Scholarship 5K 2011

Big Dog makes announcements at the Scholarship 5K

This past Sunday morning, over 80 people showed up at Coconut Island in Hilo to support two young members of our running community - Hana Scully and RJ Barroga. These two high school seniors are the 2011 recipients of the Big Island Road Runners' $1,000 scholarships. Wayne "Big Dog" Joseph posted a great write-up on these students on his blog. Scully will be graduating from Hawaii Preparatory Academy and heading to University of Hawaii at Manoa. Barroga attends Keaau High School and plans to attend Northern Arizona University. We wish both of these young runners much success and many years of happy running!

RJ Barroga and Marie Kuramoto

Barroga and his coach

Scully and her coach

Members of Keaau's track and cross country teams came out to support RJ Barroga

It was also great to see so many people out supporting the Big Island Road Runners and Big Dog's scholarship efforts. Billy Barnett took first in the 5k with a time of 16:41; Jason finished second in 17:27 and Lyman Perry was third in 18:12. On the ladies' side, I finished first in 22:38, followed by Lory Hunter in 23:16 and Kelly Freitas in 24:39. Full results from the races are here.

Congratulations to Hana and RJ and to all the race participants. Also, big mahalo to Big Island Road Runners and Big Dog for hosting this great event and continuing to encourage running in the younger members of the community!

This weekend in Kona, Queen K Tri Club is offering an assisted high tempo 13.1 mile training run. This run works well for people training for Honu or the Kona Marathon or half marathon, but is open to everyone. The run starts Sunday, May 22 at 7:30 a.m. at Old Airport and runs down Alii Drive. There will be aid stations approximately every 2 miles and the run is FREE! Big Island Running Company will have an aid station out there, so we look forward to seeing everyone Sunday morning!