Every year a massive women’s outrigger canoe race is held that crosses the Kaiwi Channel from the island of Moloka’i to Waikiki on Oahu.  It’s called “Na Wahine O Ke Kai” (NAH wah-HEE-nay OH KAY KAI) which is Hawaiian for “The Women of the Sea”.  This year was the 30th year of the Na Wahine, which has become essentially the Super Bowl of women’s outrigger canoe paddling.  It attracts crews from all over the world for the challenging, and often dangerous, 42-mile open ocean crossing.

This year, once again, Carrie’s club Waikiki BeachBoys entered four crews in the big race.  They shipped their canoes over to Moloka’i a few days before and Carrie and her teammates had to fly over to Moloka’i on Saturday.  Carrie even commented on how odd it felt to have a one-way ticket to Moloka’i…knowing that she’d be paddling back home.  Saturday night we got the chance for a brief call – mobile phone service from Moloka’i is pretty sparse – and I could tell how excited she was.  Me?  I was nervous.  Sea conditions were predicted to be HUGE.  Biggest swells and roughest seas in a decade.  In fact, if it was much bigger it would reach the threshold at which they actually cancel the race for safety reasons.  I spent most of Saturday night just hoping that my girl came home safely to me.

To put it in perspective the Kaiwi channel is easily capable of generating swells that dwarf not only the canoes but the escort boats as well.

 

(Image from Hana Hou! Magazine – read the article here)

(These are from Carrie’s camera)

Sunday morning, bright and early, they were off.  The course record is 5 hours, 24 minutes and 32 seconds and the thing about big, rough, seas is that they can often be fast seas too.  A good crew can surf the swells and pick up speed.  So there were a couple of teams, including the BeachBoys, who had their eyes on the record.

I arrived at the finish line, at Hilton Hawaiian Village, just as the first crews had come in.  The finish area is quite a spectacle – very much like the finish areas of the Marathons and Triathlons I do. People, tents and boats up and down the beach.  Out on the pier are the race officials and the announcer on the PA welcoming each of the crews in.  She’d announce the club the boat belonged to and then read the names of each of the 10 ladies in that crew (6 paddle at a time, the other 4 are on the escort boat and rotate in as they go) and welcome each boat back to Oahu.

(I had one of the cameras on the wrong setting, sorry if some of the photos seem a little washed out)

 

On the beach a kapuna (Hawaiian elder) blew a conch shell and gestured to the sea and the sky, welcoming home and blessing each boat in turn.

After a long back-and-forth battle across the channel, Team Bradley (a hand-picked crew of elite women paddlers from Hawaii, New Zealand and elsewhere), had edged the BeachBoys #1 crew by barely a minute! The course record didn’t fall, but they got within a few minutes of it.  After finishing 3rd a couple of times in recent years the BeachBoys were pleased to take 2nd this year, though of course they’d have liked to have beaten Team Bradley for first.

As the other crews started to come in I kept my eyes to the water, hoping to see Carrie’s boat.  My nerves had subsided somewhat at this point.  The buzz in the crowd was that of the 87 crews that started the race, only 2 had not been able to make it.  Sea conditions were very big, but the ladies were handling it expertly.  Still, I wasn’t going to be completely relaxed until I saw that she was home safely.  Luckily I didn’t have too long to wait…

 

Her crew was racing another boat for the finish line (the orange buoy) and sure enough, they got there first!  A very happy (and exhausted) crew of BeachGirls coasted into the beach after their finishing sprint.

Time to take my girl home for a well-deserved victory meal and a good long nap!

-B-

Heading to bed now – tomorrow morning is the Windward 25K, part of the Honolulu Marathon Readiness Series.

I’ve got all my gear laid out, rather a surprising production for such a relatively short race.    I’m really not racing tomorrow – I’m running it at the marathon pace of my training group, which is actually a bit slower than my own marathon pace.  That’s good though – training them has forced me to get in a lot of long slow miles that I really need but rarely get on my own.

Truth be told I expect to finish, then go back out on the course for some of the stragglers in my group and run them in as well.  That’s actually part of the plan because 25K is only 15.5 miles and I’d sort of like to get at least 18 in tomorrow as a workout in advance of New York Marathon.  I have one of the beginner groups again this year and most of them have never run 15.5 miles before.

But we’ll see what happens.  It may turn out that my group is all very strong tomorrow and there’s no need for me to go back onto the course.  If that’s the case, we’ll just adjourn to the post-race feast and be happy with it.

Good night all!

-B-

My girl is having a big week.  She’s working long hours on her Ph.D and taking breaks periodically for paddling practice. 

And for good reason…this Sunday she will be racing in the Na Wahine O Ke Kai which is the closest thing to a World Championship of ocean canoe paddling that there is.  On Sunday nearly 70 crews from all over the world – the best women paddlers alive – will race from Hale O Lono Harbor on Moloka’i to Hilton Hawaiian Village in Waikiki on Oahu. That’s a nearly 42 mile canoe race across open ocean and a fairly rough channel. Naturally hopes are high for her club (Waikiki BeachBoys) to have a very successful race.

I have a race on Saturday myself (an inconsequential 25K test effort) so we’re both carbo loading this week.  I decided she deserved a treat and since it’s Tuesday and I love her I settled on cooking us a healthy and, hopefully, romantic dinner.

I set our lanai dining table with candles and flowers.  The dinner consisted of a romaine salad with chopped carrots and chow mein noodles (the crunchy kind) with some Italian dressing; followed by my homemade pasta salad. (Pasta, shredded mozzarella cheese, sliced green olives, sliced bell peppers (red and orange), and capers tossed in a light zesty Italian dressing).

We were just starting on seconds when over moonlit Waikiki a fireworks show errupted! Not sure why but the Hilton Hawaiian Village fired off a beautiful fireworks show and we had a marvelous view from right there at our outdoor dining table. (usually they do that show on Fridays; not Tuesday)

After the fireworks died down we finished our dinner and then I went to the kitchen and got dessert.  For dessert I put some Thin Mint ice cream in a bowl and then topped that with a large soft chocolate-chocolate chip cookie. Mmmmmmmm.  Yummy!

We didn’t want it to end. We both really love getting to have quality time together like that, but eventually it was time to clear the plates, blow out the candles and get back to another hour or so of work.

It’ll be hard to top that (especially the fireworks) but I’ll have to see what I can come up with for tomorrow.

-B-

A couple of weeks ago Carrie and I were in Kona for her canoe races.  After a weekend of racing for her and training for me (and a massage) we took our snorkel gear down to Kealakekua Bay.  We rented a kayak and set off across the bay towards the Captain Cook monument.  It’s maybe a mile or so across the bay and not an especially difficult paddle.

Once we got to the north side of the bay we beached the kayak, got out the snorkel gear and got into the water.  The water there is very clear and there are a lot of different kinds of fish to see.  We were even surprised to spot an eel!

 

We got to spend a couple of hours just playing in the water before we finally had to climb back into the kayak and paddle back to the wharf.  Alas, our flight back home awaited us. 

 

 

So, we headed back to our hotel where they were storing our bags for us while we played.  They were gracious enough to allow us to use the shower in their hospitality suite so we could get cleaned up and change clothes before heading off to the airport. 

One small irritation for the flight home: Hawaiian Airlines charges not just the $25 oversize fee for a bike box, but an ADDITIONAL $10 just because it’s a bike.  Yeah, I’ll be checking their competitors the next time I have to take Keira to the neighbor islands.

Housewarming

On Saturday night we had a group of friends over, mostly folks from Carrie’s work, for a housewarming party.  Let me start off by saying that if you didn’t get invited or couldn’t make it, don’t feel badly.  One of the shortcomings of our house is that the parking situation is tight so we couldn’t have everybody over at the same time.  Accordingly there will be additional gatherings in the weeks to come and if you didn’t get to come to this one…you’ll likely get invited to one of the next ones.

We had some great food and great conversation.  We had the grill running for a while, Carrie made her delicious “Micky Dip” and I made a batch of my grandmother’s chili.  Our neighbors made an appearance and everybody enjoyed the spectacular view from the lanai at sunset.

Among the things we discovered at the event:

* Wendy broke her foot leaping from a burning building while fighting off a bear.  Well, that’s my version of the story and it’s slightly true.  Very slightly.

* Loyc needs a better travel agent.  And a work visa.

* Jen’s motorcycle causes a stir, even from a block away.

* Trish has never grilled Zucchini before, but she’s good at it.

* If you ever get filmed on COPS, don’t sign the waiver.

* Who knew that rolling pins would be more popular than TVs?

-B-

This weekend Carrie and I went to Kona because her club (Waikiki Beach Boys) was racing there in the Queen Lili’uokalani Canoe Race, which is the world’s largest long distance canoe race.

We flew over on Friday evening…ahhhh….Kona is so lovely.

 

The Hotel

We stayed at the Kona Seaside, an older property with a fantastic location right across from the bay and the pier.  The price was amazing though the place does have a few limitations.  A few comments:

* I have only two real complaints about this hotel and the primary one is the parking.  There are a VERY limited number of very small parking spaces on the property. If you don’t get one of the finite number of parking passes you’re relegated to finding a spot in the free public parking lot which is about a block away.  That’s not terrible, but the public lot, especially on a busy weekend, was packed.  And there is barely any street parking anywhere nearby.  I spent quite a lot of time driving around trying to find parking within an easy walk of our hotel this weekend and that was pretty frustrating.

* The other complaint is relatively minor – the old building (which we were in) is 3 stories tall and there is no elevator. That’s not normally a big deal, but we had a 50-lb. bike case to haul up the stairs and that was sort of a pain.  The newer building does have elevators but rooms in that building are certainly more expensive.

* The property is well kept up.  It’s an old hotel, probably dates back to the 60s, and sort of looks it.  But the paint is fresh, the landscaping is very well cared for and our room was very clean.  Small, but clean and functional.  The TV was oldish but worked.  The shower was quirky and had trouble maintaining temperature, but more or less worked.  The age of the property is apparent, but so is the effort that they clearly put into keeping it up.

* The staff were great.  Very friendly and accommodating.

All in all I’d say the Kona Seaside, based on location, cleanliness, staff and very reasonable rates, is a good value for the money; but you might want to consider not renting a car if you’re going to stay there – since it might be hard to park it.

Kona Town

The sharp-eyed among you might recognize these shots – it’s Kailua Bay the site where the Ford Ironman 140.6 World Championships begin and Ali’i Drive where the race ends.  The next morning the bay was alive with activity as over 100 canoe crews prepared to start their races.  Nearly 80 of those crews, including Carrie’s, were competing in the Women’s Iron Open race – an 18 mile race with NO changes. I.e. same 6 women paddle the whole way.  It’s about a 3-hour endurance challenge.

 

Pretty soon the boats are being launched and making their way to the start line to get the race underway.  Crews are here from all over the world to compete and BeachBoys has no fewer than SEVEN women’s crews entered in the race.

While Carrie was paddling with her crew the 18 miles down the coast to the finish, I decided I would bike to the finish on Keira.  It’s supposed to be about 22 miles by land and since I can manage 20MPH+ on the bike, while her canoe will be racing at closer to 7MPH I figured I should get there fairly comfortably ahead of her to see her finish.  I was sort of right.

Two things I hadn’t counted on:

1. There’s more than 1500 feet of elevation gain between Kona and Honaunau.  That’s a LOT of climbing in a very short distance.  That’s more than the climb towards Hawi on the Ironman 70.3 course I think.

2. I did most of it on an underinflated rear tire.  Keira had a flat rear tire before we left Oahu.  I inflated it, hoping it would hold air, but expected that I might have to change it out.  Before I started the ride I tried to top it off with a hand pump, but unfortunately it quickly became clear that it wasn’t holding enough air.  Since I only had one spare tube I tried to wait as long as I could but finally I couldn’t take it anymore.  I pulled over to the side, changed tubes and used my last CO2 canister to inflate it.  But by then the damage was done – I’d already done 2/3 of the climbing on that soft tire and killed my legs.  Along the way I occasionally got a glimpse of the canoe race happening in the ocean to my right.

So, new tire in place, I continued on.  Finally, around Captain Cook, I crested the top of the rolling hills, got to the 160 intersection and turned downhill for a nice fast descent.  After that long climb felt good to turn 35MPH down the hill.  And I did arrive in time to see Carrie finish – just barely.

So how did the BeachGirls do?  Pretty darned good.  Out of nearly 80 crews the BeachBoys ladies took 2nd, 3rd, 7th, 12th, 16th, 27th and 44th.  That’s seriously impressive for one club to take four of the top 12 spots, and 6 of the top 27.

Torch Parade

One of the traditions of the Queen Lili’uokalani Race is that Saturday night the paddlers and crews asssemble for a torch parade down Ali’i Drive.  It’s an amazing spectacle, must’ve been 200 people walking down the street carrying torches.  It’s also amazing how hot it gets when 200 people all light up torches – if we look a little “shiny” it’s probably because of the sheer heat of being around all that fire.

 

Thankfully we didn’t burn down Kona.

LuLu’s

The other big tradition is the after-party at LuLu’s.  That party includes a lot of drinking, music, a few bacon-cheeseburgers and a surprising amount of pole dancing.  Fellas, if you like gorgeous athletic women then LuLu’s is the place to be the night of the Lili’uokalani.  Funny…I don’t seem to have any pictures of it…but I suspect that what happens at LuLu’s will eventually show up on Facebook.

The Double-Hull

After a well-deserved night’s sleep back at the hotel, the next morning there were a series of other races including, most notably for us, the Women’s Double-Hull race.  In the double-hull they take two Canoes and lash them together to form a double.  Rather than the usual 6-person crew, they have 6 in each hull for a total of 12.  Carrie’s team put two boats in the race (well, one crew filled out with a couple of guest paddlers from other clubs) and there were probably 25 total boats in the race.

In the pictures below you can see Carrie sitting in seat #3 of the left-side hull.

It’s an 8 mile race, out and back.  The first boat came in with a HUGE lead and there was a buzz on the pier when the announcer called out “Waikiki BeachBoys #1 crew”!  The next two boats were battling it out in a sprint to the finish and as they came alongside the pier it was clear that one of the boats was Carrie’s!  Sure enough, with a powerful sprint at the end they pulled away and crossed the finish line for 2nd place. “2nd place, Waikiki BeachBoys 2nd Crew!” the announcer called out. 

How about that!?  BeachBoys go 1-2 in the Women’s Double-Hull race! And Carrie got a new silver medal to put in our trophy case.  I’m so proud of her!

A Special Treat at the Sheraton

As you might expect after more than 26 miles of hard paddling, my girl was a little sore.  So I treated us both to a reward she more than earned…a couple’s massage at the Sheraton Keahou Resort and Spa.  It was just what the doctor ordered – relaxing for me and therapeutic for her.

Good thing we don’t live in Kona, I’d probably spend half my paycheck every month getting us weekly massages at that spa.

Awards Luau

After the massage we drove back to Kona and made an appearance at the awards luau for the Canoe race.  We had a little food and Carrie got to go up with her club and accept her silver medal for the double-hull race.  There were a LOT of BeachBoys wearing medals at this ceremony – definitely a good weekend for her club.

The Scene of the Crime

After the luau we took a very relaxed drive back up the coast to Hapuna Beach Park.  You may remember that Hapuna is the site of the swim course for the Hawaii Ironman 70.3 that I did last May and that I’ve already registered for next June 5th.  We figured as long as we were in Kona that it would be good to get in the water and do some swimming on the Ironman course.  The water was slightly choppier than it had been on race day but otherwise the conditions were nice and I swam a couple of laps back and forth along the shoreline – just trying to be comfortable in the water and feeling the currents.

The serenity of it all was only slightly broken by a crazy guy in a big silver pickup truck who was driving aggressively around the parking lot screaming nonsense and obscenities.  He seemed pretty angry about something and eventually drove away just as angry.  Hopefully he calmed down without hurting himself or anybody else.

Basil’s and Ice Cream

We weren’t sure what we were going to do about dinner Sunday night so we decided to just wander down Ali’i drive and see what we found.  We found two gems…

Boston Basil’s is a charming little restaurant right on Ali’i drive.  It promises Italian food though I think the menu was somewhat broader than that.  I ordered the Caesar Salad with chicken and a couple of appetizers to share.  Carrie ordered the Greek Salad.  We were STUNNED at the size of the salads – huge.  And delicious. So was the garlic bread. The fried mozzarella sticks were decent, the breading could have used a tad more salt.  Service was friendly and prompt, price was reasonable.  We liked that the waitress refilled her water and my iced tea and then just left us the pitchers.  We’ll definitely be back on our next visit to Kona.

Somehow after dinner, even though we were both full, we found ourselves craving a bit of ice cream. We strolled a little further down Ali’i drive and found an ice cream shop that was just getting ready to close up.  The very friendly operator was putting away his outside tables and starting to sweep up.  We asked if he was still open and he chuckled and said that he barely was.  So we went in and looked over the selection. He had a LOT to say, regaling us with short stories of his adventures in the islands, living on Maui, Oahu and Kauai before settling on Kona.  He recommended flavors and offered generous tasting spoons.  Carrie settled on the Blueberry Swirl and I had Chocolate Decadence.  Since we were his last customers of the night he gave us extra-large portions and a friendly wave goodnight as we wandered off. (Yes, he got a good tip)  Nice fellow and delicious ice cream – I think next time I might have the Blueberry Swirl myself.

Eventually we strolled back to the hotel to call it a night.  The next day we saw “Finding Nemo: 3D.”  More on that in my next post…

-B-

I mentioned in an earlier post that I’m planning to do the Ironman 140.6 Western Australia in December 2010.  This week I registered to return to the Ironman 70.3 Hawaii in June.

Yes, this is the same race I did this year.  I’m going back in June, planning to have a MUCH better bike segment and take at least 30 minutes off my total finishing time.

-B-

Good thing this fellow is happy with his health care:

Man's Finger Bitten Off in Scuffle at Health Care Rally

What’s interesting about this story is that some media outlets are playing up as “Crazy Liberal Obama-Fan Bites Finger Off of Peace-Loving Citizen”.  While that may not be entirely untrue if you read the WHOLE story you discover that the Peace-Loving Citizen punched the hungry protester in the nose first and that he lost the tip of his pinky finger in the ensuing scuffle.  Sounds like both sides need to open a tall can of “Get a Grip”.  Oh, sorry Mr. Rice.

Speaking of Fingers

Here’s a clever use of fingers in the UK.  Put-Pockets.  A publicity scheme by a mobile phone company – they’ve hired former pick-pockets to walk around putting money IN the pockets of unsuspecting pedestrians.

Training

If you just can’t get enough of my ramblings about athletics, racing and training you can follow me on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/hitriguy.

-B-

From The Department of City Plan-

ning

Near Kapi’olani Community College is a park bathroom.  It’s large, clean and modern – just built a year or so ago.  I can’t vouch for the women’s room but the men’s room is divided into three very large rooms. The first room is the “foyer” of sorts and includes the sink and 1 urinal.  It is large enough to accomodate at least 2 dozen fellows standing.  As they would inevitably be because there are two dozen of them and just one urinal. 

Off that entry room, which is probably at least 15x30, are two other rooms.  One is a very large toilet stall.  Probably even larger than in needs to be to accommodate handicapped access.  It’s probably at least as large as the bathroom in my home, in fact. 

The second room is a large…well…changing room, I suppose.  It almost looks like it was intended to be showers, but nobody ever bothered to put in any fixtures.  There’s no toilet, no shower, just a bench and a couple of wall hooks for clothes and…that’s it.  This room is even larger than the toilet stall and serves no discernable purpose.

So, there you have it.  A fancy, expensive, public restroom.  It’s as large as a small apartment and contains ONE toilet, ONE urinal and one sink.  Has to be a contender for the least efficient use of floor space, ever.  I’ve been in restaurant bathrooms that were considerably smaller and yet managed to get in 3 urinals and at least two toilet stalls.

Across the street from our home is a water tank maintained by the Department of Water.  On the fence is a sign that reads: “Warning – Premises May Be Monitored By Video Surveillance.”  To me that’s like putting a sign on your house that reads “Caution – We Might Have a Guard Dog”.  Which usually means, we don’t have a guard dog, but we could.

Training

Took yesterday off from training after three consecutive hard days.  Tonight we’re back at it, though my ankle isn’t too happy about it.   I don’t want to go TOO hard tonight because I’m hoping to get in a long run on Thursday night and be ready to go for long bike rides on Saturday and Sunday.

On the positive side I was finally able to get my hands on some “Gatorade Endurance Formula” which is the sport drink being served at New York Marathon.  It’s NOT the same as the regular Gatorade you buy at 7-Eleven so if you’re training for NYC Marathon too you should be aware of that.  I should be able to get in 6 good weeks of training with the Endurance Formula so I’ll know what to expect from it on race day.

-B-