Hawaiian Tales of Courage
Hawaiian History is filled with a multitude of tales of courage. These are stories that make you proud to be Hawaiian, touch you deeply, and do so even if you are only Hawaiian at heart. At all 6 of the HURT 100 Mile Trail Endurance Runs, there to have been stories of courage. A few of the local runners deserve mention for exceptional courage this year.
Anyone that has finished the HURT 100 has my sincere admiration. For some of our courageous local 2006 finishers like 5 timer Ben Cavazos and multi-finishers Bob Murphy, Steve Dewald and Ed Bugarin, the course may need to be toughened-up for 2007 to make it more challenging. These guys made something very difficult, look very easy. But for Hawaii’s first overall finisher Marian Yasuda, things haven’t been easy. We’ll leave it to say that Marian has had a very challenging year or so, with health issues, and her performance at this year’s HURT 100 totally amazed me. Seeing Marian’s face turn to tears, immediately after crossing the finish line, is something I will always remember and cherish.
My close friend and training partner, 58 year-old Cheryl Loomis, the other courageous female Hawaii finisher in 2006, was a woman possessed, on the way to being only the 3rd local woman finisher in 6 years. Cheryl admitted that her feet weren’t touching the ground as she blazed the last
few miles to the finish. She made all of us so proud !
Two local men who moved up from 100k finishes last year to finish the 100 mile were Ricky DeShaw and Brian Wilson. You will be seeing a lot of these two young ultrarunners in the future. In March 2005, Gordon Lau joined the Saturday Training group. Up to that time, the longest run that Gordon had done was 15 miles or so. Granted, Gordon was in good shape from hiking and pig hunting, but was a long way from doing the tough HURT 100. He came out for every training run, did everything that was thrown at him (and more), listened and learned from more experienced runners and finished his first 100 miler. Friends, that takes courage !
Congratulations to all the courageous 2006 HURT 100 Mile finishers !
Don Fallis