A day late....but I'm on ISLAND TIME BRUH!

With Megan outside the King K

This week's blog is coming straight out of the King Kamehameha Hotel - the race venue of the Ironman World Champs!
Fortunately, since it only becomes swamped with Ironman athletes in race week, I got a great rate for this week for a twin queen room, which I am sharing with Megan Webber, another Aussie athlete.
I'd love to write this whole blog about the past 2 days! But first about the rest of the week.

Kind of taper - but not quite

I had a pretty standard Monday-Thursday in Melbourne. Lots of loose ends for work I had to TRY to tie up (of course there will still be a bit to do while I'm here, but I got most of it done). I always find this time before a race mentally tough. You're not quite into taper (I have NO problem backing right off once taper time comes) but you know you've done all the big stuff, and now it's just keeping the tank topped up, so to speak. 

That makes it hard for me - a couple of sessions this week were tough mentally, because I was so "on" for last weekend, I felt like "really? Do I have to? Can't I just chill now?" 

But the highlights were Wednesday's bike/run, where I went pretty well on the bike, despite the heavy legs, and followed with my best run off the Wednesday bike for several years. A huge boost. Also on Thursday in swim squad, I managed 6x200m leaving off a 3.15 cycle time. That was swimming on feet, but I've only managed that set once before, so I was really happy. 

Connecting with friends before leaving

The other real highlight before I left was catching up with 2 different sets of triathlon friends for breakfast the 2 mornings before I left. This sport has brought so many wonderful friendships into our lives, but for this prep, I haven't had many chances to hang out with those friends. It was lovely to catch up and get lots of good luck hugs from them all 😘

Getting to Kona

Some of the sights of Ironman, including the Banyan tree

Nothing could beat the nightmare journey we had in 2011, where we had to sleep at the gate in Melbourne and spend a night in Auckland! But a 3hr delay on Friday meant I missed my inter island flight to Kona and had another 4 hour wait in Honolulu. Luckily I met yet another nice triathlete, Lachlan Green and we had breakfast and waited together. I even squeezed in some compression in my boots at the airport, which I doubt I would have dared to do on my own! Strength in numbers! 

At least you don't really have jet lag coming here though. The time difference is only 3 hours, even though it is a day behind. I had a great night's sleep Friday, and Megan and I had a lovely ride to Waikoloa on Saturday. My run off the bike, albeit short, felt amazing. And then we had dinner cooked for us last night by a lovely guy, Matt who will be volunteering on race day. Arriving back in Kona, and just breathing in the beautiful Hawaiian Aloha makes my heart sing! I still pinch myself that I even made it here once, let alone for a third time. I'm soaking up all the sights, just like it was my first visit.

I won't write about my run this morning, as that's part of next week's story.......and it wasn't particularly pleasant in the heat!!

(Less than) 2 weeks to go

The week's numbers: