{"id":217265,"date":"2015-12-23T22:34:19","date_gmt":"2015-12-23T12:34:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=217265"},"modified":"2015-12-23T22:34:19","modified_gmt":"2015-12-23T12:34:19","slug":"ben-babauta-completes-last-marathon-for-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/ben-babauta-completes-last-marathon-for-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Babauta completes last marathon for 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>
Ben Babauta, right, poses with one of the volunteers at the Honolulu Marathon after completing the race. (Contributed Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The CNMI was represented in the Honolulu Marathon as Ben Babauta was among the more than 10,000 men\u2019s finishers in the annual race held early this month.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an unbelievable experience because it\u2019s one of the biggest races in the U.S.,\u201d said Babauta, who completed the 26.2-mile run in 5:21:00.<\/p>\n

According to Babauta, 33,000 did the race that started at Ala Mauna Beach Park and had runners going to downtown Honolulu, looping back to Waikiki Beach, up to Diamond Head, then to Kahala, passing Kawaikui Beach Park, Maunalua Bay Beach Park (24K marker and turnaround) and back to Diamond Head for the finish at Kapiolani Park.<\/p>\n

Babauta competed in the 45 to 49 age group and was at No. 445 out of 1,145 finishers in his division. In the men\u2019s overall division, he placed at No. 4,092 out of 11,343.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot bad, but I wanted to beat the 5-hour mark. However, there were a lot of people in the race area and it took me 17 minutes just to get to the starting line,\u201d the 47-year-old runner said.<\/p>\n

The Honolulu Marathon held last Dec. 13 was Babauta\u2019s third 42.195K event. His previous two were the Guam and Saipan marathons. He also completed the Honolulu Marathon just a week after participating in the 2015 Hell of Marianas Century Cycle Race.<\/p>\n

\u201cI added it (Honolulu Marathon) to my bucket list early this year after Guam and Saipan marathons. I did these races for personal satisfaction,\u201d said Babauta, who also saw action in Tagaman and XTERRA triathlons, Tour De Tinian, and a couple of local bike and run races this year.<\/p>\n

Babauta trained for the Honolulu Marathon for three and a half months, biking and running two to three times a week. He had long runs on weekends.<\/p>\n

Though he failed to meet his target time, Babauta was happy to complete the race and have his wife Linda and former Saipan residents greet him at the finish line.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy wife was there and Team DFS Family\u2014general manager for Waikiki T-Galleria Bruce Lorange and his Yurie assistant and general manager for operations Wolf Mojica and his wife Gezzel. I want to go back to Honolulu and beat my time,\u201d Babauta said.<\/p>\n

Kenya\u2019s Filex Kiprotich was the overall top finisher in this year\u2019s Honolulu Marathon, clocking in at 2:11:43, while his compatriot Joyce Chepkirui ruled the women\u2019s division after submitting 2:28:34.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The CNMI was represented in the Honolulu Marathon as Ben Babauta was among the more…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":217269,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[8820,51,8821,8822],"class_list":["post-217265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-diamond-head","tag-guam","tag-honolulu-marathon","tag-waikiki-beach"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}