Nicholas Sharpe
In 1959, Jean Craighead George wrote the Newberry Award Honors novel My Side of the Mountain, a story of a boy who ran away from his home to reside in the Catskill Mountains, eventually taking in a Peregrine Falcon named Frightful to help him hunt for food. In 2000, a trilogy was published incorporating the follow-on novels The Far Side of the Mountain and Frightful’s Mountain, and in 2002 I was gifted the My Side of the Mountain trilogy. Her novels spawned my love for falcons as whole, and more specifically the Peregrine Falcon, a love that has persisted for 24 years.
I’m running in the 2026 JAL Honolulu Marathon as a stepping-stone to future triathlon goals, while also raising money and making contributions to causes such as The Peregrine Fund. I ran competitively prior to joining the military and have continued to do it off and on over the last 16 years, time permitting. It should come as no surprise that I joined the United States Air Force, a branch whose service academy has had a falcon as its mascot since 1955; the original being a Peregrine Falcon aptly named Mach 1. Having lived in Hawaii for 7 years, running for conservation and education is just a small way I can give back to raptors, the islands, and the aloha spirit.
