Life does not suck

Lunch at the Kona Canoe Club

Mood is improving

How beautiful is this

We had an eventful Tuesday in Kona (and beyond, more later). Started the day meeting the Endurance Sports Travel (Ken Glah's company which got us this fabulous condo) crew for a quick van ride to the Pier for swim. A lot more people here than on Monday for sure. Had to swim head up a bit so as to not run into others swimming. That is a bummer because can't watch the beautiful fishies! Anyhow, great swim and I feel pretty comfy in the water. We had a Chrissie Wellington (last years female champ) sighting as she was being interviewed just before her practice swim. The Dane still cannot get over the size of her tree trunks, I mean legs. Wow, is she put together. Anyhow, ran into Crowie (last years men's runner-up) before leaving and had a nice chat with him. We know him from Clearwater 70.3 '06 as we had dinner with him, Lisa Bentley and her hubby and amazingly, he always spots us in a crowd. He even said he'll yell for me if he see's me on the course........cool! We had a quick breaky at the buffet EST sets up daily then made a needed van ride to the grocery store. I guess $300 is the new $200. Next on the agenda was a van ride out to Hapuna Beach and ride the bikes back. We had a small crew, a nice girl from the UK and Adam, another American guy. She was a bit concerned about the wind as cycling is not her strong suit, according to her. Anyway, it was pretty windy out there and I had to spend a bit of time in the "oh shit" bars but not nearly as much as two years ago. The time spent riding in the hills is definitely going to pay off and I'm much more confident in this wind........unless it gets tons worse. So, 34 miles later, we end up back at the condo. It was a good ride and great practice for Saturday. We ran into Adam at the expo and he was wondering why we rode "so hard".......we didn't! It's all relative I suppose. He was nice enough to accompany the UK girl back as she was riding her own pace. We headed, as I said, over to the expo to try and meet Thunderbear (last year's men's third place, the other Dane), but he was occupied so we had a nice chat with the co-owner of Argon about their TT bike, very interesting design and got a cool t-shirt. Back to the condo to relax for the rest of the day and eat our wonderful clean food we picked up at the grocery store, Ahi tuna filets with rice and broccolini! Yummy. Slept better last night, didn't wake up at all until 5am, I'm finally getting on island time! I have a swim and 30 minute run today and am so looking forward to them both. I love training out here, you get free energy from the Gods - if you stop and feel it, it's there. Sounds strange to anyone who hasn't been here. Life does not suck....enjoy.
kia kaha