Kona 2012 Wiseman
This being my first visit to Kona to race the big dance, it was a very exciting time...10 years of triathlon training and racing and I'm finally here...We arrived a week early and were fortunate enough to stay at the King Kam hotel, right at ground zero. I say fortunate, but if I do this again, I will stay away from town as the intensity and energy in town saturated me by Wednesday before the race...literally, I wanted to get the race done Wednesday. Thursday, I got incredibly nervous, not sure why as this wasn't a "race " for me...more of an event. By Friday I'm calm and when the gun went off on Saturday, the fun started.
I had qualified thru the XC program in CDA, so I had a perfect couple weeks of rest and rebuild for this race. I enlisted Core Diet to help with nutrition and wow, did that work great...dropped 8 lbs between races and was eating twice as much during workouts.
Swim...I was determined to enjoy the swim, and I did. Started way left, which actually hurt due to the surf...but my wife got to go out on a boat for swim and I actually pulled up on way out, waved, and got a picture taken by her ! Never thought I'd get to the turn boat, but no worries, I was having fun.
Bike...did not disappoint. As my swim was slow, I would be penalized with stronger winds. This course really rewards aero. After downloading my power file, it looked perfect. Flat line to Hawi, dip due to coasting back down, flat line again back to town in those ridiculous headwinds...laughed out loud several times, and looked over at beauty of ocean to remember my goals here...to finish with a smile.
Run...determined to run ez from start and smile, enjoy the experience. Run proud, from the hips, don't get out of control. I believe pacing, and a very solid nutrition strategy REALLY helped delay that muscle soreness that always seemed to show up around mile 15...here, it showed between miles 22-23, just as I'm nearing back to town and the sun is setting over the horizon...how cool is that ?
Finished in 11:36 with a big sense of pride and gratitude to everyone I had crossed paths with over 10 years, in this triathlon family, along with my real family. My wife was there to congratulate at finish lien, with lei. What an experience.
After shower, I went back down to finish line and stayed there from 9-12 pm, saw the last finisher cross the line with 20 sec to spare. For those that haven't done this, I highly recommend as its wild...very inspirational.
Happy to hear afterwards that this day was typical "kona" racing conditions...we didn't have an easy day of it.
Caoch P, great to bump into you race morning. You had your game face on.
Awesome experience...time to rest the old bones a bit.
Comments
That's so cool. It's awesome to see you maintained your perspective as to why you were there and enjoyed the experience. If i'm ever lucky enough to make it to the big island i only hope i can do the same. Thanks for sharing!
Very nice. Glad you had a good kona experience.
Wow, a smile on your face and the wind at your...face.