Race Day, here at last!

The alarm went off at 3:30am and I had just fallen asleep an hour or so before.   I had random stuff going through my head all night long, but it wasn't the usual anxiety of this or that thing going wrong on the swim/bike/run.   Here I was preparing to go into what was by far the biggest athletic challenge of my life, and I was more calm and relaxed than I've ever been going into an Ironman, Alcatraz Swim or any other race.  I could not wait to get this thing underway.


Warren dropped me off in the car near the transition area(he's been awesome with support this whole week and this whole journey...more about that later!) about 5:15am.  I had to walk through the area where the finish line is, and as I looked up at it I got a little misty thinking that the next time I came thru there it was be as a finisher.  Got my number stamped on my arm by the awesome volunteers who were kind enough to take the picture that is a dead giveaway identifying you as a Kona first-timer....


Dropped off my special needs bags and headed over to the transition area where we'd left our bikes the day before.  Pumped my tires.  Taped my written nutrition plan(an hour by hour breakdown) to the handlebars. Placed a bottle of EFS energy drink on the bike.  Taped the Power Gels onto the bike frame.  Attached my EFS flask to the holder.  And thought I was done.  What is missing from this picture?  Mistake #1: forgot to fill my Speedfil container with water. (oops) I had put a neoprene sleeve on the bottle to keep the fluid cold, so I didn't notice that it was empty.   


Found Warren again, took a few photos & climbed into my new BlueSeventy WTC-legal skinsuit and of course, had another photo taken. The professionals went off at 6:30, and the amateurs were scheduled to go at 7am.  I didn't see the pro's start, but heard their start announced. 
Time to get into the water!  I'm feeling relaxed and good - a start contrast to how I usually feel before an Ironman race.  I'm usually playing all kinds of mind games at this point and going to my happy place in my head, and convincing myself that I am way past the panic attacks I used to have swimming open water.  The other difference, I am usually wearing my own personal life perserver, a wetsuit.  The Ironman Hawaii race does not allow wetsuits, so this is a first for me.  However, the practice swims in this ocean since being here have felt not only comfortable, but wonderful.  I'm counting on that same love in the water today, and feeling just fine.


About 1,850 athletes from all over the world enter the water.  They are here because they earned the right to compete here, except for a lucky few who got in through the Ironman lottery.  I have seen some real studs walking around and training here this week.  It's a very humbling experience just to be here.  Yet, I also earned the privilege of being here, and I can't wait to get going.


Some athletes are warming up, some are standing around in the water, others are in the water but hanging on to the seawall.  I think this is a pretty good idea, hanging on to the seawall in water over your head - near the start line but not in the thick of the crazies who will be crawling all over each other's backs when the gun goes off.  We are warned that there are sea urchins in the water attached to the seawall, so we shouldn't put our legs or feet on the wall.  Useful information!  My coach George suggested that I might want to hang out on the beach til the others got going to avoid the congestion and contact of the more agressive swimmers.  However, the start line was pretty far away from the beach and I didn't want to have to swim all that way AFTER the gun went off.


The national anthem is sung.  There are literally thousands of spectators lining the area around Dig Me beach where the race starts, cheering loudly.  Helicopters hover overhead, Mike Reilly's voice in the air - I am so excited and can't believe I'm here getting ready to do this thing!  Then at 7:00, the cannon goes off and my race is underway.  


The 2.4 mile swim course is a long rectangle which we followed in a clockwise direction,  with two turns then straight back to finish where you started.


I started swimming.  In just a couple of minutes, I saw a scuba diver underneath me.  He waved and gave me a thumbs-up.   The water was churning around a lot, and I was thinking it was because of all the swimmers kicking up turbulance.  But as we got further out, there were swells and this really annoying current coming in.  I was swimming calmly and steadily, thinking this is gonna be fine!  I can see the bottom of the ocean most of the swim.  Not too many fishes - we must have scared them away with all that splashing. 

There were over 200 volunteers out in the water on paddleboard and surfboards.  I've never felt so safe and so supported in a triathlon swim.  I could always see someone and sighting was easy because you just stayed between the surfboards.


I focused on one buoy at a time, swam to and then went to the next one.  I tried to draft off people whereever I could. (right, George?!)  A couple of times I tried to take a breath of air but instead caught a swell and ended up with a mouthful of salt water.  Once it made me cough and I had to stop in the water to regroup for a minute or so.  I was going to look at my watch to check my progress but decided I would just swim the best I could and not look at it.  I was getting a little frustrated with the current because I wasn't making as much progress as I wanted to, as fast as I wanted to.  


Then I reached the boat where we took a right turn, then we swam a little ways and took another right turn at another boat to start the stretch back home.  I decide to look at my watch, and it says 1:03...an hour and 3 minutes!  Yikes, really?  That current was stronger than I thought and I was apparently going much slower than I thought I was!  OMG, swim faster Pam! 


I keep on swimming buoy to buoy.  One surfer who is to my left (the direction to which I breathe) is going along with me making it very easy for me to sight...I'm just following him!  That almost feels like illegal assistance, but I'll take it.  Then he shouts at me "you're doing great...you have 25 minutes to finish!"  what?!  it's 1:55 already?  I did not look at my watch, but since the swim cutoff is 2:20 it must be!  Holy crap, not making the swim cutoff is not something that even crossed my mind for this race!  I started swimming faster then going thru my mind were a million thoughts like "oh no, all this time, all this support, all this buildup and it ends with a swim DQ???!!!...NO!"  I really picked up my apparently-leisurely pace and swam as fast as I could the rest of the way.  When I got to the swim finish line, the time on the clock was 1:57.  That volunteer must have thought that the swim deadline was 2 hours.  I was 30 minutes slower than I had hoped to be, but I was not even close to not making the cut-off. Here I am coming out, and I was feeling incredibly relieved having this task done, ready to move on to the next one.

Had a shower with the hoses hanging just outside the swim exit.  Wanted to get as much salt water off me as possible, as it's a long day to wear the ocean water.  Then off to transition changing tent where the volunteer was all disorganized and I could have helped myself better than she helped me, but she tried anyway.  I asked her to dump my transition bag out completely, but she didn't.  So my compression sox and Zoot arm coolers got left in the bag, and I didn't realize til a few miles down the road that I had not put them on. Augh!!  Ran to to my bike, clipped on my helmet,  and dashed outta there - off to ride 112 miles.

The crowd was cheering wildly on the way out and life was good!  About a mile out on a rough road, my bottle on the bike with the EFS liquid in it got launched off when I hit a bump.  Now I not only had no water, I had no drink at all, and the first aid station wasn't for 6 more miles.  And I was already thirsty.


We were on our way on the Queen Ka'ahumanu highway, the "Queen K" as it's called. There was a breeze but it felt good as it was already starting to heat up.  Got to the first aid station and got some fluids and felt better.  Nutrition plan a little behind but not too bad and I felt I could catch up no problem.


We took a left turn off the Queen K somewhere around 35 miles into the ride and had some nice rolling hills....the winds kept switching around so they were behind us then in front of us and a few times to the side, but manageable so far.  Then everything changed when we were on our way to the town of Hawi.  OMG.  I have never been so afraid on my bike in my life.  We have windy days in Boulder where the crosswinds are mean and I struggle to keep my bike upright - but these winds coming off the ocean were even worse.  I did a lot of talking to God. I also kept remembering what Karen Smyers had told me in a conversation a couple of days before the race here - imagine the wind as a sail and go with it, and lean more heavily on the side of your handlebars from the direction the wind is coming - that will give you more stability and control.  I also remember George saying that if you keep spinning your pedals you have more control, and the FASTER you are going you have more control(which is the opposite of how I'd approached windy conditions before that).  All of this was good advice.  Several times I was afraid I was going to be blown into the path of oncoming riders as my bike was physically moved across the road and I was fighting to bring it back.  The wind changed direction constantly, so you never knew what was coming next and had to be constantly on your guard.  I watched the riders ahead of me, to see which way their bikes were leaning, as a sign of what was coming my way, and I watched the trees ahead of me to see how far they were bent sideways.  To say it was scary was putting it mildly. 


I finally reached Hawi, the turnaround point on the bike. It was windy there too.  The course then took us back the same way we came so I knew I had more of the same ahead of me.  It was a little more manageable on the way back, but still very challenging and you really had to pay attention.  When I got back on the Queen K I was coming through an aid station when a little mini-cyclone(we called them Dust Devils in TX) came thru out of nowhere and knocked over a table full of cups of water and a medal cart - then the cart started coming coming toward me, skidding on the ground like a mad twisted piece of medal!  I was able to just miss it, but was really glad I didn't get caught in the actual wind of the cyclone.  It would have been a disastrous take-down on my bike for sure.


There were a few short stretches of tailwind on the way back where I could at last get a great rhythm and let my AirFoil fly. Then, just as quickly as the tailwind appeared, a headwind appeared and it was hard riding again.  Crazy stuff!!


Even though the bike ride was hard, I still found myself smiling through much of it, taking it all in and remembering how thrilled I was to be there.  That wind, the brutally hot conditions - they are supposed to be there....this is the Ironman World Championship and it's supposed to be hard. :-)


The last 5 miles of the bike I felt like I had a ton of energy.  This bike ride was almost done and it was time to do the fun part...running.  Wait, a marathon - aw you bet - let's do it!


The first 10 miles of the marathon were great.  The crowd was great, my legs felt good, I saw Warren and lots of other spectators and racers I knew and my nutrition was adequate for good energy. I headed up the Pilani hill, planning to walk it because George said it was a good idea to do that.  I walked a little bit of it then picked it up to a run, just cuz it felt better to run than walk.  Then a left turn on the Queen K highway again to start that long stretch to the Natural Energy lab. The sun was still in the sky and beginning to set as I ticked off a couple more miles, still feeling fine.  


But I was starting to have some random numbness in my right leg, related to a nerve impingement due to a piriformis issue.  I'd take a step and find a numb leg, which is counter productive to a good running rhythm. Another small problem that had started on the bike was getting worse...some really uncomfortable chafing in my trishorts.  Mistake #2:  forgetting to use the butt butter (for you non-cylist people, it's lubricant to keep you from getting chafed in sensitive areas where you really DON'T want to get chafed by your bike shorts).  Nuff said on that.  Ouch and getting ouchier.


I'm starting to fatigue a little now, I started partaking of the cola they offered at the aid stations, which were located 1 mile apart on the course.  A little caffeine would be a good thing right about now and a lot would be better. Mentally I was just taking one mile at a time, then "working on" the next mile as an immediate objective, outside the big goal of finishing the race. Once the sun went down, it got really dark out on the highway, which was closed to traffic, and had no streetlights.  The only lights were the occasional passing race support vehicle, and the lights of the aid stations.  


I reached the Natural Energy Lab around mile 16.5, a left turn into a valley off the Queen K, which is renowned for being brutally hot in the middle part of the day. However, I was there in the dark - and it still seemed hotter down in that section. 
It was even darker there and the road not in great shape, with some uneven patches.  I felt like I was running in the dark very tentatively, hoping I wouldn't step into a hole and turn my ankle.  The Ford Motivational Mile was in this section - this is a place where they have music playing, volunteers celebrating and a giant marque that lists your name, numbr and a motivational message like "Go Pam, you are a rock star!"  I came out of the Energy Lab and was told that "there is only 10K left to the finish line." A lie - probably closer to 7 miles from there.


I had started to slow, but was still moving forward and had not had to resort to walking.  It's very dark and I see figures with glowsticks coming toward me - that's the only way you could keep from running smack into your competitors coming the other direction on the road.  A car passes and I can make out a figure on a bicycle who almost hits me.  He says sorry, I say it's OK, and he goes on the other direction.  Then he returns.  It's Warren!  I didn't recognize his voice and he didn't recognize me in the dark when we almost collided.  He had borrowed Bob Cranny's bike to come out and visit/motivate me on the lava fields for the last few miles of the run.  There is a video of this section on facebook that he shot from the bike.  Having him out there the last few miles was awesome and helped me keep a steady pace and good attitude.


By this time I was still taking just one mile at a time, trying to keep the fuel and fluids coming. Before I knew it, I started to hear noise from the finish line, Mike Reilly's voice announcing athletes crossing the finish line and knew of the party that awaited me just a few miles down the road.  Amazing how one finds the energy and the life in the legs to pick it up when you know the end is so near.  My last 2 and a half miles were at a great pace and happy indeed.


At last I reached the last stretch that leads to the glorious finish line.  It really does defy description how it feels to run along Ali'i drive with thousands of people cheering for you, just as they cheered for the world champions a few hours earlier.  The energy is electric.  I crossed the finish line in 13:55:10, and though my time was over an hour slower than I had hoped for, it will be a moment I'll remember for the rest of my life. Mike Reilly called my name and proclaimed me an Ironman once again.  They put a lei around my neck and two volunteers walked with me toward the massage tent.  Warren appeared and congratulated me with a big hug and kiss, and that was wonderful.  I could never have completed this journey without his unwavering love and support.  I collected my finisher's medal...it's beautiful and commemorates this year's theme "Way of the Warrior."

I felt really good afterward, and in hindsight I scolded myself a little for feeling just a little TOO good and not going hard enough.  :-)  I had a post-race massage, chatted with Jodee and Barry Siff(way to go, Barry!)  Warren and I had a photo taken together, and I had one by myself.   We watched some people finish, collected my bike and bags, dropped my bike off at TriBike Transport to be shipped back to CO.  And by then it was somewhere after 10:30 and he was starving as he'd not really eaten much all day and had been running around so much.  Thanks to him I have literally hundreds of photos of the day to remember it by!

We went looking for food and were surprised that the restaurants around Ali'i stopped serving food after 10, and just became bars!  We found one place that served appetizers and a few food items, so we decided to order some.  My food was unappetizing - I had hoped for a burger and fries, but had to settle for something else that just didn't go down well.  My legs were starting to stiffen up and I was dying for a shower and to get out of those chafing shorts.  I headed back to the condo leaving Warren to finish his dinner.  We had hoped to go back to the finish line at midnight as I'd always heard that they sing and officially close off the Ironman day - it is my biggest regret of the day that I did not do that.  By the time I walked back to the condo, got showered, tended my wounds  and dressed again, there just wasn't time to get down there.  Next time, for SURE.


And it looks like I probably came in 6th in the Janus Charity Challenge, just behind a guy who raised $30,000.  The first place finisher raised $125,000!  Very impressive and tough to beat.  Thank you again for all of you who supported me with donations!!


Here I am with the lei they give you at the finish line - beautiful huh? I need to shout out a word of appreciation for the volunteers in this race.  If you've done other Ironman races, you know the love they give you out there, but I gotta tell you that in THIS race, that love and support is way over the top!  It's amazing.


I will have more retrospective thoughts to share in the coming blogs, but in a nutshell, I loved the day start to finish.  My expectations were high, and the experience even exceeded them.  Meeting so many other athletes, hearing their stories, sharing this experience with my Baker's teammates and other athletes I knew down here, and feeling the love and support of my friends and family both here and from all over the world.  I love the power of the internet, especially Facebook that enabled me to stay in touch so much through the journey.


Aloha and love to you all, and Mahalo to the Big Island for serving up a wonderful day for me on Saturday!

Ready to Race!

Another short blog as it's almost time to try to get some sleep.


The race for which I've been training for the past four+ months will begin in about 11 hours.  I'm feeling good and know that I have done the work to prepare for it.  The goal now is to execute the race day plan, and make my way through the swim/bike/run wisely allocating energy while maintaining my best effort through a very long day.  Every Ironman race I've done has been good...yet this one already shines as something special even before it begins.


Today I went out on the Queen K highway where we'll be biking and running, and stacked rocks to honor Madame Pele.  Other Ironman veterans tell me it's a bit of a tradition to acknowledge the power and sanctity of the Island.  The wind was indeed blowing pretty steady out there, and may be the same or worse tomorrow.  Whatever the day brings, I am excited and ready - as always, drawn to that finish line.

Here's what I built.  It's hard to see....kind of blends into the background, but it's there. :-)


8:00...bedtime!  Alarm goes off at 3:30~!


Aloha, all!

Most Fun Day Yet!

I promised to write every day, and I'm keeping with that.  But today will be short & sweet with followup to the highlights later.  It's getting late & I need to sleep more than I need to blog!  (Right, George?)


Nice short run, followed by watching the Underpants Run.  Yes, athletes & friends running in their underwear & assorted costume accoutrements down Ali'i Drive.  Facebook pictures will shock you.


Women's Masters Ironman Breakfast....by invitation only to women competing who are on the sunny side of 40 years old.  Karen Smyers was our speaker...a fun gal & inspirational(hit by an 18-wheeler truck on her bike, 2 miscarriages, severed her hamstring by falling thru a glass door, then got cancer)....she's back racing this year and she's WAY into her 40's.  I have video to share of the talk.  Lots of great stories shared by women on their journeys to this race. Loved it.


Took a ride on the Queen K highway, the main part of the bike course.  The gods were happy today; the wind was manageable.  A great ride actually.  If the conditions are good, I might like this ride a lot.


Possibly spent too much time hanging out at various places around Ali'i Drive....ran into old friends, made some new ones.  SO fun, so much to see and do and learn about people and their lives and experiences - as well as all the cool new stuff related to swimming, biking and running.


Got Active Release Therapy(ART) on my niggling little ankle wierdness as well as my ongoing-but-better-this-year piriformis issue.  Found out I'm hyper-elastic, but not in a good way.  They used to call that double-jointed and apparently it sets you up for certain types of injuries particularly if you are a runner.  Need to do some rehab on this in the offseason.


Went to the Ironman Welcome Dinner.  Fun & inspiring.  This year's theme is "Way of the Warrior."  I can get behind that and find some strength in the imagery and attitude there.


That's it....out for the night.  More to come soon.  


Aloha, all!

Fun and Games

Got a much better night’s sleep so felt rested when waking today.  Sleep is a beautiful thing.

Headed down to the beach and found that the water gods were agitated, bringing us some rougher water and swells.  I made friends with the Pacific yesterday and we did agree to peacefully co-exist and play nice from that day forward.  I swam for about 25 minutes, and it was fine.  The fish still swim around whether the water is rough or smooth...and so do I.  

My friend Klaus said that I should stack some rocks to honor Madame Pele.  I never heard that, but I’m gonna do it!

After swimming, I and my friend Kerrie from the Baker’s Tri Team, had the privilege of taking a ride in the “Kona Cash Cab.”  No, not the same one that is on TV from New York City, but the Kona version which is actually a Ford Ironman vehicle, hosted by Roman Micah and Ben Greenfield(that's Ben on the right with their Cash Cab).  They asked us Ironman-related questions as we drove along - and a very cool special -edition Timex Kona Ironman watch was the prize if we got enough questions right. We ROCKED it and both got watches.  Now, we’ll see if we actually make the cut to show up on their website, everymantri.com!  

And it appears that it was my media day....a pre-recorded segment of me talking about my Ironman Charity Challenge as well as talking training and competing in the Hawaii Ironman - was on the radio today on “Your Time with Kim Iverson,” a syndicated radio show.  Listening to yourself on the radio is painful! (at least for me), but I seemed to come off ok without sounding too scattered.  She even put the link out there so people could donate to the Charity Challenge if they were so inclined.  We still have about 36 hours to collect those last few dollars for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Larimer County!

www.wix.com/ptcpam/jcc  is the link if you haven’t donated and would like to.  Mahalo!

By the way, I saw a quote on Kim’s website that I thought was very cool - we are “Presidents of our own lives.”  I like it.

This afternoon I was off to the airport to pick up poor Warren, who had a 4 hour layover in Honolulu.  So close to the Big Island, yet so far away!   He was absolutely exhausted after getting up at 2am this morning to make a 6am flight out of Denver.  He had my complete permission and blessing to start drinking at the Honolulu airport.  If I had been a really good wife, I’d have rented myself a boat and gone over to Oahu and picked him up, right?  

Before picking up Warren, I went by the Ironman Village and saw Bryan, our fearless leader...Baker’s Tri Team Captain, and another Baker’s teammate, Jeff, who’s from Montana and also racing.  Tonight we had our team dinner at the house Bryan is renting....mmmm...tasty chicken and pasta.  I met some new friends, like teammate Elizabeth from Monterrey CA shown here, who just had her appendix out on Monday and is still considering racing on Saturday.  Baker's Team athletes are tough "cookies!!" (get it, Baker's cookies?  ha)

Spotted an eye-catching t-shirt on an athlete guy down here....”PR or ER.”  Since PR is a race slang for Personal Record(meaning your best time ever), do ya think this guy's gonna race hard on Saturday or what?  

Back again tomorrow!  Aloha...

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")

En route to Kona

As I sat this afternoon on Delta flight #1299 LAX to Kona, I was surrounded by plenty of triathletes.  Some were very easy to spot...shirts emblazoned with Ironman race logos, shaved legs, lean bodies, compression socks worn with shorts, Gatorade in hand, their heads buried in Lava magazine, their bike helmets strapped to the outside of their carry-on luggage.  Others blended less-distinctly into the crowd, traveling alone or with a spouse and/or family, the reason for their trip only revealed in casual conversation.  And along with the tourists, honeymooners and locals all en-route to the Big Island, we passed the long five-hour flight snoozing, watching movies, fidgeting, reading, chatting, tapping on a laptop - but the mood was definitely upbeat and filled with perceived anticipation of the Big Island. 

A couple of the athletes two rows back were speaking German, and another guy is wearing a warmup that says Czech Republic on the back of it.  A couple from Canada who appeared to be about my age, quizzed me curiously about this bizarre Ironman phenomenon as we stood in line to board the plane on a connecting flight to LAX: “Do they let you eat anything while you are racing?”  “Do you take a bike with you, or do you rent one when you get there?” “How do you know where to stop and start swimming?” “Have you ever been out there in the dark - isn’t that scary?” The man actually said that he thought only crazy people did the Hawaii Ironman but that I didn’t seem crazy at all. (thank you)  As we parted they wished me luck, and I think they are still evaluating whether not triathletes are indeed crazy.

I had a sense of reality setting in, realizing that in just a couple of hours I would be setting foot on the Big Island to race in arguably the biggest event in triathlon - the Ironman World Championship.  Well-wishers back at home keep reminding me to savor and enjoy this special experience.  It is indeed. I pondered what I have learned on this journey since qualifying in late June, for this most special of all races.  

George, my coach, has advised me to adjust my expectations with regard to how I will stack up against the competition, and I definitely do have my realistic shades on, but it’s fun to peer thru those rose-colored glasses too.  After all, it’s safe to say that the best athletes in the world have emerged from the huge pack of real-people triathletes who have competed in Ironman qualifiers since Ironman Hawaii 2009.  I am one of them who made the cut, and I am very proud to have earned the privilege of being here.  Certainly, it’s a bit of a stretch to say I am one of the best athletes in the world -  but I have become comfortable saying that I am one of the athletes who was able to rise to the challenge and opportunity presented to me, which resulted in a Kona slot for me. :-)  On that day in Lubbock, I discovered that I had a capacity for focused tenacity and mental toughness, and that pushing through pain is possible for me.  I entertained the idea that maybe my performance limitations were self-imposed and that a new standard might be possible.  I started noticing the negative and self-defeating chatter in my head about myself as an athlete, at least 45 years worth of it!  I started asking myself, “wait a minute...is that really true?....am I sure about that?....how do I know?....what if it WASN’T true?....wouldn’t it be great if the opposite were true?.....is it within my control to change it?...if yes, get busy on doing what you need to do...and don’t quit on yourself”    Voila....new possibilities started to folded in my head and in my life.  Definitely still a work in progress, and personally relevant to so much more in life than just sports.

George has also told me to be open to and ready for what the race day might bring.  He and co-coach Jane have raced MANY Ironman World Championships in their esteemed triathlon careers, and have seen it all.  George said that this Kona race has so many unknowns, so many variables, so many combinations of scenarios of weather and wind - and that those were there to affect the performance and the experience of every single competitor out there.  That’s going to apply to Chrissie, the female professional triathlete who’s won the race the past 3 years - and to the last official finisher as the timing clock nears midnight.  Our emotional selves are going to drive our mental and physical selves through the challenges of the day - and hence we all deal with our private high and low points.   The most successful of us manage those well.  The message I took from George’s advice was to race smart, do not let the conditions make you doubt your ability persevere, don’t be surprised if the race unfolds in an unexpected way and of course, have some fun.   

My goals?  They are:

1. Finish
2. Enjoy this incredible experience 
3. Race with courage to the best of my ability given the conditions of the day
4. Achieve a time of ..... I’m not saying, but I DO have a number in my head. :-)

Kona Airport below!