Today is Saturday Oct 4, we all made it safe, the luggage made it in one piece and we are now settled into our condo for our first full day in Kona. The weather is very warm - I'm currently sitting on our lanai (balcony) in just boxer shorts at 9:50 PM !! The swim start (Dig me Beach) & the race finish line are a mere 300 metres over my left shoulder. Back to the weather - Kona is currently enveloped in a haze, or what is known as 'Vog' - Volcanic fog. This morning was quite clear but when the trade winds pick up it blows the vog from Mt Kilauea which is currently going through some quite violent eruptions, this morning was quite hot then by 11am the vog blew in making the temperature drop off but had the added effect of lifting the humidity - sweat city ! I got badly sunburnt on my 3 hour ride this morning, I headed down the Queen K for 1.5hrs then turned around and headed for home. I was back by 9:30am but this was long enough to do plenty of damage.
It was quite an interesting ride down the Queen K, I made it to somewhere around the turnoff to Hawi. On the way out I thought it was calm but as soon as I turned around this wasn't the case! I was going down hill at 29km/h having to stand up to push harder! I had 2 head winds and a tail wind on the way back, the ride ended up ok with an average of 32.3km/h. The roads are just beautiful over here - Billiard table smooth, you are fair dinkum spoilt.
Star spotting is going very well - saw Stadler and his German cronies doing a photo shoot on the pier. Meg and Tom did their bit to get on German TV news, doing butterfly and breaststroke in the backdrop of the interview. Also spotted Macca and Luke Bell on my evening 1 hr run down Ali'i Drive, spotted Natasha B on her unique carbon 'winged fighter' bike down on the Queen K - an unprompted big smile and wave from her put a smile on my dial, what a chick! Saw some others that are a bit harder to identify, Rutger Beke and Chris Lieto, I could be mistaken though. I've also ran into Bruce Baddely quite a few times, Niall Mai from Knox Tri Club and a heap of other Aussies who are all very very friendly.
Off for a 45 minute swim tomorrow, it is still quiet in Kona town, but this will all change over the next couple of days. I'll test out the new Orca swimskin and give you all the low down on its performance.
I thought I'll add a few quick points below:
You know your in Kona when.......
- You're riding along and you hear the rumble of what you think is a truck, but turns out to be a Toyota Hilux 4WD with MONSTER WHEELS & TYRES. So big that you can see the gearbox and diff and all the rest of the drivetrain whilst in the aero position on your bike.
- You buy a serve of teriyaki chicken and rice for $10 USD and you get 1 kg of cooked rice with 4 massive chicken breasts sitting on top and smothered in half a litre of teriyaki sauce. And no I'm not joking.
- Powerbars cost the equivalent of $1.50 AUD.
- You see Japanese IM athletes swimming in their compression socks ??
- You get to see the latest tri products that you would never get to see in Oz until next season.
- You go mad buying the Ironman World Champs merchandise - and the stuff looks absolutely brilliant this year.
I'll work on getting some photo's up over the next couple of days. Until then, chill.
Mahalo, Matty
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