Honolulu Marathon Wheel Chair Race

This morning 6 of us HACCer's: Jim, John, Habi, Mariane, Bryant and myself; got up before 3 AM and headed to Wikiki to provide an escort for the wheel chair racers in the Honolulu Marathon. The early morning weather on Hickam was warm and dry. I almost left my vest and armwarmers in the house before I headed to the shopette to catch a ride with Jim and Habi. I figured it was going to be a nice dry ride much like we experienced yesterday. Unfortunately that wasn't the case. As we got out of the car by diamond head, the sky broke loose with a drenching rain. It wasn't long before we were drenched and I was very happy to have those extra layers.

The rain subsided a bit as we made our way to the start line. However, 5 minutes before the start it let loose again and kept raining for the first few minutes of the race.
We split into groups. My group of 6 started in a v formation at the front of the leaders. The lead athletic quickly broke away from the pack. Two of our riders slid back to help with the following riders. I slid behind the lead rider, last years winner Masazumi Soejima, and stayed on his tail for the entire ride. Man was that guy strong. He would run up to 22 mph on the flats and didn't slow much below 15 on the climbs and sped up to 25ish on the downhills. I thought he would slow down a the end. He never did and finished 5 minutes ahead of second place. After the race we loaded up the bikes and headed for coffee. I made it home by 830.