Editor’s note: This is the first in an occasional series about Honolulu’s unique recreational opportunities.

Just after 6 a.m. on a recent Saturday, the road leading up to Aiea Loop Trail was damp. 

Sunrise was imminent, but you couldn’t tell because of the overcast sky. Neighborhood street lights glowed on the pavement.

The breeze at about 900 feet above sea level made it slightly chilly — great weather for an almost seven-mile race through the woods.

“We want it to be challenging,” race director Jacki Doppelmayer said. “We want it to be an accomplishment for them. And they keep coming back, so we’re doing something right.” 

Aiea Loop Express is the first in a series of 10 races held between March and October by Hawaiian Ultra Running Team, also known as HURT. It’s on the shorter side, at least compared to other races in the series: approximately 6.75 miles long and with a little more than 1,440 feet of elevation gain.

HURT’s races start short and get progressively longer — from 6.75 miles to 13 to 22 to 55, culminating in the organization’s flagship 100-mile trek through the jungle.

Despite these differences in distance, the atmosphere at races tends to be the same: jovial, supportive, commiserating.

Before the start of the March 23 race, people milled about the pavilion area. Some stretched, some talked with friends. 

North Shore runner Nate Burgoyne was standing near the finish line doing neither. 

“I hated running my whole life,” Burgoyne said. “I was a wrestler in high school. I hated running — it was our training and our punishment.”

That changed when he decided to cross-train after getting into stand-up paddling, he said, which eventually led him to hit the trails. Saturday’s race was his first one back since the pandemic, and he brought his high school-aged daughter to run it with him. 

It’s not too unusual a backstory. Trail runners at Aiea Loop Express spanned the gamut from those who had been running since childhood to those who came to it later in life, like Satomi Fujimura, who said she got into running 19 years ago when she was 40. 

“I was thinking that’s something new I want to do,” she said.

On the other end of the spectrum is Michelle Barbieri Lino, who this year became Doppelmayer’s race co-director.

“I think about when I started trail running, and I was a kid — but I didn’t know that that’s what I was doing, if that makes any sense at all,” she said. 

Barbieri Lino said that while growing up on the mainland, she and her brother used to time themselves running laps around their grandparents’ farmhouse, and when she was in about fifth grade they moved to a new neighborhood with a nearby trail. She started running to, and on, that trail.

“It seemed like it went on for miles and miles when I was little, even though now I’ve gone back and run it again and it’s like a mile and a half long,” she said.

As the clock approached 7 a.m., Barbieri Lino gave final instructions to the 120 or so people congregated at the starting line. Follow the road in the beginning. Be courteous to other trail users. Take care when barreling down the finish.

“There are a couple of roots there, so no face-planting,” she said. She counted down from 10 and then the runners were off.

The first finishers were expected to return in about 50 minutes, which meant that volunteers had that time to ensure prizes and post-race snacks were all set up. 

Many volunteers are runners of other HURT races. Some of the Aiea Loop Express volunteer staff said they gravitate towards running the longer races. But they like to stay involved even when not actively racing.

“I pretty much have done every race in the series for the last five years — or six, seven maybe? I forgot already,” volunteer Melissa Pampulov said. “But it’s a tremendous community.”

Fellow volunteer Drew Lichtenstein concurred.

“I like feeling completely deflated at the end,” he said. For him, the feeling kicks in as the distance approaches 55 miles. 

That appeal can be hard to articulate. But Lichtenstein gave it a shot: “It’s the exhaustion — but it’s like that good feeling of being hurt, but it’s like in a good way?” 

Trail running in other locales sometimes means driving an hour or more. Not so in Honolulu – for better or worse, many of these trailheads are quite literally in people’s backyards, providing unparalleled access to immersive greenery and stunning views.

Pampulov, who lives in East Honolulu, likes to take advantage of this.

“Behind my house, I’m just very lucky to have access to a bunch of trailheads that go up to the KST,” she said, referring to the Koolau Summit Trail. 

The terrain of Honolulu’s trails differs from these other locales, too. Many here are crisscrossed by roots, turning them into obstacle courses for runners. 

Doppelmayer pointed out that Aiea Loop Trail is less technical than others in the series, making it a good entry-level race.

“We don’t have all of the roots and the rocks and the stream crossings that you’ll get up on Tantalus,” she said — though, Aiea does have plenty of roots for those who are into that sort of thing.

As runners came in, they were greeted by music played over a speaker and cheers. The ground didn’t dry much in the intermittent rain, so a couple of people did face-plant. But everybody got applause.

Heather Tyrrel was walking around with a big smile after she finished the race. 

“I always just feel grateful to finish … Part of this always mentally feels somewhat out of my wheelhouse, so I’m just like ‘I’m doing it! Alright! I got through the middle trail, I’m good. I can do this,’” she said. 

She said that during a difficult uphill in the middle of the race — the middle trail — she and a couple of other racers chatted to pass the time. It helped to have the company.

“I guess that takes some of the nerves out of it — makes it feel a little more like, ‘OK, we’re in this together.’”

It’s somewhat of a paradox to portray trail races as both challenging and welcoming. But Barbieri Lino doesn’t see these two things as incompatible.

“I’m probably pretty hard-headed, maybe, to commit to long distances,” she said. 

“But otherwise, there’s nothing special about me and so many of us that go do these things. Like yes, of course, there’s absolutely genetically gifted people that excel at these things. But these are events for everybody. And anyone can do it.”