Caution: Slow Children at Play

After my disappointing experience at Waterfront Triathlon earlier this year (my fault, not theirs) it probably seemed crazy for me to even consider attempting the Hawaii Ironman 70.3 in Kona.  But…I really needed to redeem myself and how could I turn down a chance to do it on the fabled Queen K?  Besides…I’d already paid the registration money and told everybody I was going to do it.

The Race:

It’s a 1.2 mile swim, followed by a 56-mile bike, followed by a 13.1 mile run.

My week started off not really as expected.  As you probably know from my previous posts my Grandfather passed away somewhat suddenly the week before and I flew to Indianapolis to attend his memorial service.  While I had absolutely no regrets or hesitation about doing that it also meant that 6 days before my big race I was putting my body through 23 hours of travelling and an out-and-back to the Eastern Time Zone.  Not really an ideal taper.  Still, I was excited to take on the race so after returning to Honolulu from Indianapolis on Wednesday night, I turned around the following morning and headed to Kona as planned.

Pre-Race

Arriving in Kona I got my rented Mercury Milan from Avis and headed off to my hotel, the Paniolo Greens at Waikoloa. 

First let’s talk briefly about the car: The Milan drives o.k. and it’s comfortable enough.  I would say that I generally found it to be a sort of unremarkable domestic sedan with one notable exception…the Microsoft Sync system.  I didn’t bother to connect my iPod to it (didn’t think I had the right cable anyhow) but I *DID* use the built-in Bluetooth capability to connect to my mobile phone.  That meant that I could use the built-in speaker phone when I was driving the car and on the couple of occasions I had to try it I thought it was quite good.  Aside from that the car was just o.k.  As I feared the trunk wasn’t quite large enough to accommodate Keira so I had to take her front wheel off and put her in the back seat.  (if you don’t know that Keira is my bike then you’re probably fairly horrified right now)

Now let’s talk about the hotel.  When I made the reservation it said it was a “One-bedroom Villa.”  I wasn’t quite sure what that meant but it conjured up thoughts of some sort of little cottage.  Not quite.  Actually when I got to the room it turned out to be basically a two-bedroom, two-bathroom, condo.  Full kitchen.  Very nice.  200 feet from the pool/jacuzzi, which I knew would come in handy.  The Paniolo Greens is a great value for the money.

Thursday was spent driving the bike course and checking out the beach.  I had thought I might go for a swim on Thursday on the swim course but…I just didn’t.  More on that later perhaps.  I also stopped on Thursday and picked up Keira from the transport company, put her pedals on and took her back to the hotel and finished off with a light dinner at Romano’s.

Friday morning I got up early and took one more drive up and down the bike course.  Yep, it’s hilly.  Then to the airport to pick up Irene – who was coming in from Italy to do the race.  We went to race registration at the Fairmont, where I got to meet Lolly Rogers, whom you might remember being featured on the 2007 Kona Ironman telecast.  Nice lady; great spirit.  Race registration went fine – and then we were off to a Open Water Swim Clinic that the guys from LifeSport coaching were putting on.

I had sort of hoped they’d get us in the water and show us a few things, but unfortunately this was purely lecture and no lab.  He had a few good tips and reiterated what we already knew: mass swim starts in triathlon are a contact sport.  People are going to hit you and you’re going to hit people.  That's just what happens when you get 1200 people in a small space and have them all start swimming for the same buoy at once.

After the seminar I went down to the water and took a quick swim.  I was hoping to get comfortable in the water before the race but that didn’t really happen.  Soon it was time for Irene and I to head back to the Fairmont for the mandatory athlete’s meeting (see picture)

Lot of triathletes in the room for a briefing by the Run, Bike and Swim course directors, the director of Aid Stations and the head referee.  The Run director tried to scare us all by telling us his setup crew asked if there were any downhills.  The Swim director made light of it by admitting that the swim was mostly uphill and the Bike director figured we already knew the bike was going to be a hilly experience and didn’t bother making any jokes about it.

The head referee explained what a red card was and what a yellow card was, cautioned us not to litter and explained the penalty tent procedure.

One bit of info that caught my ear was the swim director emphasizing that it was o.k. to take a rest on the swim course if we needed to.  We could grab onto one of the lifeguard kayaks or surfboards and catch our breath or empty our goggles – as long as the lifeguard didn’t advance us along the course.  We could, whenever we were ready, then continue on in the race.  Naturally stopping on the swim costs precious time, but at least for those of us who aren’t great swimmers there was that safety net of knowing that if we really had to, we could stop for a moment.

The other thing that caught my eye was the new diagram of the swim course – it was NOT the same as the one in the athlete’s packet.  More on that in a few moments…

After the athlete’s meeting, I took Keira to get her checked in at Hapuna for T1.  We have to check in our bikes and helmets the day before and leave them overnight.  Then I headed to the airport to pick up Carrie who, thankfully, was coming in for the weekend and to support me at the race. 

When Carrie arrived she told me that a friend of ours from Oahu who was there to do the race, had planned to sleep in his car that night!  Well, wasn’t going to let a friend and fellow triathlete sleep in his car the night before a big race when we had a spare bedroom.  So we called him and he drove up to our hotel and moved into our second bedroom for the evening.

Dinner was Subway that night but I didn’t have much of an appetite and by 9PM we were in bed with multiple alarms set for 4AM to head to the race.

I didn’t sleep much.

Swim – 1.2 miles

4AM came early but I didn’t sleep much anyhow so I was ready to go.  Ate a PowerGel, drank some water, got my gear on and we hopped in the car for the trip down to Hapuna.  Once we arrived there my first task was to find a stand-up bike pump to top off Keira’s tires. Fortunately a friend had one handy I could borrow and that task was accomplished in short order.

Next up – figuring out where to drop off my Swim-Bike bag.  There’s a long path from the water up to T1 and apparently you just drop your bag (in the appropriate place by race number) along that path.  Not many had, yet, but I did.  Worked out fine.

From there it was a stroll to the shore where a couple of dozen volunteers were marking race numbers.  I walk up to a volunteer and much to my surprise it was my friend Susan! (She’s an Ironman herself and was in from Chicago to support the race)  It was great catching up with her but to be honest my gaze kept turning to the swim course.

In the athlete’s packet the swim course is shown to be a big clockwise rectangle, with the start and finish at the lower left-hand corner.  The start is shown to be straight out from the beach, towards the open sea, then a right-turn at the buoy on the top corner, a long stretch across the bay along the top of the rectangle, before another right turn back towards the beach and so on.  However as it turns out the start and finish were NOT at the corner of the rectangle, but rather in the middle.  So the first bit of the swim was to the left, along the beach, for a couple hundred meters, before making a right-hand turn and going towards the open sea.

Let’s be honest…I don’t like open water swimming.  I’m just not that comfortable when I’m a ways away from shore, in water WAY over my head, getting pushed around by swells and currents.  I’m always a little fearful that I’m going to founder, tire out and drown.  It’s especially a problem in deep, murky, water because I can’t see the bottom and have no sense of if I’m making progress.

Finally…to compound all of that, I really don’t like full contact swimming.  As I said above, a triathlon swim start can be a full contact sport.  People hit you, you hit them, people swim over the top of you, grab your feet, kick you…they don’t usually mean to, it’s just that you have 1500 people all swimming in a confined space and so there’s a lot of what you might call “incidental contact”.  For me that’s just one more thing to add to my apprehension.  But after much encouragement I zip up my Blue Seventy suit and I’m in the water waiting for the start.

My strategy in triathlon swim starts is fairly simple.  I want clear water.  I don’t want to play roller derby with 10 other swimmers.  So I start at the back, I tend to start towards the outside (away from the first buoy) and I let the faster, more aggressive, swimmers start in front of me.  When the gun goes off, most of them will charge off, splashing and digging.  They’re all faster than I am anyhow so I might as well let them go first so I don’t have to worry about who is swimming up behind me.  At Kona I took it a step further.  There’s no rule that says you have to start swimming when the gun goes off.  So the gun fired…and I stood there, thigh-deep in the water.

I stood there for a good 90 seconds or so, just watching the masses swim away.  Then I took a good deep breath, waded a few steps further in, adjusted my goggles and set off.  That plan worked very well.  For the most part I had good clean water around me.

Three Things About the Swim

1. Starting the first 300 meters or so parallel to the beach was great.  Helped build my confidence.  I got warmed up, soothed my nerves, got into the rhythm, before I had to steel myself for the deeper water.  By the time I reached the first buoy and made the right-hand turn I felt pretty good.
2. The water at Hapuna is super clear.  They said we’d be able to see the bottom all the way around and they were right.  Even though we were supposedly in 70+ feet of water at some points I could still see the bottom.  And that was reassuring – I could see that I was making progress.  Also it helped with navigation, I didn’t have to sight as often to make sure I was swimming straight because I could just follow the coral or sand ridges at the bottom.
3. It seemed like almost every time I turned my head to breathe I could see a paddleboarder or kayak nearby.  That bolstered my confidence too because I knew that if I got into trouble somebody was close at hand to help.  Lots of support along the course.

Cruisin’

So, much to my surprise I cruised the swim pretty well.  I found myself passing some of the slower swimmers (there are slower swimmers?!) and before I knew it I was making the turn back towards the beach and starting to hear the crowd.  The last stretch along the beach until we got back to the exit seemed to take forever…but I could see from the bottom that I was making decent time.  I didn’t want to wear myself out before the bike so I was just staying patient.

Past the rocks, make a left, the crowd is getting loud now and the exit is directly ahead!  Just a short trip to the beach!  Quickly my finger tips touched sand and I stood up, elated!  Made it!  A short shallow wade to the beach, pulling off my goggles.  There’s Carrie cheering for me!  I glance at the clock: 53 minutes.  Not bad for me.  Well under the cut-off.  Now across the grass towards the path leading to T1.

TO BE CONTINUED….

Just catching up with a quick pictures post.  Carrie and I took a trip to the East Coast last week to attend Adrienne and Chris’s wedding.  Here’s a quick look at a few shots from the trip…

Dinner with Cousin Meredith on Thursday night.

Nice view of Yankee Stadium at night – on our way out of NYC heading up to CT.

Pretty drive in CT.

Day before – Carrie with the Bride and Groom.

Enjoying the view of the pond at Adrienne’s parents’ house (site of the events)

The Groom waits by the big tent on the big day.

Ladies and Gentlemen…Mr. and Mrs. (Actually Mr. and Dr. I believe)

The World’s Third Most Difficult Hopscotch Course.

O.K., I guess we have become that couple. :-)  (and we love it)

-B-

Keith W. Amstutz, 88, of West Lafayette, died Friday, May 22, 2009.

Born in Allen County on April 4, 1921, he married Helen Louisa Rater on Aug. 18, 1943.
After serving in the Navy during World War II, he completed his master's degree in agriculture economics at Purdue University in 1949, moved to Forrest, Ill., and served as an executive fieldman, leader of association field staff and assistant state leader/business manager for the Illinois Farm Business Farm Management Association.

In 1984, he was honored with the Gamma Sigma Delta Award of Merit by the international honor society of agriculture when he was cited for his long-term contributions to the development of farm business analysis and record keeping systems. He served for 15 years as president of the Forrest Community School Board, was a long-time member of the Lions Club and was appointed Forrest Township Supervisor in 1984. After retiring in 1985 from the FBFM, he devoted his time to several part-time jobs involving fishing, income tax preparation and farm real estate appraisal.

After living in Illinois for 58 years, he and his wife returned to this area and resided for the past two years at Westminster Village.

Mr. Amstutz was an enthusiastic traveler and loved exploring. Most recently, he celebrated his wife's 98th birthday by traveling to Florida with his daughters.
Surviving besides his wife of 65 years are four children, Sharon in Los Angeles, Susan in Indianapolis, Paul in Galesburg, Ill., and John in Lafayette; two brothers, Robert Amstutz and Vaughn Amstutz, both of Lafayette; and a sister, Elizabeth Greenwald of West Lafayette.

Also surviving are 5 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren, who have benefited from his guidance and wisdom, as well as the many family members and friends whose lives he so positively touched.

A memorial service in Keith's honor will be at 2 p.m. Tuesday, May 26, at the Soller-Baker West Lafayette Funeral Home, 1184 Sagamore Pkwy. WL. The family will hold a private celebration of his life afterwards. Memorial contributions may be made to the Westminster Village Foundation, 2741 N. Salisbury, West Lafayette, IN 47906 or to the Forrest Lions Club; www.soller-baker.com.

Reports of my death have been slightly exaggerated…

O.K., here’s a long overdue update for the 3 of you who still read my blog. (Hi Mom!)

The Big Easy Is Not So Easy To Get Out Of

Went to New Orleans for an ABA meeting last week.  It was pretty interesting; I’d never been before.  Spent virtually all of my time either in the French Quarter or at the airport so you might not want to consider my impressions as necessarily reflective on New Orleans as a whole.  My general thoughts though:

• Never seen strippers just hanging out in front of their shops in bikinis and lingerie beckoning passing men to come inside before.
• Surprising number of young teens on Bourbon Street considering it seems to be mostly bars and aforementioned strip clubs.
• Some really good food.  We ate at NOLA (Emeril’s place) and at Napolean House (for two) and really enjoyed them.
• Nice folks – my cab driver on the way back to the airport on Saturday was very friendly and had a lot of interesting things to say about the city and how things have gone since Katrina.

On Saturday it was time to leave and I had an 0600 flight.  Yes, that’s 6 AM.  I checked in via United Airline’s website the night before and upgraded to First Class all the way thru (New Orleans to Denver, Denver to L.A., L.A. to Honolulu).  6AM is early?  That’s what I thought when I woke up…at 0615.  Ooops. Missed the flight to Denver.

As I scrambled to get dressed and throw the last couple of things in my bag I called United Airlines customer service.  I was routed to their call center in India (o.k., maybe it’s in Pakistan).  The friendly but-not-terribly-helpful fellow who answered established that I was still at the hotel and suggested that I get on the 6:58AM flight to L.A. instead.  That’s 30 minutes from now.  And I’m still at the hotel.  I get the feeling this fellow hasn’t travelled in the U.S. much. Having established that on a dead sprint I’ll be lucky to even get near the gate before the plane takes off the fellow then proceeds to try and sign me up for a mileage credit card.  Gotta go.  Kthanksbye.

My very helpful cab driver makes great time and gets me to Louis Armstrong Airport…at 5 minutes after 7AM.  Not his fault at all, there simply was no way I was going to make the 0658 anyhow.  So I go to the United ticket counter to see what they can do and discover…

…that the 0658 was apparently CANCELLED and they sent all 200 of their passengers to the ticket counter to make other arrangements.  The four UAL counter folks were busily trying to help them, but it was a slow process.  And it was more than TWO HOURS later that I finally got to the counter myself.

During those two hours I called UAL’s 800 number three more times.  On one of those calls a helpful Indian (or Bangladeshi?) woman suggested she could rebook me on another flight that would get me home…on Monday.  No, thank you.

Having started to suspect that I was going to have to make other arrangements I called UAL again and asked them to please not cancel my L.A. to HNL flight.  I figured I could probably get myself to Los Angeles in time for the 5PM flight to Honolulu.  The not-very-helpful Indian (or was he from Kazakhstan?) service fellow said that not cancelling my reservation would be considered a change and that I should cancel and rebook.  Excuse me?  How is NOT cancelling an existing reservation a change?  It’s a DON’T CHANGE.  He just kept repeating that it would be considered a change because I missed the New Orleans to Denver leg of the trip.  In frustration I finally just hung up on him.

When I finally got to the counter I greeted Mr. Davis who was clearly a bit frazzled.  We were both having bad days – he having spent the last two hours dealing with irate refugees from the 0658 flight.  I mentioned my plight and asked him if I got to L.A. by 5PM would my reservation still be there?  He was skeptical I could get to L.A. on time but assured me that if I showed up for the flight my reservation would be good.  Not a change.

I thanked him, walked down the terminal to the American Airlines counter, plopped my Discover card on the counter and bought a one-way ticket to Los Angeles on a flight that was boarding in 15 minutes.  I got stuck in a middle seat, but at least I got to L.A. in plenty of time for my 5PM flight and, as it turns out, Mr. Davis was good to his word.  My seat (including my upgrade to first class) was still waiting for me.

Post-Mortem:  I was pretty irritated with United Airlines on Saturday.  It certainly was NOT their fault I missed the 0600 flight.  I’m the one who overslept and there’s nothing about that which was UAL’s fault.  Totally on me.  And their airport personnel in New Orleans were o.k.  They weren’t great, BUT…considering that they were dealing with a whole planeload of angry passengers I’ll cut them some slack.  Their telephone service however, was catastrophically bad.

1. Endless automated attendant.  When you call them you get stuck in a routine of “If you’d like to be hung up on without speaking to somebody, press 2” and the only way I was really able to break out of that was either repeatedly saying “Can I speak to somebody?” until the auto-attendant said “Would you like to speak to an agent?” or by going thru the Mileage Plus section which still took WAY too many keypresses to finally get a human.

2. Clearly off-shored support people who knew nothing except what was on their script.  Aside from suggesting I try to catch flights that were leaving long before I could even get to the airport or insisting that NOT cancelling an existing reservation was a change they made not a single helpful suggestion the entire time I was on the phone with them.  They were passably friendly but not much else.  The guy standing behind me in line at the airport was just as helpful but even friendlier.  I would have gotten just as far if I had saved the battery on my mobile phone and talked with him the whole time instead.

United’s ground people in Los Angeles were sort of brusque and their in-air people were fine.  Next time I go to book a trip though, you can get that United will NOT be high on my list of choices.

Swine Flu

Will everybody please relax about H1N1 (“Swine Flu”).  It’s not the plague.  The global death toll from it numbers in the hundreds.  More people have died in plane crashes this year than due to Swine Flu.  In Mexico approximately 5% of the people who have contracted it have died.  The other 95% will be just fine…as long as they don’t drink the water.

SIX people have died from it in the United States.  Six.  Almost twice that many people drown in the United States EVERY DAY.  Lesson: If you’re going to keep your kids home from school so they won’t catch Swine Flu…send them to swimming lessons.

H1N1 is just a flu folks.  Common sense health advice prevails – wash your hands, eat a balanced diet, stay hydrated, get enough rest/sleep, don’t smoke, exercise, if you drink alcohol do so in moderation, avoid people who sneeze on/near you.  If you get sick, see your doctor and do what they tell you to do.

Kona

Yes, I’m going to Kona next week(!) to do the Hawaii Ironman 70.3 triathlon.  I’m nervous about it, but lately have gotten in some good quality training so I’m optimistic I’ll survive. 

The Word Book

The Outlook book continues to sell well and I have just gotten the Word book back from the editor.  I have to make a review pass through it with some corrections and then it heads off to the next stage.  With any luck it will be in print by the end of July!

That said I’d better get back to the review!

-B-

Easter weekend has rolled in so I thought I’d better post another update.

Friday night found us braving some light rain to join Loyc, Elise, Beth, Regan & Miriam at Duke’s for dinner.  Nice view, crummy weather, yummy food.

We were in bed pretty early Friday night because we had to get up early the next morning for a race.  No big surprise, that happens to me about once a month, but this one was different…it was CARRIE racing this time, not me.  Most of her race took place out on the ocean, out of easy sight of land, so while she raced I took off and did a fast ~6 mile run, getting back in time to pull out the camera (and the 300mm lens) and snap a few pictures while I cheered for her.

(That’s her in the #5 position, directly in front of the steersman who sits at the back)

After the race Carrie was all-smiles…and why not, she had fun and her club (Waikiki Beach Boys) won the Women’s race!

Last night we decorated Easter eggs (maybe pictures of that coming soon) and this morning we’re off to join friends in town for an Easter brunch.

Hope you’re all enjoying your weekend!

-B-