So Teresa and I got here on Thursday and island life got started off with a bang 7am Friday morning with a group swim of the entire course. Kristian Manietta invited us both out to the pier to swim with the usual suspects you would see in Kona this early. It was basically a who’s who of triathlon. I dislike namedroppers and stargazers, so I won’t rattle them all off, I’ll just say that everyone you see in the Triathlon magazines were there on the pier. We all suited up and got wet in a mass start that closely represented the race start we will experience next Saturday. I was looking forward to swimming the entire course and I was especially excited to swim it with a crowd just to practice sitting in a pack and drafting while test-driving my new Xterra skin suit. It started off brisk and I just sat in with a pack that didn’t put me in difficulty, yet still required me to swim like I really knew how. The water was not terribly choppy, but choppy enough to drink a little salt water now and then and the swells were of a good size. We swam out solid, everyone regrouped and then we swam back. I was feeling especially fresh, coming down from 5500’ to sea level, so I opened it up for about 15 minutes to see what was there. It feels awesome to come down from altitude. I felt like I was taking in twice as much air as I am used to…because I was. After swimming hard for a while, I dialed it back, slipped back into the pack and swam the rest of the course comfortably. What a great way to start off our vacation here in Kona!
Kona is neat during Ironman week because if you get here early enough you basically get to watch a small little village grow each day by about a thousand people- literally. The energy is just a touch more alive each time we come into the center of town. I really dig that part about being here during this event. Serious ironman folks are such an interesting crowd; they really do look like a group from another planet. The first time I ever raced an ironman, I noted to my son that it was like showing up and all the other Vulcan’s are there. In our own separate communities, we are the odd man out, but in Kona we are all re-united☺. You walk through a town of people who all have shaved legs with veins bulging from places I didn’t realize we were even supposed to have veins. Folks are scary lean from being primed for this event. I have heard it described as being so lean you can see their spine from the front! I personally dig it. All of these folks are on hyper drive for sure…good stuff.
Saturday morning we mounted up with a crew of about 15-20 and headed down the Queen K in a friendly, easy bike ride. After a couple of hours, we turned around and five of us (Kristian, his wife, Charlotte Paul, my long time training partner Paul, and Teresa) headed back into town. It was nice to get in a little under 4 hours saddle time in the sun and wind and start acclimating to the conditions. We ended the ride with a Jamba Juice. One of my favorite things about ironman training is the after ride social stuff like just grabbing a juice or a coffee and sitting around visiting with other athletes. It is definitely one of the things I like most about the sport. I used to coach with a guy and we used to like to do crazy crap like swim 8500 yards and then go straight to Krispy Kreme, order a dozen donuts, two large cups of coffee, sit down and see how fast we could eat donuts. It was always a race to see if you could get to the seventh donut out of a dozen, but it was always 6 and 6.
Friday afternoon while swimming easy in the ocean with Paul, we were bobbing in the swells, taking the big look around and just digging the fact we were both racing Kona together after 8 years of training together and we got to talking about how great it is to be in the sport. We both agreed that one of the bennies of being in Ironman is there is an element of just being a kid. While in professional life we have to act like grownups and make good calls and be professional, in our tri life we can basically just act like kids. Ride our bikes, eat ice cream, and swim with the dolphins-just basic fun kid stuff. Of course when you are 7 hours into your ironman race, the fun aspect is overshadowed by some suffering and bearing down and calling forth a ton of courage, but in a lot of the training, there is still plenty of room for good old fashioned kid fun. I love that part.
This morning we headed out to the energy lab in the lava fields and dialed in a 90 minute run. We cruised it with some sets of race pace stuff in there, but it was mostly just cruising along, digging the scenery, chatting about life stuff. It was great to go out there and run easy. I have never done that. I have run in and out of the energy lab 3 times, but always during a race. I am usually deep into the pain hole at that point and running out of the energy lab always seemed like such a long, hard climb. This morning while running casually, I could see that it isn’t the vicious hill I portray it to be and I will remember that on race day.
This week is shaping up to be a ton of fun with revisiting old friends and meeting new folks each day. It would be the understatement of a lifetime to say I am happy to be here!
More later…
Jonser
No comments:
Post a Comment