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Quilts Capture a History of Running the Hawaiʻi Pacific Health Women's 10K

Published May 3, 2019

Woman sitting in her driveway with 40 finisher shirts quilted together.

Upon your first encounter with Geraldine “Gerry” DeBenedetti’s home, you’re immediately struck with the impression that this woman is no fuss.

Gerry is blunt and likes to get straight to the business at hand.

“So, where do you want me?” the 80-year-old asks. “We may need to go out in the driveway to get all four in the shot, but you let me know – you’re the one with the camera!”

The “four” Gerry is referring to are her quilts lovingly hand sewn out of her prized Hawaiʻi Pacific Health Women’s 10K finishers shirts.

Each quilt contains a decade’s worth of shirts, starting with the inaugural finisher’s shirt that was, ironically, a man’s tee from race sponsor Nike.

Woman holding her handmade quilt.

“The reason it’s 10 years is because that fits nicely in the washing machine. If you make it bigger, there’s no way you can wash it at home,” she says of the practicality of the design.

Gerry is one of a handful of women who hold the record for competing in and completing every race since its inception in 1978.

“My daughter is responsible for me signing up,” Gerry flatly states. “She was a student at Punahou and was doing track and cross-country when one day she came home and told me about this race. It was going to be a women’s only race – a 10K – and it was part of the Honolulu Marathon clinic to encourage people to enter the marathon.

“I thought, why not? We didn’t know how many years this race was going to be – I was about 40 then, and now I’m 80,” she laughs. “Forty years later, it’s taken on a life of its own.”

Gerry’s dedication to continuing with the race is no surprise when you learn more about her history in Hawaiʻi’s sporting community.

Shortly after Gerry moved to Oʻahu from her hometown of Linden, California, she joined the Outrigger Canoe Club in 1971. As a member, she competed in 25 Castle Swims – a 1 1/4-mile open ocean swim in Waikiki – as well as the Waikiki Rough Water Swim, which she competed in for 10 years before saying “I’m not having fun anymore, so I’m not doing that.”

She also has been involved with other water sports, including sailing and paddling.

But it wasn’t until her late 30s when she took up running.

That was the year of what was then called the Hawaiʻi Women’s 10K Run. Later that same year, she entered her first of five Honolulu Marathons.

Gerry underwent knee replacement surgery in January 2019, but has tackled the challenge like a true champion.

She remains active by walking with her neighbor and swimming laps in her neighborhood pool. She also strength trains with weights at a nearby Curves, where she works part-time several days out of the week.

“I think a healthy attitude is important. I have always been an optimist. When I started to do my physical therapy, everyone kept talking about my bad knee and my good knee. I said, I don’t have a bad knee – I have a bionic knee!” she says.

As Gerry proceeds to recover a 6-foot ladder from the garage (a better vantage point to capture all four quilts in one shot), she continues to share about her experiences and memories from the Hawaiʻi Pacific Health Women’s 10K.

Here, Gerry talks-story about how she got the idea to create the quilts and why she continues to participate in the prestigious all-women’s race.

View transcript
[Music]
Title sequence: Gerry DeBenedetti has participated in every Hawaiʻi Pacific Health Women's 10K since the race began in 1978. After the 20th race, she decided to do something special with her finisher shirts by turning them into quilts.
What inspired you to put all of your shirts together in these quilts?
Oh, that is a really good story...  Every year, the race is six miles, so we eat brunch and then we come home and I have to have a nap. So I lay down on the couch and covered myself up with a scratchy ugly disgusting Afghan and I'm saying I hate this thing why do I have it and I thought you know what I need to do I need to make a quilt out of my t-shirts. By that time, I had 20 already. My mother and all my aunts have always been quilters, and I am talking by hand. So I took 20 t-shirts and the backing material that I got, for a potential of four, with me to California, one year, to see my mother and my family. I said "can we make a quilt out of this?" So they helped me and I made the design and I said I want to start with 1978 up here and go
ten years. The reason it's ten years is because it fits nicely in the washing machine. If you get a big one
there's no way you can wash it at home. So, I wanted it for the couch so I could take my nap and cover up. I had two couches, and two decade quilts. When the third one came around, I put that down in my bedroom so that if I needed an extra blanket at night I could cover up. When the fourth one came around, I decided to hang that one on the wall. But it all started from taking a nap after the 10k with this ugly old scratchy Afghan, that I hated, and wanting something nicer. What is the nicest thing? Those beautiful shirts! As I said, they were beautiful, they were my good shirts.
When you made the quilts you made it with your mom and your sister, so you have those memories.
Oh yeah! I did very very little of the actual sewing. It was the people in California that did the work but i embroider, and I wanted to put my time down in the lower right hand corner of each of those shirts. You may have figured out by now, but I keep track of things, so I have kept track of my time for all those years and there's one year missing. I went to the 10K people and said, "Do you have records for this particular year?" I think it was ʻ79, but they don't have the records anymore. So, for one year I don't have my time, but for all the others I have kept track of my time, and I've kept track of if I won in my age group which wasn't often.
Do you have a favorite? I know you were saying that some years were more stylish?
Oh no, I don't have a favorite. Some of them I literally almost wore out. A couple of them have patches because they were worn and I had to do a little sewing and rehab them. I think my favorite was the blue
one that has a heart on it. The race used to be in January or February and one year they had it on Valentine's Day, so they put the logo with a little red heart. I think that was my favorite, and I wore that all the time. But as
I told you earlier these were my dressy shirts for wearing on the airplane and they didn't look sport athletic they looked like nice tailor dressy shirts so I I just wore them all the time.
[long pause]
This one we all laugh at because it was a man's t-shirt, and that was the only year they ever put us in a man's t-shirt. We said, "Wait a minute, this is a women's race why are we having men's t-shirts?"
[Caption: The first finisher shirts were a men's cotton T-shirt sponsored by Nike.]
You said that your daughter is the reason you started, why continue and why keep doing it?
Once you start doing something it's like you have to do it every year. I don't know [pause] there are certain things that I have done every year, you know? Like some people go to the Merrie Monarch festival every year and some people enter a swimming race every year, and so this just became my thing. Now I I'm at the point where how could I not do it? That would be rude [laughter] It just would be unthinkable. In years past I've been
aiming for an hour and a half, so this year I'm looking at two hours. I am just hoping they will not have be all done with the awards by the time I get in, but that's okay if they do. I will know. I will not have broken my 40 year entry record and finishing record so that's what's important to me. Keep on going!
Oh, we're definitely gonna wait for you, weʻre going to wait for everyone. 
Oh okay, you will all wait for me. Thank you!
[Laughter]
[Music]

Gerry DeBenedetti has created a quilted time capsule of her running history in the Hawaiʻi Pacific Health Women's 10K. The four quilts include finisher shirts from each year she participated in the race, starting with the inaugural run in 1978. Here, Gerry talks-story about how she got the idea to create the quilts and why she continues to participate in the prestigious all-women’s race.

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