Happy Valentine's Day!

So this post is a day late, but we hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day! For Valentine's Day, Jason and I headed over to Hilo to participate in Big Dog Production's Valentine's Day Run. Unfortunately, once over there, I realized the camera was out of batteries, so this post doesn't have any pictures. I will work on that in the future!

After a nice dinner out in Hilo on Saturday night, we got up early on Sunday morning to drive the first half of the Hilo marathon course to see what we'd be up against in a month. It's truly a beautiful course, through lots of lush forest areas. It was raining for a large portion of our drive, reminding us that, unlike all our sunny runs in Kona, there's a very real chance we'll be getting wet during the half marathon and marathon. But the good news is that the course appears to be mainly a slow gradual downhill. Of course, there are two killer hills stuck right in the middle, but the steady downhill afterwards should be a good reward.

Once we got back into Hilo, it was time to head to the Valentine's Day race, starting in Hilo Bayfront Park. The course ran the same 5K course that they will be using in connection with the Hilo marathon, although yesterday's course was about .1 mile longer (a nice surprise when comparing our times at the end). It was a nice course through Lilioukalani Gardens and around Banyan Drive. By then the rain had let up, so the weather was perfect.

Since it was a Valentine's Day race, Wayne "Big Dog" Joseph had several prize categories for couples including husband/wife, boyfriend/girlfriend, mother/son, and father/daughter. Jason and I were able to pull off the husband/wife win with our runs. It was close, though, with another husband/wife duo finishing just before me. Luckily Jason gave us some cushion. Big Dog has a full race recap, along with some photos, on his blog.

We had a great time talking to all of the runners at the event, but unfortunately had to leave pretty quickly to head back and open up the store. We're looking forward to spending more time in Hilo in connection with the marathon, including the chance to meet more fellow runners at the Hilo Marathon Expo on Saturday, March 20 at the Hilo Hawaiian Hotel.