between them.

Many military commanders consider participation mandatory.

"He has to do it," Billi Gunter said. "And I thought if I come, he could run with me and do this as a family."

One nonparticipant, who asked not to be named for fear of being trampled by 22,000 pairs of shoes, scoffed at the event, which he described as a "nonrunner's run."

It's true. Great Aloha is described more kindly as an Everyman's Run, and there are those ambling along with teddy-bear backpacks and walking sticks, those who make it an annual test of will and then never run again for the rest of the year.

But there are, in fact, real runners, the kind with T-shirts urging everyone to "Go Hard, or Go Home."

There are the really real runners, of course, the ones who win. Kalid Abdalah, 24, of Berkeley, Calif., won the men's race for the second year in a row, and Chelsea Smith, 19, of Spokane, Wash., won the women's race.

Abdalah, a nursing student at the College of Alameda, finished in 40 minutes, 54 seconds.

Smith, a sophomore at Brigham Young University-Hawai'i and the NCAA Division II cross country champion, finished in 47:49.

People like Abdalah and Smith finished this event in the cool of the morning. Not everyone is such a gazelle, and a few found it much harder than expected. Kalihi Kai Fire Station's ladder company was nursing someone through exhaustion about a half-hour along, and there had been at least one ambulance call by then, too.

Some people know precisely what to expect. Cindi Flating of Waikiki had enrolled in Dr. Christiane Christ's training clinic to prepare for her second Great Aloha Run. Amy Tawata of Kalaheo, Kaua'i, has come every year since 1992, and she comes prepared. This year, her getup included a Chinese hat.

"It's for the sun," Tawata explained, and then acknowledged the cloudy sky with a heavenward glance.

"It's going to get sunny later on," she added, with an authoritative tone. And it did.

The first-aid station is at about the 4-mile mark, beneath the airport viaduct, and the carpet of crumpled paper cups lay there as proof that folks were thirsty. The long lines at the port-a-potties proved that others were not.

A first-aid station stood there, too, thanks to the 13th Battalion Aid Station from Marine Corps Base-Hawai'i at Kane'ohe Bay. Their first patient of the morning: The Advertiser reporter, who in a moment of inattention about a mile back had been run down by a stroller. Petty Officer Micah King daubed a pair of skinned knees with hydrogen peroxide and sent the media on its way.

There are school bands and even Kenny Endo's taiko drummers to keep spirits up, but the chattiness abates noticeably as miles five and six tick by. High school cheerleader-types shout words of encouragement from the sidelines; a radio DJ, more inclined toward truth in advertising, ordered the runners to "keep on going — it's farther than it looks."

But the finish line ultimately appears, with the time clock delivering the news of performance for those who care about such things.

Scott Souza of Kailua cared. The burden of a desk job had cut into his training time, he said.

"I can't believe it!" Souza moaned. "I'm two minutes slower this year!"

Others, like Tawata, are in it for good times, if not a good running time.

"My only exercise of the year!" she confessed with a laugh. "It's fun! The bands are playing... and I like seeing everybody run past me."

A pause.

"Well, not really," she admitted. Nobody likes to be last, not even the non-runners.

Reach Vicki Viotti at vviotti@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8053.