JH's Ko Olina Tri report

Arrived yesterday to rain, in usually sunny Hawaii, fairly cool to what it usually is.

My gear levers fell to pieces on Saturday, so after getting them replaced and not trying them, my only chance to test my bike before Sunday’s early race start was in the hotel corridor … after 6 laps of level m on the carpet, my bike was ready to go haha .. wow, my bikes gears have never felt so good!

The race was a warm up for the worlds and number 3 in my 5 in a row race schedule
The distance was 600m swim but with a difference. It was designed by a runner and was through 4 beautiful lagoons but with about 300m of runs in between each lagoon …problem was the big hills u had to climb out of after the lagoons. ouch that hurt!......bike was fairly flat 30k and run flat 7.8k around the lagoons…scenery magic!!!

I walked to the race start with a 73 year old guy who told me on the way he was one of the original 3 guys that started the Hawaii ironman. lovely guy and made a speech about it at the end of the race …still races too

A fair few kiwis there and a few aussies plus the locals, all warming up for next week

we all went off in waves which started with a 100m dash to the first downhill into the lagoon…phew 4 ahead of me in first 1 min… 2 by the time we finished the first lagoon and bloody hell it was 2 kiwi chicks!!! .... first one was a bit ahead but 2nd one was perfect to sit on … we cleaned out of the way of everyone else with the hills, climbing out bringing me into e4 without a doubt to hang onto the chicks who tended to get away by 5 meteres at the end of each lagoon …

onto the bike and loving it…. overtook lots of people from earlier waves, road surface great and loving it,a lthough could of done with being pushed …. spotted mark preston from brats who started 3 mins behind me, used that as a carrot and imagined he was riding me down…….about 2k from the end thought I had it in the bag and stretched a bit ready for the run, bloody kiwi guy behind had caught me up coming from nowhere … hooley dooley I had a race on my hands!!!! ....

onto the run (I found my bike v easy this week lol) I was like a rabbit out of there … 2 laps of very light feet I won by 5 mins hehe ... a pair of 250 us $ later (1st prize) .. hmm no trophy just a medal L…. 15th overall incl the 20-30 elites

free food and drink after, and the sun didn,t stop shining .. great day great race !!! ..loved it.

mark preston was about 2.5 mins behind and did v well too winning his age by 10 mins and 20 something overall great effort !... overall aussie guy and girl won the elites with yours truly 2nd aussie home.

Tomorrow will train on the worlds course where the transition is just outside the hotel…should be fun as lots of aussies here to train with, this afternoon I was supposed to be sunbathing, resting but couldn,t help myself racing 5 canadian chicks in the sea…lol..

am I addicted???? (laughing at yourself can be relaxing sometimes!!)

Hope your all well .. more adventures coming soon

jh