THE WHITE HAT— 

Many of you know Syd was a marathon runner. I believe she ran 14 of them. What most of you  don’t know is I ran one first. When I was in college, I put the gears of my bike through my knee  cap. I was told I would not be able to run, or sail a Laser again. To rehab this, Syd and I did a  tremendous amount of biking.  

We commuted by bike when we lived in Aiea (which was super sketchy in the Sand Island part).  We then moved to Kalama Valley in Hawaii Kai and the commute was a bit safer. Around that  time, one of my sailing coaches was training for a marathon and gave me a book about it. It  happened to be the 25th Honolulu Marathon and if I registered by July I could pay the 1973  price of around $8. I looked at the schedule and converted many of the training miles to  bicycling miles. Essentially every 10 minutes on the bike was equivalent to a mile to make the  math easier. I still did the long Sunday run and then two of the shorter runs. Syd did much of the  training with me. It was a six month schedule and I made it through my long run of 20 miles  about three weeks prior to the event. 

The one snag was that the night before the Marathon was the Prins Aqua Therapy Employee  Christmas Party at an Italian restaurant. I had the pasta (carbo loading) with garlic shrimp.  There were consequences to this. 

The second complication was that the trade winds had died and it was exceptionally humid. I  over compensated at each aid station and drank too much water. I spent the rest of the  marathon gurgling and burping garlic. 

The final challenge was at the turn around station where they had Vaseline on a popsicle stick  so you could put it where you were chaffed. It turns out, they were also handing out tiger balm.  My inner thighs were on fire. 

I still have the shirt though. It is a size medium so it just lives in the bottom of my dresser, but I  know it is there.  

Syd, on the other hand, thrived at the training. She continued to do Marathons and Half  Marathons for some time. I don’t know her best time because she refused to have anything  displayed in the house. I believe it was just under 4 hours.  

At some point, she started wearing a white runners cap. It became kind of her signature thing.  When Spencer was in Elementary school, Syd would get home from work, get our puppy and  the baby jogger and run down to pick up Spencer from school. Initially Tootsie would run  alongside the jogger on the way down and sit in Spencer’s lap on the way back. One day, mid  jog, Tootsie just jumped into the unoccupied seat and sat there happy and proud. She could not  be bothered with running again and Syd would be forced to look like a crazy dog owner running  with her puppy in a jogger. Tootsie eventually learned to go jump in the jogger everytime Syd  donned the white cap. 

The white cap gradually shifted to be worn with everything fun, including beach walking, cross  fit, holding up Haku Leis, and trips to the sand bar. It would confuse Tootsie every time. (By the  way, I changed the tires on that Jogger thing three times). Syd used it to pick up Spencer from  Pre Kindergarten all the way through his First Grade year.

For some reason, Syd eventually switched caps right before we picked out our new dog  Rascal. He was quick to pick up that he was going for a walk every time she reached for that  hat.