lanikai triathlon

That was a tough as I thought it would be. Katherine, Ingrid and I hung out before the race and realized that we all had a similar "good performance" determinant for the day - top three. The ocean was incredibly calm for Kailua, and the sun rose out over the Mokes just as we started. Katherine quickly pulled up on my right and hopped on Stefan's feet. And I hopped on hers, just like always.. except then she started getting smaller and smaller.. and totally dropped me. She out-swam me by over 30s on a 9:30 swim! It turns out that swimming 0-1x/week doesn't really make me good at swimming. 

There were really, really long transition runs, and then onto the bike to try and find Katherine.. I rode at 100% the whole way, for a 27:00 bike split, which was faster than I've ever ridden this course before, and caught Katherine coming into T2. We headed out together, running side by side for a about half of the run. I was running as hard as I could. I'd get a few steps up on the ups, and she'd pull away on the downs. And then at the half-way point, she just started to pull away. I tried to slow her down with humor, talking about my thighs.. but it didn't work. I would get within 5 feet, and then suddenly she would be 15 feet in front of me again. It's a thin line between being happy that you're great friend is kicking ass and going to win and reminding yourself that it's not over yet, don't settle for second, keep pushing the pace. In the end she ran away with it, finishing 20s up on me after a long stretch of beach to the finish. Ingrid came in just a little behind us in third.

I didn't take nearly enough pictures (see yesterday's pictures from the ocean and just re-arrange and put katherine in the middle and pretend it's the podium) but some fun ones will come in. My friend Laura and her family visited from Seattle and jumped into the race too. Rob rode my road bike, and even crammed his feet into my shoes.. here we are post-race.

We've still got that clear-skied Kona wind weather, so we're off to the Honu Pond for the afternoon to relax.. I love it there.