The Swim

Off I went, and the bike course was crowded! The first part of the bike is a 6 mile-ish out and back along the Kuakini Highway, then up steep Palani to turn onto the Queen K highway to Hawi. During those first 12 miles I tried to just get settled in, making sure I had a clear line and wouldn’t end my race with a silly crash. The miles seemed to go by faster than they did when riding the course virtually via my trainer, I guess being there in person makes the experience just a little better 🙂

After I had finished the short out and back, I was headed up Palani when I heard my name, I turned to my left and saw my family on the hill! I cheered and waved as I kept shifting into a smaller gear, headed up up up the hill. Then I made the turn onto Queen K and thought, here we go. Right away I noticed that we definitely had a tail-wind, as I was hardly hitting my goal watts but cruising at a pretty good pace. That made me happy for the moment but also slightly dreading what kinds of winds I would have on the way back. The course was still pretty crowded but I never saw any drafting, everyone mostly had enough room to pass or ride single file outside of each other’s draft zone. I also saw many motos over the course of the bike, so they were paying attention!

As I got closer to the Hawi climb I felt excited knowing it was only another 7ish miles before we reached the top of the climb and headed back towards Kona. Granted it was 50+ miles back, but still, getting closer! As I had been told, the climb wasn’t anything terrible, just a grind with occasional less grindy spots. We also really lucked out on the wind being mild as it can make the climb more challenging/scary. I finally made it to the top, turned around and then hit up special needs for my 2 additional bottles of nutrition and a bottle of water (I always add one so I don’t have to stop at the next aid station). A volunteer quickly handed me my bag and I got to unwrapping the bottles from the foil (to keep them cold, I even froze the bottles). After what felt like 10 minutes (I think it was closer to 4…also, I forgot to turn autopause off on my watch and it paused during this time during the race!! I know the real clock never stops but it’s nice to have the real race time on your watch), I was finally off and headed back down Hawi.

I was thrilled to have the downhill and was able to relax and cruise since the wind was mild and there weren’t any scary cross-winds to manage. After the downhill I knew we would have a pretty steep climb coming up around mile 74 so I just settled in and prepared for that climb. I had noticed earlier that my power numbers were crazy low but had figured it was due to tailwind, however I was was noticing now that without the tailwind, I was struggling to hit even close to my power numbers but my heart rate was high given the low watts. I was a little confused and frustrated, but decided not to spend too much time worrying about it because the goal for today was to just finish, so I quit looking at power and went by feel for the rest of the ride.

I hit the aid station before the next big climb, grabbed a fresh water and then another to douse myself to keep cool and got to it. I actually enjoy hills and climbing, but we did have some headwind which was a little wearing, not terrible headwind or crosswind, but my climbing was slow-going. I noticed so many ladies just flying by me like they weren’t climbing a hill, I mean I knew I was going to have a slower bike time compared to many of the women racing, but seeing them fly by like they just started the bike was something else! (In hindsight, I think my lack of power/high heart rate was more the reason for ‘feeling’ slow as I was actually truly going slow, lol).

The next 30ish miles were kind of a blur, consisting of more headwind, a few more hills (nothing crazy though but felt tough in the wind) and just more miles of volcanic rock and highway. I did take in the view of the ocean to the right, but was also trying to keep my neck happy and focus on the riders in front of me. When I saw the sign for the airport, I was thrilled. The airport is 10 miles from town so I was making progress. More volcanic rock and highway, more slow pedaling, soon I saw the airport! After passing the airport I could see runners in the distance and knew I was getting close. I found myself wishing I was on the run, so I went back to focusing on where I was right then, which was on the bike, and kept pedaling. Soon I was turning right at the stoplight to head to transition, I took a deep breath thinking ‘I did it. I am going to finish the bike’. I slowed down at transition and came to stop where a volunteer told me ‘Welcome Home!’.

The Run