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HONOLULU — Right around the salvo of fireworks of the 53rd JAL Honolulu Marathon lit up the Kakaako predawn sky Sunday, the heavens responded with a torrential downpour.
For those with a mind for a target time — or even a course record — it was not a positive development.
But that didn’t stop two elite wheelchair competitors from entertaining the thought.
“It’s always on my mind,” said Susannah Scaroni, an elite women’s competitor with 2025 Boston and Chicago Marathon trophies on her ledger. “I love to try and break course records, but I also know that you never know what the conditions were like.”
The day began with some marathon organizers having flashbacks to one of the last heavy-rain editions of the race in 2007, when the weather played havoc on a new chip timing system.
But after the opening episode, things cleared up — at least for the elite competitors — and there were no reported timing issues. (Though there were subsequent downpours on the course.)
Yukina Ota of Japan not only defended his title in men’s wheelchair, but set a Honolulu Marathon record in 1 hour, 28 minutes and 25 seconds, breaking a 19-year-old mark. Japan’s Masazumi Soejima held the men’s record of 1:29:22 in 2006.
And Scaroni, a 34-year-old Paralympian from Tekoa, Wash., followed suit, coming in at 1:48:37. She bettered the 1:49:09 of Wakako Tsuchida of Japan from 2009.
“Well, it was a downpour at the start, but fortunately I’ve gotten a lot of advice about it almost always being rainy,” Scaroni said. “What I did to adjust is bring my diamond-coated hand rings that Honda sponsor-builds, and they are great in the wet (conditions). So I decided to just bring those only to Honolulu with me, and they were great today.”
The slick surfaces made it tricky on downhills with braking, she said.
“You just had to adjust and be more cautious,” Scaroni said.
Scaroni, who was paralyzed from an automobile accident when she was 5, was asked about the example she hoped to set.
“To me that is everything,” she replied as she cooled down mere feet from the finish line at Kapiolani Park. “My favorite part of (competing) is the hope that other people are going to be inspired, especially young kids, because I started out as a 10-year-old wheelchair racer. I looked up to wheelchair racers … and I just hope so much that those kids can see that and know they can do whatever they want to do in life.
“Everything in life that’s a challenge, it’s a great thing. You want to be challenged in life. And some things are huge, though. You want to break it down into small chunks. … You want to see what you can do every day to try and get closer and closer to (your goal). With consistency, you can learn so many things. Whether you get your original goal or not, you are going to learn so many other cool things.”
Ota and Scaroni received $2,500 for winning the wheelchair category and received gold medals identical to the standard winners valued at $27,000, per race officials.
Scaroni said she planned to return and will look to better her own mark.
A total of 32,034 runners started the marathon and Start to Park 10K races, a combined record.
The only two people to have run every Honolulu Marathon, Jerold Chun and Gary Dill, kept their streaks alive. Dill came in at 9:04:35 in the 80-84 age bracket and Chun arrived in 7:00:43 in the 65-69 bracket.
Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.
Elite wheelchair marathoner Susannah Scaroni breaks Honolulu Marathon record – NY State of Politics
