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!

Preparations

Two weeks from today I will arrive in Kona for Ironman.  I've already started doing a little packing - the list-making has begun.  

The taper is gradually starting to kick in this week.  I have done my longest ride, longest run and longest swim.  Most of it felt good, with most of the workouts feeling good, and just a few low point workouts.  I've gone for active release therapy a couple of times to keep an old injury at bay - fortunately I got good results from ART - thanks Dr. Hansen!

We have a condo in Kona with an ocean view - actually we will be looking right at the swim course, which I'm told is set up the week before the race.  So, we'll step outside the door, down the stairs, across the sand to the ocean and start swimming.  So I'll have several days to make friends with and enjoy the swim course before race day.  It should be good!

I have decided to buy a Kona-legal skinsuit for the swim, but unfortunately I won't be able to get it til a few days before the race.  If it doesn't feel perfect, I guess I don't have to wear it for the race.  One less thing to stress over after I make that decision.

So much goes on the week before Ironman; I'm told that a newbie to Kona like me needs to be wary of getting caught up too much in all the excitement and stuff to see and do - and remember that Saturday is going to be a busy day. :-)  I'm wondering how hard it's going to be sleep these nights leading up to the race.  Am I going to be able to contain my nerves and actually relax?  I can't imagine the pressure that professional athletes feel before a race, when their performances are directly proportional to their income and their livelihood. 

People keep telling me to be sure to enjoy the experience, and not get caught up in the pressure and hype of the biggest, highest profile event in triathlon.  I sure intend to do that.

More soon -

Another Fire in Boulder County

A fire broke out in the mountains just west of Boulder yesterday, and is still burning today not yet under control.  Last we heard there were 92 structures lost, but fortunately no fatalities reported so far - and we hope that holds true when people are able to return to survey the damage in the mountain areas.

Thoughts and prayers go out to the folks who live up there, as well as to the firefighters and rescue personnel - and regular people all around the city and county doing what they can to help.

Holiday Weekend

Holiday weekend - yay!  Erica came home from Austin today and it's so great having her home, though she now considers TEXAS her home.  :-)  She has become a Texas girl real quick!

Scotty is probably drowning his sorrows in Denver now after watching our CSU Rams get their butts kicked sadly today, by the team we'd most like to beat, Univ of CO.  Now we have to listen to all the big ego Buffalo fans in Boulder puff up even more, giving us the appropriate hard time.  S'alright.  We'll get them another year.  Scotty will be home tomorrow.

7 Mile ride tomorrow and my plan is to do at least half on it on my computrainer in the wee morning hours so that I can get it done as early as possible and still have some time with the whole family in the afternoon.  My friend Simon hooked me up with the "real course" Kona video, which allows you to see the actual course as if you are on your bike riding it on race day, complete with spectators, banners, signs and a real race-day feel.   So when that alarm goes off at 3:30am, no bailing on the plan.

Did a 2.4 mile open water swim today, almost 20 minutes faster than my Ironman swim PR.  That means that either
A)  I was REALLY slow before
B)  I'm really fast now
C)  I am improving my open water swim skills

The correct answers are A & C.  :-)  And one day, B will be true.

Looking forward to a neighborhood & friends gathering tomorrow night - I hear Margaritas may be served!  I b'lieve I might even have me one - or at least a glass or two of Pinot!

Cheers!