Kona 2010. It is a wrap!

Hey Jonser! How do you feel? “Like a bag of crap sandwiches, you?!”

Kona 2010 is in the books. The men’s professional race was spectacular and Mirinda Carfrae’s performance in the woman’s field was inspiring and fun to watch. I cannot wait to watch the NBC coverage this December. I am sure it will be riveting.

Teresa’s performance was terrific and I am so happy for her. I think this was her 5th 2nd place age group finish. She went as fast as she could all day and finished behind an extremely impressive performance by Ellen Hart of Denver, CO.

The morning got off to kind of a funny start. I woke up at 3am and waddled out to lay down on the living room couch in our condo. I sat there and listened to the coffee maker hiss as it brewed my favorite coffee. My coach, Kristian, wandered out and sat down at the table and we talked about nothing in particular. We then could hear the water hitting the leaves outside the back porch. My whole body just went limp. Rain. No way. How could it be rain? I hate rain. Fourteen years in Seattle and thousands of miles running and riding in the stuff. I hate it. There are only three things I hate on this planet- beets, sauerkraut, and the bloody rain. Kristian could tell I was really letting it bother me. I had just suffered in the rain in Ironman Canada. I was wondering how I was going to do it again. I got a little negative and chippy for a few minutes (understatement of the month). I went into the bedroom after my cup of coffee to put on my timing chip, swim trunks, etc. I noticed that I could no longer hear the rain out the open window in the bedroom. Maybe it has stopped! I looked out and the road wasn’t wet. How could that be? I quickly jumped out the front door to take a quick look. The road was dry as a bone and I could see stars. What is going on? I couldn’t get my brain around what was happening. I am not known to peel the onion very quickly before a couple cups of joe in the AM. I wandered back out to the back porch and then I figured it out. Sprinklers. The bloody sprinklers were on in the back area of our condos and that is why it was all wet back there. What a dip I can be. I had gotten myself all upset about nothing. Life is harder when you are stupid!

So now that I had climbed back in off the ledge over the “rain” issue, we got ready and Kristian drove us to the swim start and we made our way to body marking. It amazes me how slick the organizers of the Hawaii Ironman have every evolution of this race. There were 1,750 of us athletes and not once all week did I stand in a line. I have to believe the volunteer to athlete ratio is better than one to one. It is one of the really awesome things about this race. You are given the rock star treatment the whole way. It makes the whole experience even that much nicer. After body marking we made our way to our bikes and got everything squared away. We were ready to race about 15 minutes after we arrived at the race, so we proceeded to our friends Robbie and Susie’s hotel room right behind the pier and lay down on their bed and waited for the time to pass. It was a luxury to be able to use a real bathroom and chill before the day began.

It all happened pretty quickly after that. The cannon went off and let the aqua combat begin. I have written in other blogs about the swim here in Kona. It was equally as terrible this year. A critic would probably ask why they don’t widen the start line so we aren’t all forced on top of each other. It is going to take someone getting seriously hurt before they change it and I know it makes for great television to see all the amateurs thrashing the life out of each other for an hour or so. I won’t complain about it. There is a way for me to avoid this contact; and that is to just swim faster. The boys who go 55-56 minutes aren’t getting their goggles resealed by other swimmers feet and elbows. That is a slower swimmer’s problem. So that will be my answer to the beating I take every year. I am just going to get faster.

So coming out of the water I had one of the best volunteers ever in the T1 tent. I had just swum in a Speedo, so I had to don both bike shorts and a tri top and get all my gear to launch on the bike ride. That volunteer had me suited up and on my way in about 20 seconds. It helps so much to have someone dedicated totally to you in the tent. Again, the volunteers here are sent directly from heaven. The bike got off to an uneventful start and I was down the road in no time. I don’t have much to say about the bike ride. The winds were mild with the exception of coming back from Hawi when they got down right sporty and some folks got hurt when they touched the floor after being blown off their bikes by the gusts.  For the most part, one of the more mild wind days I have experienced there. I rode solid, but in the last two hours when it was time to start putting in the bigger watts, I was not able to summon the power required to get on with the bigger boys who were starting to reel me in. I was left to just pedal home on my own and I could feel the race going on without me. It was quite disheartening, to be honest. I had hoped to do big things on the bike and set myself up to run tough and into contention with the studs in my age group. I was unable to do that. No excuses, I just wasn’t able to make it happen regardless of how much I wanted it to happen.  Someone said to me after the race that if I were to have ridden my normal ride I would have gone in the low 9:30's.  Well, by that logic, if my sister had testes she would be my brother!  I don't do if's.

As I pedaled into town I promised myself that I wasn’t going to spend the next three and a half hours running the race pissed off at myself and worrying about whatever I had done wrong. I have never said hello back to everyone who cheered for me on the course. I typically just wave a hand at them and keep staring straight ahead. I wasn’t really racing for anything at that point and I just wanted to represent the navy well, as I had NAVY written all over my race kit. I am glad I did that. I enjoyed the run much more than I ever have. I ran as hard as I could and never gave up on the race. I kissed one of the Aussie volunteers, Bev, going into the bike/run transition. Bev is always there on the pier during race week making sure the athletes don’t need anything and she has been there for years. T introduced me to her last year and she and I have a short conversation everyday during the week of Ironman. Seeing her there and taking the time to give her a kiss was a perfect way to switch off the bike and turn on the run. Nice people give me energy and Bev certainly did for me. I moved quickly into T2 and sat down next to my buddy Scott Davis. We traded some perspectives on how the day was going and then boom, I was running the run in Ironman. I didn’t feel good, but my legs felt strong. I got a few miles up the road and my coach, Kristian, was looking at me in a sort of disappointed way. Hey, what can a guy do but his best? That was what I was doing. I stopped, shook his hand, and asked him how his day was going. He seemed perturbed that I had stopped running. I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank him for looking after my training this last year. He is a wonderful coach- for a midget.

At mile three, the Air Force athlete Scott “Kidd” Poteet pulled up next to me. We ran a few miles together. We moved right along at a 7:10-7:20ish pace and chatted, talked shit about the Army and general observations on the day. Kidd is a wonderful dude. He just finished a tour flying as the slot pilot (#4) for the Thunderbirds and is on his way to command an aggressor squadron later in the year. How he gets the time to also be a world class ironman is beyond me. There are just some superb human beings on this planet that are good at everything. Kidd is one of those guys. I still like to send as much abuse his way as I can muster. After he had dropped me and gotten up the road about 100 meters in front of me, some of the folks on the side of the road would shout “go Navy! The Air Force is only 100 meters in front of you!” I would shout back that he was my retarded younger brother in the Air Force and that I was proud of him EVEN with his disability. It was good for some laughs and that is good for morale, mostly mine, on a hard and tough run. That is pretty much how the run went. Solid, strong running with a tired, old body. Mentally I was in a good place, I was just tired and suffering a touch. Coming back down Alii before the run up Palani and out onto the Queen K, Teresa’s immigration attorney and one of our dear friends, Linda, asked me how I felt. “Like a bag of crap sandwiches, you?!” She thought that was pretty descriptive and for me, quite accurate. The run turned out to be a good news story. I was able to get out and back, ran with confidence the whole way; and ran the Hawaii Ironman marathon 6 minutes faster than I ever have in my life. Total time on the day was 9:46:00, my second fastest time ever here in the lava.

One of my early mentors and someone I continue to admire is a former pro triathlete by the name of Tom Price. Tom is a two time champion of Ironman Canada. The day before my first Ironman, Tom gave me some of the best advice I have ever received in this sport. Tom wished me luck on my race and as I was walking out of his bike shop he told me that no matter what time I run in my ironman, not to kill my friends' buzz with the five reasons why I didn’t have my optimum race. He said, and rightly so, that 90 percent of our friends and family don’t know the difference between an 8:30 ironman and a 12:30 ironman, so don’t torture everyone with all the reasons you didn’t go faster. Wear your performance and your finishing time like a Gold medal, regardless of what that time is. Your family just wants you to be happy with your effort. Why would you steal that joy from them by going obsessive compulsive and killing their joy with your woes over your race?! My son offered me his observation after his second or third time watching an ironman. He shared with me this, “Pop, the thing I like about Ironman is that it isn’t like the short races you do, where it is all about a podium or no podium. Here at Ironman, if you finish in less than 17 hours you are in the club!” How true is that, eh?

So my result last Saturday? Gold medal. I’m about results, not excuses. If there are things I need to fix for next year, you can bet I have written them down and they will get fixed. I am so happy I raced this race this year. I learned a lot about a lot. I plan to expound upon some of those lessons this winter in a few blogs.

I just have to add one more thing about Teresa and this race. When I am out there racing, I think about Teresa constantly. I wondered if the swim was as tough for her as it was for me. I worried that maybe the stout winds up at Hawi got her, I wondered if she is running ok and if the neuroma in her foot was killing her, and then there she was!  She was running straight at me on Alii while I was going the other way. It is one of the most amazing feelings in the world to see your wife running strong with a smile getting it done down the road after you have been worrying about her all day. The intensity of that feeling might not make it through these words to the reader, but there are few emotions as strong as seeing the one you love, your partner and best friend, barreling down Alii-the most famous road in triathlon next to the Queen K!  I was so relieved and happy to see she was having a good day.  I am so proud of her and her race. The perfect ending to that piece of the day was to be able to stand there at the finish line and catch her as she came across the finish line. It was absolutely one of the highlights of my triathlon career. It is experiences like these that made this year’s race so rich and full. I will always look back at the 2010 Kona race with this as easily one of my favorite races. Like I always say…just a little piece of heaven!

So now we are flying home to get on with what the autumn and winter have in store for us. For me, it will involve a lot of flying and work. For T, it will be the same with work. We both look forward to healing up and figuring out what we can do better next year. We hope some of you will be able to come out and train with us and tap into the Jonser/Teresa training machine. We plan on hitting it proper all year!

Train with joy or not at all!

Thanks for reading.

Jonser

Race day is upon us!

Well, here it is. The bikes are checked in. All the workouts are over. There is nothing left on the calendar in 2010 except to get out there and race. It should be exciting stuff. The town has absolutely been abuzz since Monday. I don’t remember it being this crazy all throughout Kailua, but I am sure it is just my lack of attention, not necessarily anything different than the normal Kona craziness. This race is so much more than just a race to me. It is more a celebration of a lifestyle and a personal statement to me of hard work, discipline, successful time management along with the overarching thought that dreams really can come true.

Even before I ever got into triathlon, I have dreamt of this race. When I was a teenager, the Hawaii Ironman was telecast on the old ABC Wide World of Sports. I used to watch it and wonder how a guy like Dave Scott could do what he does. I still find myself not believing that I am actually someone who gets to compete in the Hawaii Ironman. I know a lot of dudes who log their one Ironman and continue on other pursuits on their bucket list. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but that is not me. This is my destination. I don’t need to climb any mountains. I don’t need to jump out of any airplanes. I am where I am supposed to be. I want to race Ironman’s, fly airplanes, coach and write- period. I am in my wheelhouse. This is my happy place. I have to admit it feels great to finally know that. I wandered around looking for my raison’d’etre for a long time and it is such a calming feeling to know I am finally on my path. It is better late than never, eh?

This year was different from the point that this is the first year on the Navy team (my fourth in Kona as a navy athlete, with one year as the alternate) that we have had press coverage of the competing athletes. The special interest stories you see on the NBC broadcast are folks featured due to the Navy.com sponsorship of years past. We have the Armed Forces Network (actually the name changed, but I can’t remember what it is) interviewing us and filming us. While fun, and from a vain standpoint, flattering, I can’t help but feel a bit unworthy. When I think of navy stories, especially in our sport, I think the press has done a great job of picking up on some of the amazing individuals we have in our service. Last year’s special by NBC on CAPT Dave Haas was especially great in my eyes. He was the Commanding Officer of the ship who you saw riding his Computrainer on the bridge of the ship while underway, rowing and running on the treadmill all while being at sea. Those are the kind of stories that grab me. Right now there are thousands of sailors either in Iraq, Afghanistan or the Horn of Africa and some in places you would not even believe have sailors there, in harm’s way, doing our nation’s bidding. My story isn’t that interesting, but hell, if you are going to put a mike in front of my gob and ask me questions about the navy, I will take up all the battery life you have in your recorder telling the navy story and that of the military professional. Military service is a calling beyond self, and at most levels, three atmospheres above politics. I don’t mean to lose anybody in my strong feelings for my military buds, I am not one who wraps himself in the flag, or any particular cause or camp, but I am huge on the navy, it’s how I roll. You cut me…I bleed blue and gold. So as this is very likely my last All-Navy Team, I am more than enthusiastic in telling that story. It is much richer and deeper than my own story and it is an honor to tell it-especially in this venue. Ironman is exactly like military service; at some point in the race, things get extremely difficult. When it does, there is only one thing for you to do, harden up and press forward.

Triathlon.com online recently posted the age group picks for tomorrow. Teresa was named by them to win her age group. I agree with them. It is so good to see her racing well again. She is like everyone else in that she struggles from time to time to get in her training. She gets tired, burned out, and frustrated, just like the rest of us. The difference is she never quits. Never. She never throws in the towel and never lets up. She has that champion vibe. I am not embellishing. I can feel it when she has it; she has it in spades now. If I were a 50-54 year old woman, I would go like hell and hope T runs out of real estate, because T is going to hammer all the way to the finish line. I am hoping for great things for her tomorrow. She is feeling great and I can tell when she gets irritable she is getting her fangs sharp for a hard day’s work. Based on that metric, she is more than ready!

So the 45-49 year age group males? I really don’t know. On paper there are at least 15 dudes here who can clean my clock. I am looking forward to racing hard tomorrow and seeing where I stack up. I am still a relatively young athlete with only 8 years in the sport, so I plan on continuing to get better. I honestly can’t wait for the gun to go off tomorrow and see where I am at the end of the day. I learned in Canada that quitting is just not an option for me, so I plan on either going faster than I ever have, or damn near dying in the pursuit of that goal. One of the first” hello’s” that sunk in with me when I moved to Boulder, was realizing how good I am not. When I was training in a small venue like the eastside of Seattle, I thought I was one of the better ironman dudes in the area. When I did swim in a masters club or dropped into someone else’s gym, I would always be one of the faster swimmers in the pool and could ride with anyone in town. That is not the case in Boulder. I am lucky to only swim 3 lanes down from the fast lane, and I am swimming my ass off to be in that lane! The talent there is just sick. The benefit of that is you quickly realize that you are not zip codes, but states, from being the best one of the best in the world. This realization keeps me humble and grounded in the fact that I am not anything more than a very solid age group athlete with a huge passion for the sport and the people in it. I am more than good with that realization.

Well, tomorrow the Super Bowl of our sport will kick off at 6:30am. I am so stoked to be there and in the middle of the whole thing! What other sport allows amateur middle-aged dudes like me to throw the football around with the Joe Montana’s and Tony Romo’s of our sport? You are correct-none. I think that is beyond cool.

So tomorrow I am going to swim for all I am worth, ride smart and tough, and God willing, run strong and with courage on the back half. If I do those things, this race will be a huge success! Nobody is as curious as me to see if that happens.

Thanks for reading!

Cheers,

Jonser

Lets see that smile and that ego, because both will be gone on Saturday! - Kaye Hert, official IMJ photographer and cheerleader.

I am sitting here next to the Sweet Pea tapping away on the laptop with all of beautiful Kona outside waiting. That is the thing with race week and powering down to be ready on race day. I would love to just be out ripping it up every day and I can see that there are a few who are doing that, but the pre-race taper calls for the laying low the closer we get to the race.


The weekend here in Kona was just prime. Saturday we rode with the boys, and Sunday T and I ran out to the energy lab and back. The Saturday ride consisted of Hamster, Josh, Ross, T, Paul and me. We rode 3 hours and change, and it was very enjoyable. The rain christened our arrival back into Kailua on the return, but as all things in Kona go, even that was wonderful.

Having six of our athletes here is an absolute gas. We roll out as a tribe everyday and the energy is better than fantastic. I will give you a quick rundown of the boys…and of course, Rosie.

I have written plenty about my bud Paul. Paul qualified at Brazil by going 9:40 and placing third behind two legit big boys in this sport. Paul had a brilliant effort there and save the broken wrist in August is locked and loaded. I expect big things from him here in the lava this year.

Ross Hillesheim has only been with us for a few months. As a long time friend of one of my navy buddies, Ross contacted us out of the blue and was at our July camp. Ross got a lottery slot to Kona and is fairly new to the sport. Ross is a friendly, warm and fun 28 year old guy from Carmel, California. Ross works in his family business and was clearly raised right. T and I have taken to him straight away and we love having him around. It is fun to see Kona through his eyes this year and appreciate things we have taken for granted because they are new to Ross. Ross is a very gifted triathlete. I love coaching him and he will be a regular here at this race very soon. He is as pure an endurance athlete as I have met. I look forward to watching him progress over the years.

Josh Vincent has been part of IMJ Coaching for a few years. Josh came to me broken and over trained and we have struggled with his injuries for awhile, but is finally healthy and it is showing in his racing. Josh blasted out a 10:19 on a brutal day in Louisville and rightfully earned his slot to come to Kona this year. It is a very short turnaround from Louisville, but I would not be surprised to see this young South African bust out a great one. Josh lives in the city in San Francisco and is a technology guy. He is also the designer of our logo and is a classic renaissance guy. He, too, was at our July camp and is a phenomenal swimmer and strong both on the bike and run. This will not be his last visit to the lava.

I wrote about Hunter “Hamster” Hobson last year in my Kona blog. Hamster is back as the Marine Corps athlete. Hamster just belted out a 10:21 in Canada and is determined to do the same or better here. Hamster is not just an IMJ athlete; he is quickly becoming a very dear friend to T and me. His wife Margy, along with Hamster, were with us in St. Croix in the spring. It is the friendships that you build up in this sport as you march along on your journey that really become the real treat in this sport. Hamster is back for his second Hawaii Ironman. Having last year’s experience under his belt will be huge for him as we go at it Saturday morning.

Lee Boyer is a friend and navy teammate. Lee is the Executive Officer of a Navy squadron in Florida. Lee is primed to bust out a huge effort here in his first trip to Kona. I have seen Lee power through to some impressive race results and I don’t expect anything different here on the 9th. Lee has no weaknesses. He is a legit Kona player and his fast swim, strong bike and a genuine runners run could bode well for him on Saturday. I am excited to see how he goes. He is not only a great athlete; he is a super human being. I am proud to race with him and even more proud to be his friend.

Kristen “Rosie” Barnes is both an IMJ athlete and my navy teammate. Rosie and I go back a few years. Rosie is an F-14 Tomcat Radar Intercept Officer by trade and is good at just about everything. I first met her at a CpC camp I coached back in 2007 with Chris McCormack and Mitch Gold. I first noticed how tough she was back then when we were swimming heinous sessions that included 6-7k swims and 6-7 hour bikes. There is no quit in Rosie and she motivates me every time I open her logs. Rosie just got back from a year in Kuwait where she was working with the Army. Rosie emailed me out of the blue and asked if it was possible to start laying down serious training even though she was in isolated duty with not much for training venues. We worked it out and she has been laying it down since then. Whenever I need to get motivated, I look to Rosie. She gets me fired up for sure!

Having this crew here with T, me, as well as our coach, Kristian and his wife Charlotte has made this week wonderful. The daily sessions with each of us meeting up every morning is a great way to start the day. If you sometimes get down, just surround yourself with positive people. It will help every time.

Tomorrow, the Vulcans will start to arrive en masse. Let the games begin!



Jonser

“The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it”

I read a quote in my daytimer this morning when I woke up that says “The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it”. I have been sitting here sipping my coffee looking over the dark ocean, as the sun has yet to rise, thinking about that meaty quote. Some dude named Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe has now taken my morning hostage as I run the concept around in my grape for awhile. I have been thinking about talent, ones path, happiness vs. unhappiness a lot lately. I have an entire blog in the future to write about this one as I was heavily influenced by a documentary I watched last Sunday, Rush: beyond the lighted stage. It is a wonderful documentary about my personal favorite band of all time, but there is so much more about this amazing Canadian trio and their journey over the course of the bands history. Like I said, this one is a whole blog in itself after the race, but it comes down to the same principal to which Goethe speaks- using your talent to find your greatest happiness.

So Friday in Kona was just wonderful after arriving late Thursday night. T and I swam together in the ocean and I swam the entire course to just loosen up and settle in to being in Kona. The currents were sporty and I ended up taking the long route. It was nice of a kayaker to come all the way out to see if I knew where the hell I was going. I joked to the gal that now we know why my swim splits here are always terrible. It is not only because I am slow, but I am challenged at navigating as well. That is a tough combo to overcome! She laughed; we talked about the weather, the changes in Kailua in the last few years, the remodel of the King Kam hotel and other sundries. I then decided that even though I am a sailor and built to go to sea, staying closer to the shore might be a better call. At the turnaround buoy I stopped and said hello to a guy just resting at the half way mark. He was from Austria. He was keen to speak English to me and we had a nice chat. This was his first Kona and I could tell he was ecstatic and scared to death all the same time. He was a wonderful dude. I wished him well and swam in to shore.

There is something so free about swimming in the ocean. It is easily one of the most enjoyable things I get the chance to do in my life. I spent some time as a boy living on a lake in Arkansas and had unlimited access to swimming in that lake. At 11 years old, I used to launch out solo and swim all the way across the lake and back. It was probably a 3k swim or so and I used to love to just find a tree on the other side of the lake and swim for it. I would climb up on the brick wall on the other side, do a Tarzan yell and dive back in and swim back. I remember I used to feel like I had really done something when I would get back. When I was that age, I was a tiny kid. Scrawny and small, completely unsure of just about everything, but when I was slicing through that water, I was free, powerful, and as happy as I ever need to be. Thirty four years later, I feel exactly the same way. Maybe that is what Goethe is talking about. It is definitely something for me to think about for awhile.

The week before Ironman week is a great time to get here. The majority of the Vulcans have yet to arrive, so the town is not as crowded, it’s just more of the hard core that are here and it is wonderful. Friday afternoon, Paul got here and he and I went for a short, brisk run along Alii Drive to get our running legs back after a long day of travel. Paul and I have been buds for almost a decade and training partners for the same amount of time. We have run so many miles together over the years, literally thousands of miles. It comforts me to run next to him after all this time. Paul is a pure runner and his body sway, little foot slap he has, and his gentle laugh at just about everything I say, are so comforting to me. We no longer live right next to each other and don’t train together every single day like we used to, but it is like not a minute has passed since our last training session together. Everybody needs a closer than close bud. It is one of those gifts from God that I don’t ever take for granted.

After training, Teresa and I hit the bike shop to get the necessary race stuff and replace a few items that the TSA stole out of my bike box. One quick word on the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) and then I won’t touch it again. The TSA and I do not get along. The TSA gets to me because it is a group of folks that operate in a mode where there is no thought or reasoning involved in their search process. They might as well be robots. The only problem is they are operating off of strict rules, yet they all don’t know the rules. So here you have folks that won’t think, won’t reason, and don’t adhere to their own rules because they don’t completely know them. They hate guys like me who actually know that there is a website called www.tsa.gov and you can read the instructions for yourself. God help you if you point it out to them. I would have to say in full disclosure that I went to grad school with two TSA executives. Both were extremely intelligent and wonderful people. It is a problem downstream. I wouldn’t mind, but they never put my bike box back together right and my bike has scratches to prove it. They take stuff the regulations allow me to bring, yet you can’t debate them about it because nothing is more powerful than a knucklehead with a badge. I’m over it…not really, but I’m done blogging about it. Add it to the reasons why I drink!

So this quick little story about the bike shop and then I will go train. We go into the bike shop. We are there at least two hours. Teresa tries on just about everything, involves every single employee in her search for the perfect whatever it is she is looking for, puts everything back or returns it days later, asks everyone’s opinion on just about everything and then once they are all completely exhausted…leaves! She just kills me. I find it the funniest thing. T just has no problem involving employees in her shopping experience. As we are driving away I ask her if maybe she drives all those folks crazy. “Oh no, sweetie. They ALL know me in there!” You bet your bippy they all know her! Splits me in two. I crack up laughing just thinking about some of the shit she does. It is one of the thousand things I love about her and why she is my partner for life.

Well, the sun is up, I am properly caffeinated, and the princess has awakened and is ready to train, so out the door we go!

Thanks for reading.

Shaka,

Jonser

Kona 2011 Day 1

                                   
Kona baby! Here we come…again!


I have been traveling all day. 0300 wake up for T, Sassy and me. Sassy to the doggy daycare, T to United for some space available travel fun, and me to American Airlines courtesy of the U.S. Navy. T got on both flights and got into Kona this morning. I flew Denver to Los Angeles, Los Angeles to Honolulu and then a 6 hour sit due to a cancelled flight and then over to Kona. I am currently in between Honolulu and Kona now.

I have been thinking about this year’s Kona all week long and have no idea how it is going to go. As a pilot, I just go by a checklist. It makes things easy for me. Here was my checklist last night when I was packing:

Bike-check, Bike stuff-check, run gear-check, swim gear-check, casual clothes, underwear and a shavekit-check, frazzled nerves because I am scared to death I didn’t recover from Canada-check, pit in my stomach because I have been breaking my own rule on getting 8 hours of sleep a night-check, amazing excitement because tomorrow I will wake up and swim the course-check, pumped because Hamster and Paul get here tomorrow-check, 14 days uninterrupted with my wife-check, checklist complete.

I will take the next week and spend some time talking about the inside of age group kona racing, general perceptions I have for this year, anything interesting that pops up, and of course, tell you a lot about my amazing athletes that are here racing Kona. I am fortunate enough to have six of them here this year.

For now, I would say that the only overarching feeling I have is one of gratitude. I am grateful to be healthy enough to once again come to the island and race in what I would consider the Big Daddy of our sport. Just getting here and getting here healthy is a huge accomplishment. Like I have heard it said- it is an honor to race Kona. I feel it huge right now!

The Flight Attendant just announced, “we have begun our initial descent into Kona Keahole Airport. Please bring your seat to the upright and locked position, ensure any personal items you have taken out during the flight are safely stowed underneath the seat in front of you, the Captain has turned on the fasten seat belt sign, this is for your safety and the safety of those around you. Please turn off any electrical devices, laptop computers, cellphones”…Doh! That’s me! More later…!

Jonser