Hawaii 70.3 - well, part of it.

It really is amazing how much fun can be had in less than 36 hours on the Big Island.

Katherine and I arrived, checked in, went to Coach Paul's swim clinic, swam, saw dolphins in the bay, set up our bikes in the grass on the hillside, rode our bikes to the best of our ability (tried not to crash into each other in the howling wind) and dropped off our bikes/bags in the first 4 hours in town. Here's a self-portrait of busy us..

We found a familiar face on the Hapuna hillside, Bree! Bree got sick this week, and the timing couldn't have been worse. After some awesome training, her body needed a break.. so her hometown race was in jeopardy. If you look close, you can see one the world's fastest-traveling jogging strollers in the background, complete with Kainoa the stroller jockey. At two he has likely hit speeds many of us will never know.

The race part - we got to bed early on Friday night after all that running around and an early dinner with Katherine, the wild woman Phaedra & Coach Paul. Up at 4-something to howling winds.. uh-oh. I've been really lucky in Kona and never raced in windy conditions. The ocean was choppier than I've ever seen at Hapuna, and the palm trees outside our window were leaning. 

After the usual fun of pre-race transition set up, marking, and socializing, the start time totally snuck up on me and I had to run down the the water with only 5 minutes until the start. After the swim a friend asked if I had been wearing an orange cap. Nooo, the race caps were pink. I dumped my swim bag out last night - orange lifesport cap. Oops. I was a little hurried. I lined up with the pros as the Coach instructed. Yep, a huge stretch for me, who has never broken 32 in a half! But Paul was confident that I could hold onto the girls' feet, so that's where I started. It was interesting to be lined up with the current Ironman World Champ Macca, and other incredible athletes like Sam McGlone, Tim Marr, Luke Mackenzie, and Gina Kerr. A little intimidating. We were off - and I hopped on the feet I was instructed too. I stayed there for 100m or so, and then there was a big collapse of people onto me, things got tight and scary and I could no longer tell who was who. DJ hit me in the head, HARD. He should have worn a swimskin, it provides more anonymity. The current was strong and sighting was impossible, so I didn't bother, I just blindly followed. I came out and didn't look at my watch, as instructed.. but there was a giant clock at the mat, which was another 150 meters up the beach. 29:54.. 29:55... I considered sliding, but was worried I would actually hurt myself while acting like a jackass. I made it by 29:56. Slower than I was hoping for, but a 2+ minute PR none the less. I was the 9th girl out of the water.

Onto the clementine bike and out on to the highway - uneventful, but hard because of the hill up to T1. I tried to let my HR settle down to the range I wanted to race in. It wouldn't. Not even at the bottom of the Queen K rollers. It would get close, but when it did I felt sluggish and inefficient. Since I wasn't running, I decided to just go for it, and see if maybe I could hold the crazy high rate for the duration. The Coach said it was a day to push, to have fun, and maybe take some risks. It was a gorgeous day out, clear and sunny, and the winds were blowing, but most of the time it was a cross wind that wasn't especially killer, just had me leaning at a funny angle and occasionally made me fear I'd blow over the guard rail. There were short bursts where I hunkered down into a head wind, but they never lasted long. About a quarter of the way into the ride Tyler Stewart flew by on the bike and I tried to keep her in sight.. and now I have a new max HR for the bike! The turn around at Hawi came quickly, probably because it's a mile or two before the Ironman turn around, which always makes it a nice surprise. The descent was fun, and I was slowly making my way up through some people. The HR was still much higher than I thought I could hold, so I was careful not to get behind on calories and continued to feel good. Before I knew it I was at Kawaihae, with about 6 miles to go back to T2. I was time to go! My plan was to time trial it in and see how many people I could catch. It's not like I had to run, so why the hell not? I put my head down and caught about 10 people and held 24+ mph for those last hilly miles.. not fast, but fast for me after 50 miles of zone four riding. I caught one more girl & came into T2 in 5th place. Bike split was 2:35 flat, which is actually 2.5 minutes slower than last year. What? I guess the 4 weeks of rest/2 weeks of bike training caught up with me. 

I thought it was going to suck to quit. That I was going to want to sneak out onto the run, or that I would have to hide in the bushes and cry a while.. but it was hot and I was tired and I saw Coach guarding the T2 exit and behaved myself. I let the lazy me enjoy it and tried to not be a competitive psycho. I dropped my bike off and went off and found Bree, also spectating, and then ran a mile or so out (easy) to stretch my legs and find Katherine. At mile 9 of the run she had moved up to 5th overall and first amateur. She was flying through the run and probably didn't need the encouragement, but it was so fun to be out there cheering on friends for a change instead of focusing on my race and what I had to do. Katherine held on to 5th, breaking 5h for the first time on the Honu course and winning 40-44 by 2 minutes. So many Hawaii people raced really well.. and I thoroughly enjoyed watching the finish for the first time in my three years of triathlon.

I had so much fun on the Big Island playing with friends, swimming and riding as hard as I possibly could, and catching up with my coach for the first time in real life. And in spite of being a BIG FAT QUITTER ;)~ it was a great experience. And hopefully the last injury-induced DNF..

After the race Katherine took her first ever shot. Phaedra, it seems, is an expert shot-taker, and she was the instigator. We had fun at awards. This is me, Katherine & Phaedra the Goddess of Light - who PR'd her run after a discouraging flat! And drank everyone else under the table in spite of her sub-100 lb size:

Paul & his hawaii girls:

Some guy, me, Timexer Amanda & Luke recovering at Starbucks (go figure):

Paul & me, post-race. Turns out a DNF makes for a wide variety of post-race food options, and the first round of the free Jamba Juice. A benefit of quitting I had never considered..