Swim (0:49:44)
This was my first non-wetsuit swim race, and thankfully the ocean water was pleasantly more buoyant than I thought. What a nice surprise! The swim was an in-water start and in a triangle. At the first buoy, there was quite a bit of congestion, so lots of arms flailing and legs kicking as we tread water for a minute. The water was so clear that we can wave at the scuba divers as we swim. I must be getting better at swimming because the second buoy came sooner than I expected. The water was so clear that I was able to spot a Trifinity race kit after I rounded the second buoy. I knew it must be Lisa, so I put a surge on to catch up and tried to stay on her toes for the rest of the swim. I came out of the water pleased with the 1 min 30 sec improvement from Wildflower Long.
T1 (0:05:50)
It was a rather long incline up to the transition area, but I should have known that given it took awhile to get down to the swim at the start.
Bike (3:30:07)
I didn't get a chance to study the bike course map, so I hoped the direction would be clearly marked. The first stretch going south had a slight downhill, and I was freezing! I could barely feel my fingers and my toes were having an argument with my mind. I was so glad to make the first turnaround because we started climbing a little and I started to warm up. We stayed on this road for a really long time, and I felt like I was getting slower and slower. If I had studied the map, then I would've known that it was because we were on a false flat. I didn't know this at the time, so I just put my head down and kept plugging away.
At one point, I saw a guy shamelessly drafting off a girl up ahead. I say shamelessly because he was literally right on her tail with probably less than a centimeter to spare. Ten minutes passed by, and he was still drafting off her. Finally, someone passing her told her that she had a tail, and she sped up to try to shake her tail. Unfortunately, he also sped up and stayed right on her tail for as far as I could see them.
That was a nice distraction, and now back to the grind. By now, the headwind going towards Hawi has picked up. Apparently this headwind is almost guaranteed to be there each race. Since my bike crash, I haven't gotten the courage to get back down on my aero bars, so I could only try to duck as low as possible. I was so relieved to see the turnaround and the end of the headwind. The moment of relief lasted only a few seconds because I realized that we had been on a false flat, and now we're descending with a tailwind plus cross wind. For someone who loves ascending more than descending (aka I hate descending), I was just hanging on for dear life. Every time the cross wind hits, I screamed silently inside.
I didn't even care about what time or pace I was going. I just wanted to make it back without another catastrophic crash. And thankfully I did!
T2 (0:01:44)
Fast, but still not my fastest!
Run (2:21:31)
Again, I didn't study the run course map, so I just hoped for the best. I knew the first couple miles were going to be sucky, so I just focused on one foot in front of the other.
A few miles later, I heard a familiar sound call my name and it was Julia running on the other side in the other direction. Another few miles later, I saw Julia again, so now I'm starting to figure out that it must be some sort of clover shaped run.
I could feel the hot sun on my skin, but my body was actually cooling down so much so that I was shivering. All the friendly volunteers at the aids stations were offering ice, and I was probably the only person that was running away from the ice sponges. Brrr...
My legs were starting to feel a little tired when we started to go down a hill. I knew that means we got to go back up the same hill and I knew I could still negative split if I just pushed through the last couple miles, so I resolved to myself while I was running downhill that I would run up the whole uphill without walking. It took everything I got not to stop and walk. I was so happy to round a corner and finally saw the stretch down the finish line.
I did it! I negative split!
Total (6:48:54)
Overall, this was a huge PR for me. I thought it was my first sub-7 performance, but I had forgotten that I broke 7 hours at Vineman 70.3 two years ago. The best part of this race was truly yet to come because now it's real vacation time!!!
Aloha!
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