The Triathlon Brotherhood (and sisterhood) Gathers in Kona

This morning I headed down to "Dig Me" beach to swim in the Kailua Bay. They have the swim course already marked with buoys so you can swim all or part of it.  There is even a floating Espresso Bar ( a catamaran serving Kona coffee) if you care to swim up & sample a cup'o'java. There were lots of people already in the water, and many more standing around people-watching, taking pictures.  

This non-wetsuit swim has been the source of a little anxiety over the past few months - this will be my first non-wetsuit triathlon.  Wetsuits are like your own personal inner tube in the water - they keep you right on top of it, and have given me a little extra confidence in the water over the years.  However, this salt water does pretty much the same thing! 

The water is crystal clear, and brightly colored fish swim beneath you.  The water was fairly calm, with some occasional rolling waves & chop.  I'm told that gets worse some days. But the good news is that I was very comfortable out there swimming, and that's again a confidence builder. I am planning on swimming a little each day before Saturday.  I was chatting with some gentlemen from Australia whose wives were both racing, but they weren't - they were just hanging out & swimming.  One of them was from the same town as Matty White (Aussie triathlete we met this summer thru our  homestay triathlete, Tim Reed) - but both these guys had heard of our friend Tim Reed and another Aussie pro Tim Berkel - also training in Boulder this summer.  

Next on the agenda was going to the King Kamehameha Hotel, race headquarters, to get officially checked in and get race numbers, swim caps, etc.  There was about a 30 minute wait in line, but this is always a great chance to get to know the fellow athletes in line with you.  I met a guy from Edmonton Canada who was doing his 2nd Kona Ironman, and another guy who qualified for this Kona race at the same race I did - in Lubbock TX.  The atmosphere among the athletes was different than other Ironman races I've done.  It's like people were celebrating the fact that they were here....they had worked so hard to qualify and this was the big reward....and they hadn't even done the race yet.  Other Ironman races these people were probably all nervous and uptight because they took into it the pressure to get that qualifying slot.  It's definitely a rush to be among these people. 

The volunteers at check-in were awesome!  So enthusiastic and fun to talk to, and they were having a blast being here.  The guy who checked me in was from just outside of Grand Junction CO.  So many volunteers have been doing this for years and fly to the Big Island every year just to volunteer at the Ironman. How cool is that for them to enjoy something they do for us athletes enough to plan vacations around it?

My official race number!

Next on the to-do list was picking up my new BlueSeventy skinsuit.  If you don't know what that is, it's what some triathletes wear over their race clothing while swimming in a race that is not wetsuit-legal (such as Kona).  The water is warm here, so swimming in a wetsuit would be uncomfortable anyway.  A skinsuit just makes you more hydrodynamic in the water so you don't have clothing creating drag - a swimsuit is tight so you don't need it.  However, most triathletes don't race in swimsuits for longer races, so skinsuit is worn over usual triathlon clothing of shorts and top.  I've never had a skinsuit before, and this one is really sexy looking. :-)  ya think?   Sizing is pretty tricky, so Blue Seventy's sponsored athletes were coming into this store down on Ali'i drive to try them on - this particular suit was just released from the manufacturer a few days ago, brand new.  The store was not air conditioned and it was very hot & humid back in the fitting rooms.  These suits fit really tightly and trying to get into one with an already-sweating body was hard!  Then the one I tried first was apparently not snug enough so they sized me down one size - which meant I had to do it all over again...with a SMALLER one!  It was an aerobic workout all over again.  

Then, back to the condo for some brown rice & tuna/yogurt & strawberries lunch.  Yummmy.  My bike was shipped by TriBikeTransport, and they finally had our bikes ready for pickup down near the Ironman Village this afternoon.  I was re-united with Bella Blue(my bike, yes, she has a name) and off I went for a ride down the Queen K highway - part of the bike course.  Lots of athletes riding out there.  Looking to the right and left you see lava fields and not much vegetation - very distinctive landscape.   It was windy and I experienced the wind changing directions, which was interesting..  I would say it was a "moderate wind," probably typical of most days.  There was a ton of traffic on the road.  Big trucks, little trucks, cars, motorcycles - all going really fast on a 2-lane road.  

And motor scooters!  There are scooters everywhere down here.  They come whipping up in the bike lanes from nowhere.  I almost got mowed down by more than one today on the Queen K.  Gas is super expensive down here - I guess I can see why a scooter would be an economical form of transportation if you don't like to ride a bike.  The traffic in Kona is pretty congested in town, especially at rush hours.

Bike ride done, off to Safeway looking for healthy food for dinner.  Looking forward to veering OFF the healthy food avenue after Saturday, to eat and drink all kinds of stuff that isn't good for me but tastes marvelous! :-)

Famous athlete sightings today ....Paula Newby Fraser, Mark Allen, Joe Bonness.  (For those of you who don't recognize those names - first two are Ironman World Champions many times - third is an amateur 50-something triathlete legendary for finishing at the top of his age group for many years.)

Didn't sleep great last night - time zone issues I think.  Off to bed now where I'll hopefully catch a lot of ZZZZ's tonight!

Cheers,  and  Aloha nui loa("very much love")