---

Flying solo with plenty
of company

HE runs alone. He is all by himself now, so far ahead of his pursuers they can't even be seen behind him. He is moving now, alone, running away with it now, all by himself as, out on the not-so-distant horizon, a red sun rises out of the sea.

All by himself. With a champion's stride, he runs alone.

And yet everyone is with him, cheering him on.

Jimmy Muindi is finding another gear, as the day is awakening from dark. He is chugging up Diamond Head hill, but no, with him it is not chugging. Even his labor is graceful. Even as his face shows sweat and strain, his look is calm.

He knows where he is and what he has left and what he needs to do.

This is the moment.

"There is no other climbing tomorrow," he would say. "It's now."

He runs alone. No one to push him, no one to fight.

And yet everyone is with him.

There are the other runners, all of them, by the thousands. The amateurs. The weekend warriors. The past-their-primes and the also-rans. The aunties and uncles. The first-timers. The foreigners. The ones running for T-shirts and triumph and pride. The ones who just want to see if they have it in them to do this.

For a thousand reasons, they run.

By the thousands, heading the other way, meeting him, here they come.

And they pause, in the middle of their own races, in the midst of their own moments of conquest or harshest trial, they slow to watch the man headed in the other direction; headed for home.

By the thousands, they clap. They whoop. They cheer. Some pump their fists with triumph at the vision of the man running alone.

They run with him.

In some small way, every one of them does.

On the day for which they had worked so long, on THEIR day -- the one in which every second counts -- many of them pull off to the side to stop still and take a picture of the great champion as he goes by, all alone.

Muindi's face betrays nothing.

But he sees them, he would later say. The cameras. He sees every one.

The crowd. He can feel it.

"Sometimes it can make me forget my ..." he started, grasping for the proper English translation.

What? His fatigue? His pain? His overwhelming lead?

"My race," the Kenyan would finish.

Sometimes they make him forget everything, and he is free to run, in the moment. All alone.

And all of them with him.

Muindi is over the hill now, and heading down. He is flying now, his fellow runners greeting him, all of them celebrating his every step.

It could happen now. He has a chance now.

He is flying.

"Very fast," he would say, the joy pouring out of him.

The course record. The race record. The wins record.

Yesterday, in two hours, 11 minutes, 12 seconds, Jimmy Muindi became the first man to win the Honolulu Marathon four times.

He'd known what he was running for, out there ahead of them all. He could see it in his mind.

"It would be like a dream," he said, if he could really make it happen.

IT WAS, FOR a while, eerie darkness everywhere, running, running, running, and never pulling away.

There were fireworks at the start, lighting up the sky, waking up the birds, which would fly from tree to tree, trying to outrun the thunder.

There was no countdown, just BOOM!, then bang, then motorcycles and explosions and applause.

There were people on every corner. Cops clapping. Random people awake at an ungodly hour, happy to be there, psyched up to shout at runners they'd never know.

Santa waited at Murphy's to cheer on the field. An elf, too.

A half-drunk woman who'd met the elite runners' bus at their hotel in order to tell them to visit HER aid station later bounced, bounced, bounced in the dark with inebriated joy upon giving away her first marathon water cup.

At Honolulu Hale, they ran past Christmas lights. The morning crew came out to see the race pass Jack in the Box.

As the pack passed McKinley High School its leader -- Muindi's brother Nicholus, the rabbit, whose job it was to set a fast tempo -- was visible only by the glow of a video camera's spotlight.

The streets were left dark. The elite runners were majestic silhouettes.

Across the street, a man and his two kids sprinted joyfully along on the sidewalk. For just a few moments, they were racing with giants. For a few seconds, they were keeping the pace.

At a bus stop, a dog barked encouragement. He wanted to go on a morning run, too.

Everywhere, ordinary people, out and awake, cheering them on.

"I think the record's going today," Honolulu Marathon executive director Jim Barahal said.

"It'll be another 18 years before we have another day like today," Muindi's agent Zane Branson would say.

Ibrahim Hussein in 1986. The record. One of the all-time greats on a perfect day. It all fell into place. Everyone wondered if it would ever happen again.

Yesterday, conditions were perfect. It was colder than crisp. It was 66 degrees at 7 a.m. and the wind never came.

And then Muindi broke away. "I made (a) very strong move," he said.

The sight was exhilarating.

It felt like a Chad Owens punt return.

And then he was away. And then he was alone. Flying. After 18 years, it happened. For the first time, it happened. Muindi won for the fourth time. Every record, gone.

"We did it," Barahal said.

Everyone was with him, as he ran all alone.