VOLCANO – She was a dutiful daughter who tried to follow her mother’s directions, so when Katie O’Neal didn’t make her high school soccer team, she didn’t realize it was only a pause in her athletic pursuits.
VOLCANO – She was a dutiful daughter who tried to follow her mother’s directions, so when Katie O’Neal didn’t make her high school soccer team, she didn’t realize it was only a pause in her athletic pursuits.
“I kind of thought, ‘Oh well, that didn’t work,’ O’Neal said Saturday morning in a light drizzle at the end of the Volcano Rain Forest Half-Marathon, “but my mom was persistent. She wanted me to turn out for soccer to meet new friends and after that, she still had the idea that I needed to meet more people.”
At her mother’s urging, O’Neill turned out for cross-country, one thing led to another and she slowly became a runner.
“It was okay, I could have kept going, but when I started getting faster? When my times started improving? That’s when I really got into it,” she said. “I didn’t know until I started doing it, but I found out I really like beating people, it really gets me going.”
That inspiration made Saturday another good day for O’Neill who won the women’s division of the half-marathon in a time of 1:22.30, which was good enough for third overall, behind perennial winner Billy Barnett (1:17.57), and his protege, Michael Sullivan (1:22.11).
It was the third half-marathon gender victory here in as many attempts for O’Neil, an Oahu resident who has competed in “more than 20” half-marathons and 10 marathons.
“I was hoping to beat that guy,” O’Neil said, nodding in the direction of second-place finisher Sullivan, “but it didn’t happen this time; maybe next time.”
Sullivan, a native of Seattle who has lived in Hilo for seven years, works as a mental health counselor for Pacific Quest and had similar designs on catching Barnett who has now won six of the Volcano Rain Forest runs.
“I didn’t really start running until I met Billy when I moved here,” Sullivan said. “I was an active climber and a skier because I never understood runners, I didn’t really get it, but once I started I got it.”
Barnett was a guide, but Sullivan never really had a regular coach, he simply followed general directions from random people here and there. Before he ran his first half-marathon, he talked with Barnett who was not entered, about strategy.
“I had no idea what to do,” he said. “Billy told me to try to move up until I could spot the leaders and then try to take the lead somewhere close to the end.”
It worked, sort of. Sullivan won the race, but he was only about halfway through when he was in sight of the leader and feeling good. “I just went for it,” he said, and never looked back.
Those kind of things haven’t happened in recent times at these Big Island events that Barnett enters. He reeled off a 5:57 pace for the half-marathon, appearing in front of the Cooper Center all alone, Sullivan not even in sight.
A teacher at Waiakea Intermediate School, Barnett employed the same strategy he has used to win the previous five of these he’s entered. He starts out easy, gets into a good place and then cranks it up for the second half. His last half-mile or so looked more like he was competing in a 400-meter event than a 13.1-mile run.
“Same strategy,” Barnett said, “It seems to be working pretty well. It was a good, comfortable run, it felt really good out there.”