CHARITY RUN

A good reason to get up early Monday

Sleepy-heads need not apply.

Monday, being the Presidents Day holiday, means that many workers are looking forward to sleeping in.

But for more than 22,000 others, they'll be setting the alarm clock dark and early for a good cause: Honolulu's Great Aloha Run.

The 8-mile course runs from Aloha Tower, down Nimitz, to Aloha Stadium. At $35-$40 per entrant, plus donations, the annual event raises more than $400,000 for a variety of island charities.

KICKOFF TIME!

It's arena football, but still football

The Super Bowl has come and gone, and the Pro Bowl, in a break with tradition, came and went before that. And now, what's a football fan to do? Well, the Arena Football League has been reconstituted as Arena Football 1, and will debut April 2 on the NFL Network, which will run the 16-team league's Friday night games in primetime throughout the AFL's 18-game regular season. So as long as you can get the NFL Network, that's something to look forward to. Woo hoo!

GET WITH IT

Not to bore you, but here's a tip that could save your life

Yaaaawwwn.

If you're feeling bored, well ... SNAP OUT OF IT.

New research from the University College London shows some correlation between boredom and mortality. Analyzing questionnaires from more than 7,500 civil servants age 35 to 55, researchers broach the possibility that the more bored you are, the more likely you are to die early.

Statistically, they found that those who had said they were very bored were 2 1/2 times more likely to die of a heart problem than the not-bored.

Boredom, of course, was tied to other life-defeating factors such as lack of exercise, drinking, smoking or taking drugs. Still, it tracks that the less bored someone is, the more engaged, connected and alive he or she feels. Mind over matter — or rather, mind does matter.