I first heard of “Run to the Sun” back in 2011, when I was in college at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. My college job was slinging coffee at Starbucks, and one of my co-workers was a low-key badass runner/triathlete. One day, he told me about this epic race he had done on Maui that was all uphill. He left out the fact that he had won it. Typical good runner humility.

At the time, all I knew about this race was that it was a pretty long run that went to the top of a volcano. Unsurprisingly, my co-worker didn’t give too many details.

For the purpose of this report, let’s get a little more exact- Run to the Sun is a sea-to-summit effort that ends at the top of Haleakalā, Maui’s high point, which translates to “House of the Sun.” It ends up being 37ish miles, with 10,000ish feet of climbing in one single, mostly gradual road climb, with only a short half-mile descent. Needless to say, this run is an uphill grind!

7 years after hearing about this run - my husband and I were vacationing on Maui and staying at an Airbnb in Hana.

We like to travel with no real plans and instead see what ends up happening. Well, if you’ve been to Hana, you know that not too much is happening, and you’re quite a ways away from anything else on the island. So after a few runs around Hana, we were ready to venture out. This is when I remembered “that run” my co-worker had told me about.

This was around when I was just starting to run 50k’s, so 37 miles seemed like the perfect stretch.

In my beta gathering- where I googled “Run to the sun Maui” (including Maui is key or you get nothing) I came across an old Maui Times article from 2006 that highlighted the history of the race. It turns out the race never started out as a race at all. It was simply a personal challenge thought up between two teachers and a former student back in 1977 to “see if they could run to the top of the mountain” from the beach. And that they did; in less than 7 hours, they ran from the shores of Kanahā beach to the summit of Haleakalā, 37 miles and 10,023 ft up from where they had started.

That one-page Maui Times article was all I needed to read to want to give Run to the Sun a go.

The next 24 hours were spent throwing together a plan. I wanted to do the OG route that the three guys did in 1977 (Kanahā beach to Haleakalā). The old official race route started about 1.5 miles inland in the Maui Mall parking lot near Ihop.

As I mentioned, on this trip, we were staying on the East side of Maui in Hana, which meant there was a famously windy, beautiful, scenic, two-hour drive between our Airbnb and Kanahā beach.

I wanted to start the run early, like 2 a.m. early, mainly to beat the Hawaiian heat.

But with that early of a start, we decided it would be a good idea to drive to Kahului for dinner the night before, buy pillows at Walmart, and try to crash in the car for a couple of hours. We got maybe a cumulative 30 minutes of sleep between the two of us. It turns out sleeping in your car is illegal on the islands, something I didn’t think to Google until we were tucked in a dark corner of the Walmart parking lot and saw a security guard roaming the stalls.

Our plan then turned into my husband driving us around Kahului while I “slept”.

So, with basically zero sleep, we walked out onto the shores of Kanahā beach; I dipped the toe of my shoe in the water and started running towards Haleakalā.

Route-wise- we simply pulled up Google Maps, and I ended up running the highway; it was so early that there were hardly any cars on the road, which was great for Michael to be able to pull off and swap my bottles and give me food. I did run into a wild boar about 6 miles in, but thankfully, it was more scared of me.

By the time I got up into the windy, STEEP neighborhood roads, my legs were starting to feel it. And that is only about 13 miles and 3,000 feet in. My right hip flexor was starting to talk a bit, and I was reduced to mostly walking. It was now about 4.30 a.m., and A LOT of cars were starting to make their way up towards the entrance of the park for sunrise. There is one time of the day that you need a permit to enter Haleakalā National Park, and that is between 4-7 am for sunrise. I wasn’t planning on making it to the park entrance before 7 am anyway, so we didn’t worry about that.

To keep this report moving along- I failed. I didn’t make it to the top of Haleakalā in 2018. When the race was still going on, there was a strict 10-hour cut-off, and with me mostly hiking due to my hip flexor, I wasn’t going to make it. So, at mile 32 (I know), I pulled the plug. My thought process- I wasn’t ready. This was going to be my longest run to date. I simply wasn’t prepared nor ready for this long of an uphill run, and I wanted to be able to do it under the cut-off. I was more bummed about my hip flexor than not finishing because, in my mind, I would come back and try again. My poor husband realized this too when I decided to stop, and he tried hard to convince me to keep going because he believed that I could and maybe a little because he didn’t want to drive up the mountain that slow again. I mean, a 37-mile drive in 10 hours is crawling in a vehicle….

Now, fast forward to 2021.

We are back on Maui, except this time, the intention is for me to attempt Run to the Sun.

With this as the goal - we didn’t stay 2 hours from Kanahā Beach this time. I also decided against a morning start because of the sunrise traffic and instead started at 11:45 am. My thought- I’m not a morning runner, and this is a personal challenge effort that allows me to pick the start time. So, instead of buying pillows and attempting to catch some Z’s in the rental car, I got a great night of sleep, had a good-sized breakfast, and toed the shores of Kanahā beach just before noon on Saturday, November 6th. It was 90, and the humidity was 90%. But we planned for that and had sandwich baggies for Michael to fill with ice for me to stuff in my sports bra. My thinking- yeah, it will be hot for a few hours, but at least I’m well-slept and fed for the day ahead, and as I ascend the paved roads leading up the mountain, it’s only going to get cooler.

The first hiccup to the day- I got lost in the first mile and somehow ended up bushwhacking through some thick shrubbery on an all-road route. Once back on track and on Pulehu road, the hot miles ticked by. The first 10 miles have a mere 1,300 feet of climbing, and one is rewarded with views of trash swirling atop Maui’s landfill. Even paradise has too much trash.

Passing the Maui landfill. Views of swirling trash.

Michael was once again heading up the mountain at a snail’s pace for any vehicle but made a point to reconnect with me every 30 minutes to swap bottles and ice baggies. I initially switched between Superfuel and Skrach hydration, for 280 calories an hour and a liter of fluid per hour.

My plan going in was to maintain a sustainable effort and hike early. Aside from a couple of steep punchy hills in the neighborhoods midway up the mountain, the grade is 6-10% the entire 37 miles. Which honestly sucked because every time I hiked, I just felt like I should be running, but it only takes a few hours of that grade for the monotony in stride to get hard and for hiking to feel warranted.

Of course, things I’ve never experienced before popped up on the run- I kept feeling like something was digging into my right big toe. At mile 13, I changed socks, hoping it was the seam that was bothering my toe. During this stop, I lied to Michael and told him I was feeling awesome when, in actuality, my legs were already starting to feel the climbing. We had done a 20-mile walk around Lanai 4 days before, and at that moment, all I could think about was how dumb that was for leg freshness.

That Hawaiian heat I mentioned earlier was a thing for the first 3.5 hours. However, around 20 miles in and 5k feet up, the slight wind, combined with drenched clothes from all the melting ice, actually had me feeling very cold. So I had another first- I completely changed my outfit in the middle of a run.

5 hours into the effort, the number of cars heading up the mountain for sunset got ridiculous.

By the time we got to the park entrance at mile 26, there was at least a 20-car line ahead of us. At first, I was bummed to have to stop and wait, but I decided to capitalize on the downtime and drank an extra half liter of Skratch, had a banana, another awesome sauce, and switched my socks for the second time. 15 minutes later, we had made it into the park, and I actually felt ready to get the last 11 miles done. One of the goals of the day I had for myself was to run a solid effort the last ten miles. My legs felt completely trashed, but for whatever reason, I was able to keep running at a good effort, so I just kept moving. My right big toe, on the other hand, was in and out of inexplicable excruciating pain. Despite having changed my socks twice and my shoes once. So weird!

It got increasingly cold as I neared the summit, but I was treated to a gorgeous sunset. As the sun dipped, hundreds of cars started driving down the mountain. I love running in the dark with only a small circle of visibility from my headlamp in front of me, so it was nice to finish in the dark, not being able to see how much further I had to climb. Michael drove to the summit to park the car and ran down to run with me up the final half mile. Of course- the summit doesn’t end in the parking lot, it climbs some steep ass stone steps, and I cursed my way up them before lying on the ground, so happy to be done. 7 hours and 32 minutes was my time, which I’m incredibly happy about because I got to the point where I stopped in 2018 2.5 hours faster, and it always feels good to crush younger Bri.

Last I read- Valley Isle Road Runners are working on getting Haleakalā National Park to once again approve a permit for Run to the Sun to officially take place again. But until then- if any of y’all want to run to the top of Maui’s high point from the beach, you gotta do it on your own.

Putting my coach’s hat on and reflecting on this effort, now four years removed, I would have for sure done some things differently. Not only on the day but also during training.

Knowing I’m not a morning runner and I could start whenever I wanted, I would have started at 4 or 5 pm. In November -this would have meant cooler early evening temps vs. warmer mid-day temps, and I could have still gotten the good sleep I wanted. I don’t care about running in the dark, so that would have been a non-issue. It also would have meant no traffic at the entrance, as I would have arrived well after sunset.

Fueling-wise - I would not have done awesome sauce :). If you need an explanation there, google the Spring Energy scandal of 2024.

I would have kept it simple and stuck with Superfuel for as long as possible. 75g+ of carbs per hour in one flask and a flask of plain water in the other. I would have had backup products just in case. But ultimately, 7.5 hours isn’t that long, and I could have done just fine on liquid carbs.

I don’t think there was any way for me to know that my big toe would have been in pain. And I’m not sure there was anything I could have done about it in the moment.

It’s just a lot of constant uphill. I tried to problem solve in the moment by changing my socks/shoes, and that is all you can ever do.

I would have had the route better mapped. It’s a pretty straightforward route outside of the very beginning. Because I was going against traffic, following Google Maps directions was not working well. Having the route pre-mapped on Gaia/Caltopo or even on my watch would have made it so I didn’t waste a few minutes trying to find my way at the very beginning.

Training wise - Since I did this in November, I was coming off mountain season, so I had a good season of climbing under my legs. However, climbing in the mountains and climbing on a gradual grade of pavement is very different. Running up one of the local passes I have access to for long runs probably would have been the most specific I could have gotten while not being on the treadmill. However, I do think uphill treadmill runs would have been very beneficial to prepare for this kind of effort. It allows for a great degree of control with grade and pace, and treadmill climbing is very constant, allowing the leg turnover component to be trained. Had I done long, constant uphill runs either on a pass or on the treadmill, it’s also likely my big toe pain would have popped up in training, and I could have problem solved through that ahead of time.

If you have gotten to this point, I hope you are leaving intrigued about this run on Maui! It all started with a question back in 1977 - “can we run from the beach to the top of Haleakala?” and I think that is just so cool.

Email high.desert.endurance@gmail.com with any questions on this route or coaching inquiries.