Waikoloa Beach

The Hawaiian Islands are quite possibly my favorite vacation destination, but this is my first trip to the Big Island...and my first time running on any of them.

Since my wife, brother-in-law, and I are staying at the Waikoloa Beach Marriott Resort and Spa (and could see ourselves coming back here in the future), I figure I should find a good running orbit around the hotel, but the lava rock coastline and the incomplete roads make it hard to find an ideal 3 mile circuit.

Daytime temperatures have been just popping above 80 degrees and there is significant humidity, so I decide to run only in the early morning....as close to sunrise as possible. I do not want to repeat the mistakes I made in Miami.

On Tuesday, I tried sticking to the beaches as long as possible, but the sandy path quickly becomes a broken path covered with loose lava rock and dead coral...I constantly worried about twisting an ankle as I worked my way around to the concrete paths that surround the nearby Hilton Waikoloa Village.

Today, I lead my wife around the streets, taking her down one dead-end after another (the one called "maintenance road" is not even finished). I then divert to the golf course, hoping we can at least stick to the golf cart paths...but even those do not form a complete circuit. We take to the grass and end up looping back to where we first entered the golf course. We have only run 2.5 miles by the time we are standing back in front of the hotel...my wife is done. I however, decide to try another street that leads me back around to the beach and trails on the other side of our hotel...adding another mile to my run. I do not want to run much further because we have a four mile hike planned this afternoon.

On our next visit, I need to find a way to link the Waikoloa resort area with the not-quite neighboring Mauna Lani, but without going out to the main highway.