The Bike Course

My eyes opened at 4:57, I shut my alarm that was supposed to go off in 3 minutes off and shut my eyes. "Am I going to get up, I'm so tired, I really need to go..." Then the words of my friend's Doctor rang through my head a few times "Sometimes it is good for you to make your body do things it doesn't want to." I rested a few more minutes and around 5:10 I crawled out of bed to put my bike gear on. "It is still so dark out there." I ate a muffin, packed everything up and headed for the car. I decided I didn't have time to park on the far side of the bay where the race actually starts and parked at the bottom of Kamehameha III road. Right as I parked daylight started to break and I could see the two Puu's at the top of Hualalai mountain. I tried to reset my bike computer and it jammed again, so I have no data other than my stop watch and maping the course. The first 2 miles is a 650 elevation climb. From the top I wanted to ride it out through town on Queen K just to see what it was like for the day of the race. Of course the steepest part is the most narrow, but it wasn't too awful bad. It wasn't as fast down as I thought it would be and still quite a bit of effort to get past Henry. I also got stopped at 2/3 lights and had to walk and hit the crosswalk to get across the highway. The right on Alii wasn't bad, but my legs were certainly fatiqued. I joked a few weeks ago that it might be better to ride up the steep hill from the pit instead of running up it and I renig all comments of that sort after riding up it with tired legs. I nearly didn't make it on my bike! That .3 miles and 150 foot climb is super killer!!
I'm glad I got up - the ride was tough, but good to feel what the course is like and beautiful! As I turned back south Mauna Loa was lit up pink on the horizon! I can't get enough of the blue ocean, flowers, greenry and mountians here in Kona!
So - today I did 15 miles in 60 minutes. The race is 24.8 miles without the slow climb at the end. So... my goal is to finish the bike in under 1 hour 40 minutes.

My goal for the race is 3:20 - 35 minutes for the swim, 1:40 for the bike, 60 for the run and 5 for the transitions.