Lavaman Keauhou Sunset 5K – complete results

Lavaman Keauhou Sunset 5K

Held Friday, Aug. 26, 2011 at the  Keauhou Shopping Center

1. David Holden 18:25   2. Jon Jokiel 18:59   3. Brad Bryson 19:02

4. Tim Rodinson 20:16   5. Stephen Cosgrove 22:03   6. Bo Florendo 23:21

7. Hannah Shimizu 24:12   8. Joe Piekarski 24:40   9. Hiroaki Sasabuchi 25:43

10. Lori Montgomery 26:17   11. Caleb Westfall 26:26   12. Debi Bradley 26:43

13. John Maure 27:20   14. Bonnie Latini 27:31   15. Jonah Xavier 27:39

16. Linda Goeth 28:02   17. Russell Komo 28:17   18. Jenny Payne 28:57

19. Maggie Murphy 29:08   20. Sean Aokins 29:41  21. Sharona Lomberg 30:07

22. Jonathan Lomberg 30:11   23. Claire Evans 30:53   24. Kawika Pierson 30:58

25. Vicki Pendergrass 31:55   26. Alani Lui 32:18   27. Lorraine Hall 32:30

28. Christine DeCarli 33:20   29. Kimberly Marr 33:27   30. Ashley Latini 34:35

31. Allan Robbins 35:10   32. Tayvhe-Lei Kaupu 35:12   33. Rebekah Mersburgh 35:17

34. Crystal Warren 35:56   35. Warren Hollinger 36:00   36. Charlene Mersburgh 36:09

37. April Sasaki 36:12   38. Ronald Raridon 36:42   39. Honey Kaupa 37:46

40. Damien Merseburgh 38:28   41. Jeanette Park 38:44   42. Chelsea Park 38:48

43. Benjamin Robbins 41:23   44. Joey Wagner 41:37   45. Lauren Barry 41:48

46. Johnalynn Freitas 42:45   47. Sommer Kaleohano-Knittl 42:47   48. Alaia Leigitland 44:47

49. Rexanna Ring 45:16   50. James Texeira 45:29   51. Shelly Texeira 45:31

52. Deidre Robbins 45:36   53. Lydia Robbins 45:40   54. Teagan Travalino 48:11

55. Malia Kamaka-Chapman 48:21   56. Jennifer Stike 50:16   57. Barbara Higa 52:19

58. Logan Duck 53:05   59. Nickolas Adams 53:10   60. Sandra Kimball 1:00:42

61. David Kimball 1:00:44   62. Shirley Araki 1:01:21   63. Jessie Araki 1:09:25

Lava Kids,from Keauhou, full results

Lava Kids Results   Lavakids Keauhou    Held Saturday in Keauhou, August 27, 2011

7 to 10 age group  1. Caleb Westfall 6:43   2. Tanner Levine 7:08   3. Sydney Wiernicki 7:09

4. Kanaipono Eckart 7:10   5. Jared Barrett 7:11   6. Jackie Payne 7:26

7. Kawaini Cho 7:42   8. River Goldberg 7:52   9. Maile Fediuk 7:53

10. Laif Showalter 8:02   11. Tatelyn Spencer 8:06   12. Kai Fasciano 8:13

13. Seth Beach 8:30   14. Halia Buchal 8:36   15. Gavin Twist 8:42

16. Kaiimi Beck 8:43   17. Joshua Stuart 8:47   18. Cameron Stuart 8:49

19. Mele Spencer 8:50   20. Aulike Kaiwe 8:53   21. Zachary Evanglista 8:53

22. Isabella Zambrana 9:10   23. Kailey Fediuk 9:21   24. Halia Locke 9:42

25. Katie Payne 9:43   26. Rawley LaChance 9:47   27. Cody Evile 9:59

28. Caylin Ziemelts 10:08   29. Sophie LaChance 10:17   30. Ocean Akau 10:23

31. Brady Thoman 10:48   32. Brooke Smith 11:00   33. Tate Thoman 11:34

11-14 AGE GROUP   1. Lawrence Barrett 11:27

2. Caleb Westfall 11:30   3. Kawika Pierson 14:14   4. Sienna Levine 14:45

5. Naomi Ney 14:50   6. Bayleigh Wiernicki 14:51   7. Audrey Nixon 15:37

8. Hadley Beach 17:39   9. Austen Sawaya 18:20   10. Cort Sawaya 18:23

Warrior pairs take season opener at Canefire Conditioner – BIIF cross country

Girls winners, Rasse with baton and Kobayashi

KEAAU-Warrior pairs took center stage on the opening day of the Big Island Interscholastic Federation cross country season on the campus of Christian Liberty Academy.

“This is the sixth year that we’ve hosted the BIIF season opener with the Canefire Conditioner,” CLA Coach Frank Grotenhuis said.

Grotenhuis format requires schools to pair their runners, with each doing three alternating one mile legs.

Each pair completed a total of six miles with each runner doing three miles.  Canefire officials took the top four scoring pairs from each school to calculate who won the team title.

“Each year we’ve hosted the race the course has been changed slightly to accomadate our growing campus,” Grotenhuis said.

A total of nine BIIF schools participated at CLA, zigzagging their way around the open expanse this past Saturday.

“We have 89 pairs of boys and one individual entered in today’s race,” Grotenhuis said.  “It is the largest field we have ever had.”

Jackson & Rice

Two pairs of Warrior boys claimed top honors with Waiakea’s Jackson Halford and Keoni Rice taking first and Kamehameha’s Shawn Correa Doll and Maka’ala Cruz second.

In the early going the lead exchanged hand with Honokaa’s Robert Conners and Chayce Moniz, along with Parkers Jesse Tarnas and Paul Gregg going out fast while Kamehameha chased in third and Waiakea in fourth.

“We decided to run relaxed in the first leg of the race as we knew everyone else would be going out quickly,” Rice said.  “We had a strategy and were just happy we could be in the top 10 after the first mile.”

“The idea was for us to run our last mile hard and see if we could finish in the top 5 overall,” Jackson said.  “Things worked out better than we had hoped.”

Correa Doll & Cruz

The other Warriors, Kamehameha’s Correa Doll and Cruz were equally happy with their overall finish.

“We just wanted to do our best today,” Correa Doll said.  “I was a little afraid of Honokaa because they have the reputation of winning, but I know this is about being mentally strong and running as a team.”

Cruz was also hoping for a top five finish.

“I was trying for good placing after the first mile and didn’t want to hold anything back at the end,” he said.  “I kind of held back in my running last year and want this to be a better year for me.”

Langtry

The only boy choosing to run the entire 6 miles by himself was St. Joseph’s Andrew Langtry  who is the lone Cardinal representative in the league.

“I could have teamed with someone from a different school, but I decided that I would try it alone,” Langtry said.

Langtry finished in 34 minutes and 55 seconds, placing 23^rd overall out of 89 paired teams.

“I wanted to challenge myself and get in a good workout,” Langtry said.  “I ran the entire way hard and it was good to have people around me to make me work.”

In the girls race it was all Warriors from start to finish as the duo of Kelsie Kobayashi and Haley Rasse led from start to finish winning top honors for Waiakea.

“I just wanted to run my own race and get in a zone,” Kobayashi said.  “I took the early lead, but I really wasn’t paying any attention to anyone else.”

Rasse was in the anchor position and felt some pressure to maintain the lead given to her.

“I didn’t want to let Kelsie down,” she said.  “I wanted to keep the lead or even give her a bigger lead.”

Following in second through fifth place were a group of runners from Hawaii Preparatory Academy as Coach Michael Franklin wanted his harrier to learn to pace.

“We’re teaching pacing with our experienced runners showing our new girls how to keep and maintain a desired pace.”

Ka Makani harriers looked to be in charge as they ran in a pack for all six miles, but a pair of Hilo runners decided to mix things up and challenged during the final mile.

Lawrence & Shumway

Viking runners Karina Lawrence and Carmen Garson-Shumway stayed within striking distance in the early going, moving up from seventh place to eventually move into second with less than a quarter mile to go.

“Our job was to pace our other runners on the team, so we didn’t go out to hard,” Lawrence said.  “We were hoping we could finish somewhere in the top five by the end of the race.”

After the first two miles the Viking duo were turned loose and made their way to the top of the field.

“I believed I could catch the HPA pack on my final mile,” Garson-Shumway said.  “I wasn’t sure we could do it and we’re sure happy to have finished in second place.”

In overall team scoring for the boys it was Honokaa taking first with 33 points, followed by Waiakea, Kamehameha, HPA, Hilo, Keaau, Parker, Kohala and Hualalai.

The girls team scoring had HPA in first followed by Hilo, Waiakea, Kamehameha, Keaau and Honokaa.

The BIIF cross country season moves to the hills of Waimea on Saturday as HPA plays host to the traditional three mile individual venue with the first race getting under way at 10 am.

Hilo’s Hanako Yoshimura out lives doctors predications by more than 80 years

Hanako Yoshimura

Born in Honolulu during the height of the Spanish Influenza period of 1915, Hanako Yoshimura’s parents were told that they should not expect their infant daughter to live beyond her teenage years.

Ninety-six years later Yoshimura is still going strong, while living in the Hale Anuenue Restorative Care Facility in Hilo.

“I spent most of my childhood years being under weight and in school I was never allowed to participate in sports,” Yoshimura said.

It was during her senior year at McKinley High School that Yoshimura finally made weight and was placed into a physical education class.

“I had never played sports prior to my senior year and I was in terrible shape,” she said.  “It was the only class that I ever got a “D” in and that ruined my chance to make honor roll that year.”

Yoshimura graduated from high school in 1934 and recalls what brought her family to East Hawai’i.

“My father was a mason during the Great Depression,” Yoshimura said.  “He was working only one or two days per week and that wasn’t enough to support the family.  My uncle, who was living in Laupahoehoe, invited us to move to the Big Island where he was able to find more work.”

As Yoshimura started to get older she began to using a Japanese exercise machine everyday and would walk up and down her driveway to stay in top physical condition.

“I discovered health exercises called Nishi Shiki,” Yoshimura said.  “I would follow that style of good health and believed that it helped me with my current ability to stay healthy.”

Yoshimura always wanted to learn how to play tennis but never made it to the courts, and instead learned to be a competitive ping pong player.

“I would play ping pong and became a pretty good player,” she said with a wide grin.  “I was also pretty good at horse shoes.”

Yoshimura later incorporated the Nishi Shiki diet, which advocated drinking persimmon leaf tea, and has been on the diet for over 50 years.

“Now I like drinking ginger tea with honey and apple cider vinegar,” she said.  “I was very stiff and bent over and I believe the ginger tea helped straighten my stiff joints so that I could stand up without pain.”

What is really impressive about this 96 year old woman is that she has an active mind and her recall is as sharp as a tack.

“My favorite television shows are Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune and Family Feud,” she said.  “I also like doing puzzles.”

Her only child, Betty Ann Yoshimura, visits her regularly and says that her mother is a competitive scrabble player.

“My mom likes to play scrabble and I rarely beat her,” the younger Yoshimura said.

“I look forward to playing scrabble all the time and every Wednesday I get to play someone from the County Companionship Program, which is a lot of fun,” Yoshimura said.

Yoshimura’s 19 year old great granddaughter will be visiting her from California and the elder tells me that her great granddaughter has been practicing scrabble in order to keep up with her.

What is even more amazing is that Yoshimura went to college at the University of Hawaii at Hilo to get her Early Childhood degree so that she could go into the classroom to teach preschool.

“I got my college degree when I was 60 years old so that I could teach at the Holy Apostle Pre- School in Hilo,” she said.

With years of teaching skills already under her belt, from teaching at a Japanese language school, and Ikebana (flower arrangement) and embroidery sensei, Yoshimura is a true believer in the concept of being a ‘Life Long Learner.’

“I taught Japanese School for over 30 years,” she said.

Today, with two and a half years in Anuenue, Yoshimura continues to stay active by doing a variety of craft work.

She had recently completed making 28 yarn leis for a retirement group which made the request, and was working on finishing five baby blankets for her two great grandchildren, one of which is expected in December.

Yoshimura has also written a few songs and she had no problem singing to me during the interview.

Lively, happy and maintaining a strong social conversation provides great stimulation for this active super senior.

When asked what her secret to longevity was Yoshimura shrugged her shoulders and said, “I don’t know.”

One thing for sure is that Mrs. Yoshimura has maintained a good sense of humor and her mind is very active as she engages in conversation, probably due to her hours spent playing scrabble and doing her puzzles.

Yoshimura embodies the healthy, dignified spirit of aging and serves as a good role model for all of us aspiring to hit the century mark in life.

And someday should you happen to see a young senior jogging up and down Shower Drive in Hawaiian Paradise Park, remember to smile, say “woof” and never shy away from “Running with the Big Dog.”